Writing with MGT

Writing is hard.

But, us adults seem to forget that. Things we do out of habit, that we have been doing automatically for years, takes a long time to for little people to learn.

Patience is key. I struggle with it with my boys. I often find myself saying things out loud or in my mind like "why is it taking you so long... just do it like this... why aren't you making it look like the one here". How in the world is this in any way helpful for a child? It's not!

I catch myself getting irritated, but have really been trying hard to not so my frustration. It's all unnecessary anyway. being frustrated with a child for not doing things at MY pace is not going to lead to a love of learning. I bite my tongue more often and try to put myself in their shoes. Instead of being negative and impatient, I have been trying to encourage and lift up while the boys are doing something that's hard for them.

These writing cards were in one of the daily packets from our Mother Goose Time. MGT makes learning to write fun for the kids by providing new and interesting ways to grab their attention. I love how MGT doesn't have a standard plain worksheet to shove in the kids face everyday.

Mr Z did a great job tracing.

Mr A did the opposite side and traced the letters in each fruit with the corresponding color in the key at the bottom. As he finished a letter he connected the letters he traced with a line.

I'll admit and say that I didn't know what he was doing and told him that's not what he's supposed to do. But, he came back with... But, that's just how I want to do it. 

So, I backed off and let him continue. And I realized that Mr A making his own decisions on how to execute an activity, helps him connect to the lesson. Mr A was working on his handwriting by tracing the letters, hand-eye coordination by making the connecting lines and recognition of the letter & its phonics by saying the letter/sound while writing. He came up with his own way to remember the main concepts of this activity all on his own.

So, while the boys are learning to write their letters or trace, I am learning how to let them... at their own pace. It's hard for me at times... but we are all having fun while we do it.

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

This week with Mother Goose Time, we are exploring the skins and shells of foods that grow on trees. I didn't prepare properly to get the actual foods from the store to investigate them. But, the boys found their own fun ways to play.
In the daily packet for bananas, yellow starch noodles and banana cut-outs were included.
Mr A lined up the noodles along the banana to see how many would fit. The banana was 10 noodles long.

Meanwhile, Mr Z made banana beds for the kid figurines. He said they were tired.

Mr A helped by making a ramp for the kids and animals. They played for close to an hour with the noodles and figurines.

We made letters with the banana cut-outs... Mr A made this A, of course.

Then, we explored the starch noodles with water. Mr Z stuck them to his banana and Mr A made a sculpture. Mr A told me the you can make bread and ice cream with real bananas and that Grandma makes good bread.

Many of them ended up in the cup of water.

Mr Z's dinosaur liked to eat them too.

Fall Party Photo Diary

Mother Goose Time 

Pin the Patch on the Scarecrow

Sensory Stations throughout the yard: Kinetic Sand

Flour and corn kernels

Sensory bags filled with objects, water, gel, pumpkin seeds.

Crunchy paper with Halloween shapes bin

Pumpkin Spice Salt dough

 Banana Ghost and Pumpkin Tangerine snack

Crunchy paper parachute toss

Oats, noodles and crab apples to scoop and pour

Crunchy paper toss

Number Practice

These number cards were a part of our Mother Goose Time curriculum. We were learning about different fruits that grow on trees. There were 4 cards, each with a tree, the number and a grid. I had them randomly placed on the coffee table, but Mr A decided that they needed to be rearranged since they were not in consecutive order.
I helped roll small play-doh balls and the boys placed the correct number of 'fruit' on the tree. Then they needed to squish the fruit in the grid. Mr A also rolled a snake to make the number four on his card.

The boys had fun with these little cards.
We talked about what kinds of fruits grow on trees and the different colors of the fruits while we played.

Porcupines in an Orchard

Each week with Mother Goose Time is themed within the month. For example, this month is called In The Orchard. The four weeks are broken down into Life Cycle of a Tree, Fruit Trees, Animals in the Orchard and Skins & Shells. It really helps to have the unit broken down. We can really dive into the topic in an easy to understand way for the boys.
Week 3 we were learning about why different animals would visit or live in an orchard.
Porcupines were talked about on one of the days. I personally didn't know that they could live in orchards.
One of our friends works at a local zoo and collected a few porcupine quills for us. The boys loved them. Mr Z stuck them in his fingers and pretended his hand was the porcupine. These quills were a lot shorter than I expected, but there are several species.
But, we talked about why porcupines have quills and why they help the animal. We talked about what they do in the orchard and why they are mostly nocturnal.

For some free play time, the boys wanted kinetic sand. They used the Safari Ltd trees and fruits to make an orchard and had a game going with a few different animals... including a hedgehog, because we couldn't find the porcupine. Mr A liked to have the 'porcupine' dig around in the dirt for the fruits.

Crafts with Mother Goose Time are always fun, even though its like pulling teeth when the boys don't really want to participate. This one was a porcupine puppet. Mr Z just slapped a few things on his paper. Neither of them wanted to color any fur on it. Mr A made his double-sided since there were extra materials.

I never thought about how much learning goes into using liquid glue. As a parent, I usually tend to take over this aspect of crafting, mostly because it can get so messy so quickly. The boys are learning so much with one simple (to adults) thing. Gluing is such a process and I completely forgot it takes awhile to learn it.
Squeeze too hard and you get a puddle of glue. The cap isn't open enough for the glue to come out. The angle of the bottle makes the glue come out differently. Steady pressure vs quick pulses makes different amounts of glue. Hand and eye coordination for where to put the glue on the paper/object.
Gluing is hard. Its hard for kids to learn and its hard as a parent to watch. With something as simple as gluing, I am trying to take a step back.
While doing this craft Mr A asked, Can you help me? I don't do it as fast as you.
I was taken back and a little annoyed at myself. He is not learning anything by me stepping in all of the time besides that I can do it faster or better than him. I am not doing the boys any favors by always helping with crafts and essentially doing it for them. I tried to explain to them and it is a learning process and it takes time and practice. Mr A wasn't convinced. He is a great problem solver but just lazy... If I can get Mom to do it for me, I don't have to and it will get done faster.
So, I guess that's my mental note... take a step back. Let them make messes and problem solve on their own. 

True or False

More Math and Literacy workbooks from Mother Goose Time are a great way to fill spare time. As I've mentioned before sometimes I take them in the car, to the Dr office, the restaurant or just anywhere to keep him quiet and occupied.

Mr A likes to pick a page in random order... whatever appeals to him. The pages are numbered to correspond to the daily topic. But, I just let him do whatever page he wants.

This first page he did was called Rhyme Tree. He had to pick out what pictures rhymed then circle the ones that did. Mr A had trouble with a few, but we slowed down and repeated all of the names of pictures so that he could hear and process.

One of the questions on the T of F page asked "A blue bird has a cherry."

Mr A found one bird without any cherries and one bird that had 2 in its beak. Immediately, he answered That's false. The bird has 2 cherries, not one! That's not right, is it?

He was confused. But he's right. There is not a bird with just 'a' cherry, meaning one. But, he marked it as true after thinking about it... because the bird does have a cherry, even though it actually does have two.

That statement is a bit confusing for a child. I was impressed that he was so quick to realize it didn't sound quite right.

I like how Mr A crosses out his answer then circles it... and he only did it for the F answers.

I love the MGT workbooks =)

Apples Apples

Mother Goose Time thinks of everything. Everyday is so fun because there is such a wide variety of activities to correlate with the theme and topic for the day.
While we were still milling about the house, Mr A figured out the life cycle of an apple tree. He put them in order. Then we flipped them over and he had to try to find them in order and lay them where they belonged in the timeline.

We noticed though, that there was such a difference between the sapling/sprout and the tree itself. It seemed like there were years in between the two and there should have been one more card to bridge that gap.

The most fun thing for the day would have to be taste-testing different apples. The boys took turns handling the Apple-Peeler-Corer-Slicer. As they each finished an apple we tested it and placed a small piece with the skin still on onto a plate with a label. We had Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Gala, and Macintosh. Mr A said he loved every one, but Golden Delicious was his favorite because he likes things that are golden.

What different things can you make with apples?
Mr A's relpy Apple pie, applesauce, carved apples and apple robots.

We had to do something with all of the leftover skin strings.
So, they boys ate them too and also matched the skins to the samples on the plate.

They had to shove their face in the bowl too to grab the strings with their teeth.

Each month with Mother Goose Time, a story book is included with the curriculum. This one is called Johnny. Its the story of Johnny Appleseed and how he travels to share his love of apples with others. Mr A wanted me to read the story before we got started on our craft. Randomly while I was reading, Mr A shouts out, All of those trees have 5 apples on them. I was shocked and excited at the same time that he noticed that. I think, he blurted it out almost immediately after I had turned to that page. Number recognition in the middle of a story book... fantastic! I was impressed that he was visually able to discern every tree had 5 apples within such a short amount of time. So cool. Reading to kids really is more than just them listening to words. They are observing, hearing, watching, feeling, questioning... its so awesome.

Because I was impressed with his quick number recognition, we went back to the pages with apple trees and counted them one by one and by fives.

During crafts that correspond with the topic of the day, I love how Mr Z just does it. I mean, he just colors, glues, places stuff around etc. He knows where he wants something and does it. There's no second guessing or messing around. Mr Z just does it.

Mr Z made a crazy looking guy with googley eyes, but he did eventually glue the pot in the other hand, upside-down as if the apples were being dumped out of the pot. He pretended to be dumping apples out and made a klunking noise as he did so.

Mr A is more careful and calculated with his crafts. He likes to follow the instructions, but will tweak things when he feels its necessary. Mr A was also very worried about Mr Z's little guy. He could not continue his project for several minutes because Mr Z's little man bothered him. With some encouragement, he was able to move on and create his own fun little guy too.

Last year, the MGT craft instruction sheets had pictures of samples of the crafts made by kids of different ages. But now, it looks like they are made by adults. I feel like this has discouraged Mr A a little bit lately. He wants to follow the picture perfectly and he sometimes gets upset when his end product doesn't look like the instructions. When this happens, I usually have to talk about creative freedom again... luckily with this Johnny Puppet craft, Mr A did his own thing happily and added his own flare.

Mr A drew blue gloves that are supposedly super strong and thick so that he doesn't get hurt while picking apples from the tree that has big thorns on it. And because apple trees flower, he drew some flowers on the shirt.

I love that no matter what the craft is, the boys have a great imagination to make up their own details and back-stories. I'm sure I did it as a kid too, but it is so fun to observe and listen to what they come up with.
With a world that is so busy all of the time and caught up with being fast-paced and offended by everything or everyone, it is so fantastic to be able to slow down with my kids. Everything is amazing to them and I love immersing myself in what they find important. A kids innocence and ability to overlook so many worldly issues provides a great escape for me.
The boys are learning everyday through play, crafts and lessons.