Best of R Preschool Academy (Episode 2)

Best of R Preschool Academy (Episode 2: February 2016)

Featuring Mother Goose Time (sponsor) – Food and Fitness

Ever wonder if your kids remember all the awesome home school activities you pulled together for them? Our family has started a fun tradition where we look through all the photographs we have taken of our home schooling journey over the past month and compile a list of favorites. This has been a fantastic tool for reviewing and reinforcing concepts that we touched on during our study time. Here are our favorite/best moments from February 2016!

Best Activity

This month’s Mother Goose Time boxed curriculum featured Food and Fitness. The manipulatives were these fun, miniature vegetables and fruits. The kids were thrilled with them. To introduce them I buried them in some potting soil and let them “discover” them by digging for them.

finding vegetables in the dirt — Yes, he had to break out the tools even for this!

I told the kids that I had planted four of each kind of vegetable and it was up to them to find them all. Once they could show me they had found all of them, they were allowed to wash them off. This was our first time playing in the water outside in FOREVER and they were thrilled!

rinsing off the vegetable sorters — I love that something so simple as playing in the water brings them such joy 🙂

Best Craft

There were a bunch of really fun crafts this month. The overall favorite was the “I’m a Good Sport” medal, because **GLITTER**!!! Predictability, we got it everywhere and I’m shiny every time I leave the play room. Both kids did a great job of threading the ribbon through the medal. I was super impressed with those fine motor coordination skills!

Best Game

Vegetable Relay was a simple game with next to no set up and was a huge hit with both kids. Owl was really excited about this one and worked so hard to make sure his vegetables stayed on the spoon all the way to the bowls on the other side of the room. Once there, they had to put the right vegetable in the right bowl.

Best Moment for Mom

One of the big conversations among the Mother Goose Time bloggers this month was about the use of process art versus product art that has a defined end point or expected outcome. Several of the bloggers wrote some great posts about this (Things to Share and Remember, Woosley Academy for Young Learners). I think both following instructions and developing creativity are incredibly important and thus, use both types of crafting and artwork in my home school. My daughter took this “Parts of a Cow” craft and gave an excellent example of how sometimes process art and product art unite. One goal of this craft was to explain that like humans, cows have one heart, but unlike us, they have four stomachs.

I showed both kids the picture above and led them through with instructions on how to create the project. Then I turned them loose stepping in only to minimize the amount of glue coming out at one time and to keep the crayon on the paper and off the table.

two year olds cow craft — This is Owl’s creation. He is two years old.

3 year olds cow with stomachs and heart inside — This is Ladybug’s creation. She is three years old.

I asked my daughter, “Ladybug, where are the stomachs and the heart?” I then showed her the picture of the completed craft on the Mother Goose Time Sheet. She laughed and said, “That’s just silly. Hearts and stomachs don’t go on the outside, they go on the inside.” True little Ladybug, so very true. She had glued her stomachs and heart inside the folded paper plate making up the cows body. Love it! Love it! Love it! Hence, Mom’s Favorite Moment!

inside of cow with stomachs and hearts — Here is the picture of “inside” her cow where she glued the heart and stomachs. Take that product art! LOL

Best Sensory Experience

While reading, “How Did That Get In My Lunchbox? The Story of Food,” by Christine Butterworth we took our print out of the letter “J” and dripped orange juice in the shape of the letter. The kids really enjoyed making letters this way. We went on to using the orange juice to trace the letter “O.”

Best Drama Activity or Imaginary Play

The book included with this month’s boxed curriculum was “How Are You Peeling?” Foods With Moods,” by Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann. The story pieces that came along with this were hilarious and Ladybug in particular really enjoyed creating faces on the food items and making up her own stories. I love how Mother Goose Time encourages her natural creativity and story telling abilities.

Best Holiday Activity

The Celebration Kit this month was for Valentine’s Day. We actually had some real “February” weather that day as opposed to the over sixty temperatures we had for most of the month. So, we turned on the fireplace and snuggled up with our story about the prince and his princess friend and what makes a truly caring, thoughtful gift.

Best Individual Achievement Milestone

Owl learned a ton about food groups. He has that milk comes from a cow or a goat or almonds down….lol He is doing great with understanding proteins versus fruits and vegetables. I’m thrilled to get him started thinking about what he puts in his cute little body!

Healthy Plate — Yup! Just like in real life he is gravitating towards the bacon. Yummy! LOL

Best Family Moment

Our family really enjoys doing movement based activities together. We do family yoga every night and do a lot of singing and dancing throughout the house, mostly to Broadway show tunes and Country music. It just depends on who is singing. The Valentine’s Day Celebration Kit came with a collection of fun movements that you could count. Here the kid are learning to do knee lifts. Daddy said, “Kiss your knees.” And they did. Literally! 🙂

Honorable Mention

The kids LOVE spending time in the kitchen with their grandma. This month for Fruit Day they got to cut up their very own pineapple. They had a blast and enjoyed the resulting snack.

Best Science Experiment

We grew bean sprouts in a little plastic bag containing a water soaked cotton ball taped to the window. My husband and I took bets on whether or not the sprouts would grow. I owe him a drink. I would never have believed that the bean sprout would grow on the window covered in frost. Oh the things we learn! Ladybug did a great job articulating and drawing her scientific observations.

I know last month, I said we would do only 7 categories, but that’s one of the great things about being the teacher and the author of the blog…..sometimes you need to be flexible and change the rules! Next month, we’ll aim for seven again!

What were the award winners in your house this month?

Our favorite activities this month were courtesy of Mother Goose Time – one of our favorite home school preschool curriculum. This episode features the Mother Goose Time Food and Fitness Theme.

See other Best of R Preschool Episodes

Best of R Preschool Academy (Episode 2)