Ladybug (34 months), Owl (19 months), and I (a little older ;)) have been playing with the Mother Goose Time Preschool Curriculum and Little Goose supplement. This is our second week and we are having a blast. We use the Mother Goose Time theme song and the other music provided as a transition into thematic play; this week has been focused on trees and air. We counted, painted, practiced letter recognition, and most of all played indoors and out. Below are some of the activities we enjoyed the most. Several activities were completed exactly as described, others were tweaked to fit our needs or wants.
Day 4 – Counting in Trees
As a fun counting activity, I placed five cups outside on our garden wall, each labeled with a number 1-5. I then had Ladybug fill each cup with that number of something that she was able to find growing on trees in our backyard. I demonstrated what I wanted her to do using leaves and then she was off. She used five pine cones, four apples, three pieces of bark, two sticks, and one magnolia leaf. I was most impressed by her collecting bark. I thought for sure she would come back with some flowers, but as she pointed out to me, “those are growing on bushes Mama, not trees.”
Owl had a wonderful time helping his big sister collect and sort apples and pine cones. He loved filling and then dumping the cups. He even started to count out loud; conceptually, he still doesn’t grasp much meaning beyond two, but it’s still fun to hear him practice.
Ladybug loved completing her “My Nature Collection” journal. She found leaves, bark, grass, dirt, etc. and placed them in her collection. She drew limbs for the tree leaf to hold onto and practiced tracing the letters used to create those words. She was especially excited to be allowed to use tape to put the items in the journal 🙂
The “Adding Tree” activity was the first time Ladybug has shown me that she was able to conceptualize what is meant by the number “12.” This was also her first time encountering the plus sign and recognizing that she could figure out how to add. She did very well! It didn’t hurt that she loves acorns and rolling dice 🙂
One of Ladybug’s favorite books is “Swimmy,” by Leo Lionni. We recently read this title and completed a simple, but fun shape activity with this book for Poppins Book Nook. Leo Lionni also wrote the suggested title, “The Alphabet Tree.” Ladybug loved this book and I was glad to be introduced to another book by one of her favorite authors.
Day 5 –
Ladybug had a fabulous time creating bark rubbings of several of the trees in our backyard.
The whole family got involved finding letters on our alphabet trees. Even Grandma was enlisted as a player 🙂 Owl enjoyed putting oranges on and off the tree as suggested by “Little Goose.”
Ladybug and I had fun creating letter stick puzzles. She is working on the letter E right now in our letter curriculum and so was creating lots of Es out of sticks. My personal favorite was her use of an apple to dot her “i.”
Day 6 –
Ladybug really enjoyed throwing feathers off our garden wall and playing with different ways to get them to fall faster and slower. She threw several up in the air and tried throwing several at the same time. Owl wasn’t 100% sure what we were doing, but was more than happy to keep handing Ladybug feathers and occasionally apples to drop!
Ladybug and I also completed a hot air balloon craft. As always, she was more than happy to be able to use the glue stick. She did a fantastic job threading the string through the connecting holes. I guess those threading toys from Timberdoodle are paying off!
I told her that we were going to take the hot air balloon on the slide. She took me literally; sometimes I forget how fully toddler’s operate within the confines of concrete language. She took the hot air balloon on a ride down the slide. She had fun, by all accounts so did the hot air balloon.
We then tried dropping the hot air balloon from the top of the slide; my original intention. Owl also took a turn. Ladybug then filled the balloon basket with a variety of items from the backyard including a little green apple and repeated the exercise.
Day 7 –
The kids’ favorite activity of the week was far and away, the creation of a flying disc. Both love to paint!
I love that cleaning up is also fun for them when completed outside!
My sweet little fledglings played with their Frisbees for as long as I would let them. They happily showed off their creations to Grandma and Daddy! This simple craft as a major win and a great way for them to learn more about wind!
While watching birds through our binoculars, we got a huge bonus. Ladybug spotted a mourning dove enjoying nibbling on the pine cone feeder she made last week. We had one happy and excited toddler on our hands!
Mother Goose Time has been a huge hit for me and for my kids. I’m excited to continue with this curriculum and will continue to share excerpts from our activities and experience. As I look through this post, I’m amused to see the re-appearance of the same play outfits everyday. I didn’t even realize how often those same outfits were being worn! They have more clothes, I promise….lol We are taking a mini-break to explore the beach. We may complete a few Mother Goose Time activities there; next week’s theme is water, but mostly we are planning to enjoy some much needed family time and rest!
Do you Mother Goose?
I’m looking to connect with other Mother Goose Time parents and I’d love to hear from you!
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