Ocean Commotion: Whats Coming Up?

Ocean Commotion with Mother Goose Time starts in a few days and we are super excited. Ocean animals get my kids crazy. I think I'm really looking forward to it too because we live in San Diego... the beach, aquariums, sea world. We have so many field trips to take. (Although, I hate the beach. I know, I know... how can you be from SD, CA and hate the beach? The sand, the sun and no shade, the itchy sea water, the sand EVERYWHERE. It's a nightmare, but, I'll risk it this month for the sake of "education". lol.)

Our Add-On for this month:

Dance N Beats: We are trying this again. The dances are fun and addicting, for me anyway. The boys mostly just stare at me while I follow along to the dvd. The guidebook that comes along with it is great however. It has pictures of the dance moves, words to the songs with written motions, additional crafts and additional activities to coordinate with the song.

Manipulatives:

In the Ocean Commotion unit, we received a basket of real shells to use as our counters for various activities and also a heavy duty plastic set of shapes.

I decided to get our calendar laminated this month. Putting the day on the calendar is a favorite around here. We will be focusing on a ABCC pattern this month, as the calendar shows.

Focus items:

Letter flowers: X W O

Sight word flowers: am what I

Blue, Triangle

Respectful

The flowers I keep in a tissue box. They stand up nicely and are easy to grab when using them for an activity.

The Teacher Guide & CD:

These complete lesson plans already provided are my favorite. It takes all the stress off of trying to come up with activities and plan what to teach yourself. I highlight the main discussion questions and songs/fingerplays/factual information to trigger memory quicker. I try to read through everything the night before and pull all materials for crafts/activities for an easier flow in the morning.

The cd has 12 fun songs that go along with the lessons. Last month we played ours so much, the cd started skipping.

These are a few things that I haven't utilized too much that are included in the Teacher Packet, besides the Gathering List. It's a quick reference of what materials you need to pull for the days activities. The Planning Journal has extra space for notes and a broken down agenda of the activities. Daily Calendar is another quick reference guide. The big chart is a breakdown of all the Skills & Standards that are incorporated into the daily activities.

Inside the individual days' packet:

Here is a sample of what a pre-packaged day may look like. There is a focus picture with a question that I hang on the wall. Day 5 of Ocean Commotion is about the Coral Reef. It includes a sheet with different types of fan coral to look at and compare. A craft is included with essential materials and instructions. Kids will make their own fan coral by cutting out shapes from this plastic mesh and then using a child friendly needle to thread yarn through the holes. Also introduced on Day 5, is our book for the month: OCEAN ANIMALS A to Z. It has an ocean animal for every letter of the alphabet and a large print of the letter itself. The child is asked to trace the large letter on the page in various ways.

We can't wait to share our month with you.

(PS I know my photo quality is terrible. I will try to improve my skills this month with a picture taking device other than my phone)

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Being Sick Puts a Damper on Things

Our activities are still out that we were supposed to do on Monday. It's now Thursday. I've been sick and it hasn't been fun. Im feeling a bit better today, but still not able to do much.

We tried to do one craft from Mother Goose Time; Astronaut Puppet. I couldn't sit up long enough to help and this is as far as we got. 

This has been a tough month for our educational activities and lessons. Between sickness, attitudes and tantrums things just haven't worked out like I wanted them too.
I'm determined next month will be better. Ocean Commotion should be a hit around here!

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Book Review & GiveAway with MGT!

Mother Goose Time.com  provides a book each month in our curriculum kit. They are of great quality, soft cover book published by Experience Early Learning Company. This little excerpt is in the back of most of the books.

These books are now available on Amazon.com too. But as a Blog Ambassador, I am participating in a Book Review Giveaway sponsored by MGT.

So, you have a chance to win a copy of these three books by entering in the Rafflecopter box below.

Mr A helped me decide which books to review. I laid out all 15 that we have and had him pick his favorites. I couldn't choose myself. He had 5 picked out, but I had him to reduce his list to 3.

Book #1
There's a Cow in My House (words by Brian Steckler pictures by Chris Lensch)
Mr A chose this book because the cow drinks from a cup

This book has a whimsical feel. The illustrations are light and friendly. The layout is fun. The pages alternate between words/ illustrations and illustrations only. The illustrations show the cow doing several human activities. We giggled at the cow doing silly things.

Mr A thought it was so amusing to have such a large animal acting like a person. It's fun to imagine things in ways that they aren't usually. While reading, I kept asking Mr A if a cow could really fit behind a chair or stack blocks and so on. NO! he would yell.

There's a Cow in My House also has a music page. It is a great addition to introducing little ones to sheet music. This book can be sung as a song! How fun. If I was better at playing our piano, I could probably figure the tune out.

Book #2
Timber! (story by Leslie Falconer and Chris Lensch pictures by Chris Lensch)
Mr A chose this book because the lumberjack gave back trees and was growing new ones

This book has a fun repetitive feel. A few phrases are all throughout the book each time the lumberjack cuts down a tree. It is about a lumberjack that cuts down trees but then realizes what he is doing is wrong and replaces the ones he has cut down.

Your little one will also be counting throughout the book. Timber! asks the kids to recount the trees each time one is cut down.

In the illustrations. you notice that the lumberjack is using the wood from the cut-down trees to build his own home while taking the homes of the animals at the same time. His house is progressing while the trees and homes of the animals are diminishing.

Timber! also has a unique song and music to go along with the story. Again, music makes the heart grow fonder. lol.

Also included in this book, is a Did You Know? page. It has extra facts about trees to push the learning a little further.

Book #3
Beatriz, Bananas and the Very Big Hat (adapted by Leslie Falconer pictures by Chris Lensch)
Mr A chose this book because the monkeys do what Beatriz does. This is Mr A's favorite book and he made sure that I include it.

We received this book in our unit My Amazing Body back in September 2014. It was the first one we received and maybe my favorite because of that.
Every time I read this book to the boys, I think of Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.
It is about a girl who makes straw hats to sell at the market. On the way she gets tired, falls asleep and wakes up to find that monkeys had stolen all of her hats. They copied whatever she did. She was hungry from waking up so early and angry at those monkeys. Then Beatriz ate a banana. She felt better and had the idea of making the copying monkeys into a game to get her hats back. She needed proper nutrition to think clearly and be happy.

In Beatriz, Bananas and the Very Big Hat, one of the pages has pictures of different animals in the forest. Next to them are the written words of the sounds that they make. We like imitating animal sounds here at our house.

These were additional books that Mr A really likes from Mother Goose Time. So please go check them out too on Amazon.
Chimidyue: a folktale of the Amazon Rainforest (retold by Leslie Falconer pictures by Chris Lensch) [chim-ID-yoo-a]
Mr A chose this book because she turns into a real butterfly to fly back home
Does a Bear Wear a Hat in the Winter (by Leslie Falconer and Kelly Nogoski illustrated by Kelly Nogoski)
Mr A chose this book because its funny

Now, if you go back and read why Mr A chose each book, his reasons are mostly about the storyline. I found that interesting. But, I did also notice that all of the books have the same illustrator and have a similar look.

Thank you for reading. Please be honest in your entries. Entrants must be 18 years or older. Mother Goose Time is responsible for fulfilling the giveaway. Residents of the USA and Canada only. Void where prohibited by law. After the giveaway is over, I will be asking the winner privately for information to get the book(s) sent to you so be sure to leave your email when it is asked for.
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What to do with those Extra Materials

With doing Mother Goose Time for several months, we have lots of extra materials or manipulatives. I've had them packed away with all of the other materials. But, i realized they don't do much good in a box. The manipulative and counting pieces are good quality. We've gotten plastic bears, plastic people, plastic shapes, foam stars, foam hearts, oval links, hanging monkeys, lacing buttons and a few other things. Each month, we also get design mats to go along with the manipulatives. I laminated them and put them into plastic bags also, for now. Maybe large pencil boxes will work better when i get to the Dollar Tree. The boxes are easier to open and close for little hands. But, they are in their own basket to use as "busy bags" whenever the boys want... granted they put them away when they're done.

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Little Passports: Animals

We got our 4th Little Passports package a few days ago. Getting mail is always an ordeal around here. Mr A gets so excited when something is for him.

This month the theme of the Little Explorers version is Animals. Mr Z likes to play with the Flashlight Adventures booklet. It's a cardboard flashlight with a white circle. When placed behind the black screen it highlights a picture.

Mr A helped put these foam finger puppets together.
We have another booklet with several different activities in it. I try to save that for later in the month. So I'll update a bit more later.
But initially getting our package in the mail is always fun and exciting what new things it brings.

Marble Galaxies

Today our craft from Mother Goose Time was to paint with a bouncy ball. Blast off to Space has had some awesome crafts.

First, I taped their paper to the trays so they wouldn't move and put a spot of each color paint around the paper. The boys weren't giving up the bouncy balls... so we used several marbles instead.

They tilted their trays in every direction to get the marbles through the paint and onto the paper. A few times I thought that the trays were going to be spilled, but they kept it under control pretty well.

Mr Z loved it too. He liked watching the marbles roll slowly from one side to the other as he gently moved his tray after he realized the cause and effect of the tilting.

Mr A liked making his marbles go crazy by jiggling the tray fast.

After the paint dried in the sun for a little while, we cut them up. Mr A wanted a Mickey Mouse shape planet and Mr Z just cut away at his papers.

Mr A also had to cut his paper with the moon stickers into strips.

He added lots of moons to his planet. Its Earth, but Mickey shaped. lol

And some of our crafts are hung happily on the front door =)

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Galaxy Glop Writing

Today one of our activities with Mother Goose Time was to write in some glop. Mr A made his bag himself. He scooped 4 spoonfuls of hair gel into the bag and added his favorite colors of liquid watercolor: blue and red. Gold and red glitter made his perfect. Then he squished it around and made some neat galaxies. We picked some letters to write in the gel, but that wasn't interesting enough. Mr A squashed his til it burst... and then it got thrown away before it made too much of a mess.

Mr A had more fun slapping it around, squishing the bag and looking through it. We looked through it for quite some time. I imagined myself looking through some crazy alien goggles.

Mr A is having a hard time with this subject. Outer space isn't relatable enough to him, I guess. He enjoyed week one: stars, sun, moon, clouds, astronomer and then Earth from week 2. But when we got into the other planets, he didn't care too much. So, we've just been doing the activities to stay busy, not necessarily for the educational aspect. When I've tried to do lessons or add in some facts about the planet of the day, he flips his switch off and loses interest. It's been a little odd. Hopefully next week, we'll perk up a bit... we get into astronauts, observatories, rockets. Things he may find easier to grasp.

The boys have been in their own world lately. I am still working on my Rally & Regroup mantra. It helps me personally and now I need to figure out how to help the boys and get our homeschooling back on track.

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