What's In The Box - the Sights & Sounds of Winter

 

December’s box is here!

Our Mother Goose Time curriculum for December is called the “Sights & Sounds of Winter”.

The first bag in our box was the Teacher Tool bag. Inside this bag is the theme web poster, teacher guides, gathering list, skills overview chart, manipulatives, and the monthly CD.

Each month in your teacher’s tool bag you’ll receive a Teacher Guide and a Planning Journal.

Here is a picture of the theme web for this month. It shows the different subjects that will be covered each week/day and how they relate to the main theme.

Each month, Mother Goose Time will also provides fun manipulatives for the month. These are the items included in this month’s packet. Love the little jingle bells! I’m sure they’re going to be a big hit. Mother Goose Time includes a monthly CD in with this pack as well. Each month you’ll receive a new CD with songs that go along with the month’s theme.

The next bag was the Circle Time bag.

These tools are really great. Inside this bag we received items like the Friendly bee hive piece, the November monthly calendar and day pieces, Global friends pictures to go along with our world map, letter flags, monthly theme poster, and lots more.

This month, we also received a Santa’s Workshop celebration kit. It comes with a teacher guide and a bunch of things to play games and make crafts with. These celebration kits are so much fun!

This month, I added the Dance ‘N Beats, Little Goose Guide, and Experience God addons to our curriculum.

Here’s a look at one day’s activities in the Little Goose teacher guide.

You’ll also be provided with a monthly family newsletter that you can give to parents of your kiddos. It shows some of the things that the kids will be learning as well as suggestions of books to read and family activities.

There are also 20 premade packets stuffed with pretty much everything you’ll need.

You’ll receive a new story time book each month. This month our book is “The Mississippi Musicians”.

You’ll get a new My Little Journal each month too. This month kids will be learning about the color white, star shape, numbers seven and eight, and letters V, X, and M.

You’ll also get a new I Can Read book. In it, they’ll practice the month’s sight words and they’re displayed on the back of the book as well.

Here are some of the games and crafts that we will be working on this month.

This month we also received this super cute Rhyme Time poster for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Here’s an example of one day’s supplies and activities. There are so much more great things included with this month’s curriculum! In addition to all these, children will:

·         Experience over 125 activities

·         Sing and move to 30 songs

·         Create 20 of their own projects in Art, Math, and Literacy

·         Build 33 skills over 7 domains

·         Learn 20 different topics related to On The Go

·         Build relationships with each other and the environment and investigate their curiosities

Come join us in all the fun! January’s theme will be “Going on Safari”.

Public Transportation

Week 4 of our Mother Goose Time’s “On the Go” theme was all about the common modes of public transportation.

Here’s some of the things we covered on Train day.

We talked about what we know about trains. Since Miss M has never seen a train in person yet, we watched some videos online so we could see and hear what they are like.

Circle Time activities!

Our first activity for the day was called Threading Train. It was lots of fun and it helped her practice her fine motor skills.

We talked about the different parts of a train while she was “threading” the noodles onto the pipe cleaner.

She really enjoyed putting the noodles onto the pipe cleaner and taking them back off, over and over again.

We also practiced counting to 6 using six of our train counters and our 6 counting card.

Here are a couple more activities we did from our Little Goose teacher guide.

Bonus Celebration Day - Thanksgiving

This month Mother Goose Time gave us an awesome little Thanksgiving celebration kit!

We had lots of fun with this.

These extra little kits are really great and have all sorts of things included with them. It came with a little teacher guide for the day and materials for games and crafts that can be used with a wide range of ages. There were other items that you can print out on the Mother Goose Time website for this bonus day under the Member Resources area and then you’d look in the “On The Go” section. There are invitations, a checklist, a sign-in sheet, station signs, and decorations that you can print out and use.

Here’s the teacher guide

The first thing we did was sit down and talked about what Thanksgiving is. We also sung a little circle time song and write on our feather for our Thankful Turkey.

Next, we played turkey bowling! This was lots of fun. I loved the little paper turkeys. I cut them out and taped them to some recycled water bottles. I set them up like bowling pins and then we took turns rolling a ball and trying to knock down the turkeys. Then we’d count how many turkeys fell over and then set them back up to play again.

We also played a game called Stuff the Turkey. I taped some paper drumsticks to the sides of a paper bag. Then we took turns tossing some little pompoms into the turkey bag and pretended to stuff the turkey. I tried to get Miss M to step back and do this but she wanted to sit right next to the bag.

We also made a little turkey snack. I took the glove we were given and put puffs in the fingers. Then I filled the main part of the glove with some popcorn - Cosmos Creations Caramel Apple Crisp actually. It’s super yummy (totally addicted to these now…) and I don’t have to worry about Miss M choking for the most part because there are no hulls or kernels. Bonus: this is also gluten-free, trans-fat free, and is made with non GMO corn. I also attached a little wiggle eye and some scrap paper to make it look like a turkey. Such a cute idea for a snack.

We had so much fun with this celebration kit! Thanks Mother Goose Time! :D

Transportation in the Air and Water

This week we learned about ways to travel in the air and the water with our Mother Goose Time.

Day 1: Airplane

At circle time, we talked about where we can go in an airplane. I set out a variety of paper shapes and we “flew” around the room pretending to be airplanes. Miss M thought this was super fun and pretty much just ran around squealing in delight instead of making airplane noises. We also sang “I’m an Airplane” to the tune of “London Bridge”.

Miss M’s grandma broke her foot today and we needed to go over and help her out so we didn’t get to do all of our activities as planned for the day. The one thing she really loved doing was making airplane designs. I’d give her a triangle to put on the mat and when she’d set it on the mat, we’d say “triangle”. I showed her how to take 2 triangles and make a square.

Day 2: Hot Air Balloon

Today we learned about hot air balloons. At circle time we talked about what makes a hot air balloon move. I got out our laundry basket and we pretended to take a hot air balloon ride while we sang “One Balloon, Two Balloons” to the tune of “One Potato, Two Potatoes”. We tried our best to count the balloons on our fingers as we sang too.

Miss M’s poor grandma not only broke her foot yesterday, but she tripped and fell last night and broke her arm too! We’re going to be having to go over and help her out the next couple of weeks but we’re still going to try to do as many school activities that we can.

We learned about the signs for up and down.

I’d have Miss M show me one finger and we practiced pointing up and jumping. Then we would point down and squat.

We also made a little paper hot air balloon.

I gave Miss M a little paper balloon to color and while she was doing this, I used the paper strips we were given and I weaved the basket for our hot air balloon.

 

This was our finished hot air balloon.

Day 3: Helicopter

During today’s circle time, we talked about helicopters. We also learned about our sight words “we”, “go”, “by”, and “in”. Then we sung “The Helicopter Blades” to the tune of “The Wheels on the Bus”. We weren’t able to do everything today due to appointments but we still had fun.

One of the activities we did today was making a little propeller hat!

We talked about how a helicopter moves through the air while we made it. We were given a little paper bowl, a chipboard propeller, brass fastener, and an elastic. I gave the bowl to Miss M to decorate and then we attached the propeller through the top with the brass fastener. We took turns wearing our hat and pretending to be helicopters flying around the room.

Day 4: Tugboat

During today’s circle time, we talked about different types of boats and what a tugboat is. We talked about the letter Tt and tried to say the tongue twister “Tommy Tugboat towed two turtles” faster and faster each time. Miss M thought this was hilarious but couldn’t really repeat it.

Our first activity for the day was playing with our transportation puzzle.

We talked about the different shapes we could see on the different transportation vehicles on the puzzle and then I encouraged Miss M to try to follow the puzzle guides and arrange the shapes to look like the vehicle pictured. When we were finished playing, I cut apart the guides and put the cards and pieces in the envelope we were supplied with to play again later.

We also practiced making patterns.

We talked about what sounds tugboats make and then we watched a little video online of a tugboat. Then we used our pattern cards to try to complete the ABC pattern on the guide. I tried getting Miss M to make a different sound for each object in the pattern (car, helicopter, tugboat) but she wanted to just call them by name. She did a really good job at repeating the ABC pattern.

Day 5: Canoe

For our last day of the week, we learned about canoes. At circle time we talked about where we can go in a canoe. We learned about the letters Ww and Tt and we sang “Row Your Boat”

Our first activity was playing with our storytelling set. I’d give Miss M a storytelling piece and then we’d try to retell a simplified version of our “A Ride for Duck” story we received with this month’s curriculum. I’d give Miss M a one-step direction for where to put the piece I handed her (“put the duck in the truck”, etc). We’re still working on following directions but she did pretty well for the most part.

 

We also played a Counting Canoe game. We were given a little canoe to make out of paper and some little people pieces. We talked about how many people we think can fit inside a canoe.

I put two people pieces in the canoe and I handed it to Miss M. I’d ask her “how many people are in the canoe?” and then we’d count together. We’d add another person to our canoe and then we’d count again.