Wasps

I have been sick the last few days with a head cold and fever. I finally feel better today, but still foggy. So, we haven't really been able to get to lessons together. Life happens.
The first day I wasn't feeling well, the boys' dad tried to take everyone on a walk so that I could have quiet time. Mr A came rushing back because he didn't want to leave me alone. In the case that I needed something, he wanted to be there to help.
While everyone was away Mr A decided to do a MGT craft by my bedside. He picked out the day for the Yellow Jacket and I remembered that I had saved a video of a wasp nest being excavated from the ground. Mr A watched it first before getting to the craft. He questioned why they lived in the ground. So we talked about how there are different types of wasps, some live in trees or in the ground. It just depends on where the wasps live as to where they build their home... just like people. Mr A also noticed that the person digging out the nest was wearing proper gear for the job. The wasps were getting really angry at him and Mr A was glad he had protection so he didn't get stung. The video he watched is below.
Wasp nest excavation video
After the video was over, Mr A found all of the materials he needed for the craft; a marker, tape, glue, scissors and the materials provided by MGT. He got to work and took the initiative to make all three of the Yellow Jacket Shakers; one for him, his brother and me.

I don't think he ever finished the shakers actually. I fell asleep and he gets distracted easily. But, I love that he took the initiative and attempted to work on MGT on his own.

The "Art" of Learning

Mother Goose Time provides amazing curriculum each month, that we've been using for a year and a half. I'm still learning how to teach my children. Its difficult. Everyday is different.

I'm always amazed at the different learning styles of my two boys. It is fun to watch the ways in which they go about things, but it also drives me insane. I understand, each kid is different and they are various ages, which affects how they do things too. I think it mostly makes me nuts, because I don't know how to get the 3 year old to focus on something. Some days are better than others.

With the Bees and Butterfly unit, we were given just white paper with a paper frame. The boys were to draw and design their own swallowtail butterflies.
Mr Z is 3 and scribbles with no rhyme or reason all over his paper. Or on occasion, in one small area and is done within 5 seconds.

Mr A is 5.5 and has gotten better at drawing objects to look like 'the real thing.' He also has a creative side and makes adjustments and additions to his pictures for a certain reason. Mr A can take up to 20 minutes to finish his drawing with the detail that he adds. His swallowtail butterfly "has lots of eye-spots so that it can scare away predators like cheetahs."

Learning is an "art", even for me. Probably mostly for me at this point. I am constantly learning how to teach my children... and its hard! We get on each other's nerves or we have a great time. The trick is finding that balance between getting lessons done and playing. Usually it works best to play and do the activity at the same time, incorporate the two. We aren't structured enough to have an official circle time and sit down and formally talk about things. We just talk about stuff that has to do with the topic while doing the craft, eating breakfast or playing outside. The hardest part of teaching is figuring out how the kids learn best. I'm still figuring it out. Its different every day for the kids. They way they want to learn depends on their mood, attention span and interests for the that particular day. So I have to adapt every day. Have an open mind every day.
Listen to your kids and have fun with them. Learning is better when its not forced. That's what I have to re-learn every single day.

HoneyBees: Honey vs Maple Syrup

Bees and Butterflies with MGT: The Honeybee

We started the day with an experiment. The boys love experiments. Actually, this was not the intention at all, but one thought led to another and we ended up with an experiment comparing honey and maple syrup.

In the Teacher Guide an activity was suggested to drizzle honey onto wax paper and watch what happens and observe its thickness. So, I got out necessary materials. But, I thought "Maple syrup looks like honey. Lets see if the boys can tell them apart." So we smelled the two and guessed which one was what.

Then the boys explored the thickness and used spoons to drop them onto wax paper. We tried to compare the speed at which they fell off of the spoon.

"Can we taste them?" Mr A was curious. They preferred the maple syrup over the honey. (I'm not a fan of honey either.) Mr A just wanted to eat the bowl of syrup. Gross. I didn't let him.
From observations we noticed the syrup is faster. thinner consistency and sweeter. The honey is thick, slow and not a taste we prefer.

Then they played some more.

I got out a special honey that I've had in the cabinet.
My uncle who lives in Denmark makes his own honey from the bees that he cares for. This is real honey, straight off of the comb, not processed at a factory and bought at a store. Its real. The boys did not like the smell of it at all. It does smell completely different... natural and raw.

Then they played some more while I made toast to taste test the two different honeys.

Store bought vs straight off a farm in Denmark.

Mr A was undecided. Mr Z didn't like it. I guess honey is an acquired taste and the boys and I don't have it.

Using sequencing cards from MGT, we also talked about how nectar is gathered by bees, made into honey and then gathered again by a beekeeper. Mr A put the cards into order while we talked and was sure to add that the beekeeper had to calm the bees down using a light smoke before taking the honey off of the comb. (A few days ago we watched a short video about bees and keepers.)

These wax sticks came in the curriculum for the day from Mother Goose Time. This is one of those items that I have always been tempted to buy for the boys to play with, but just never did for some reason. I was super happy to find these in the daily packet.

Mr A dove right in bending the wax strips into shapes and sticking them together.

Mr Z was pretty confused about them for awhile. I explained several times to just bend it. Finally, he got and did a few things with them. But his favorite was squishing a few wax sticks together to make a Power Ranger Morpher. (He played with it all day.)

Mr A made a beehive and hid it on the bee poem poster for me to find. Then we played hide and seek with it around the house.

Craft time is always Mr A's favorite.

As I explained the craft, Mr A remembered our bee headbands that were made a few weeks ago. "I have the perfect thing to actually pretend to be bees." He ran to grab them and the boys were bees the rest of the time.

After Mr Z was satisfied with his traced hands for beehives, he used his eye dropper to gather the "nectar" (watered down paint) and build his hive. He had to use his favorite color. I was surprised that he was so efficient at using the eye dropper properly.

He used all of his paint, then needed a brush to spread it around. Mr Z just pooled all of the nectar/paint into one spot. He must have liked this craft because I was impressed that he stayed inside the lines to spread the paint into the hand shape. He was proud too at his accomplishment.

Mr A worked hard at coloring his large tree branch and one leaf.

Mr A squirted his nectar paint all over his beehives too.

There was so much paint that his puddles spread on there own and into his branch. The color from the marker blended and mixed with the paint and created a cool watercolor effect. We were impressed by that too. I found some bee stickers and those were added to our beehive pictures as well. Since there was so much watery paint we had to leave to dry overnight.

We had a fun day and still have to take a field trip to see real bee boxes. I know there's a place around somewhere. But, what a neat thing it is to go along with your thoughts and ideas for activities. It will usually turn out to be a good time. Lessons and activities morph and change and you adapt to what happens. I've learned that the boys learn the best when this happens. We turned exploring honey into an experiment comparing/contrasting maple syrup & honey. We turned into bees using previous crafts to make another craft. Just go with it. Just do it. Don't be afraid of the mess that might occur. Have fun with your kids.

StoryTelling with MGT

We started the morning talking about weather and what kinds we liked best. Mr A chose rain, Mr Z chose cloudy and I chose partly sunny & partly cloudy. Using the tune of Skip to My Lou, I sang a song in the Teacher Guide while the boys pretended to be buzzing bees and find the weather piece that I mentioned. (These pieces are from our Circle Time wall that we use to post the weather for the day.) 

Fly, fly, fly Monarch

Fly, fly, fly Monarch

Fly, fly, fly Monarch

To the (yellow sun)

Yes, the tune says "Monarch", but they buzzed like bees instead.

Then we talked about what types of weather butterflies would or would not like and why. Mr A said sunny would be their favorite because they can fly around the easiest. Windy and cloudy was weather they would not like because they be cold, get blown around and crash into the ground.

A suggested activity in the Teacher Guide was to have the child(ren) to tell a story using the story telling pieces and write it down for them. Mr A came up with this:

"Bees and butterflies had a nice day together to find nectar. It was cold so they went home together to their safe forest hideout home. One looked out to see if the clouds were gone and got blown away and it crashed down on the ground. The others went out to look for their friend and it was raining and had to go home. The next day was sunny and they found their friend. They went back to their treehouse home and lived happily ever after."

I used the pieces to trace the shapes of ones that Mr A wanted on his picture, then he colored them in. This was a great activity for Mr A to think through the process of telling a story. He changed it a little bit after I would ask a few questions or ask him to tell me again because I couldn't write as fast as he was talking. It turned out pretty well with a beginning, middle and end. He was sure to include all the different kinds of weather too.

The boys used the storytelling set provided by MGT to re-enact Mr A's story. The story telling set usually corresponds with the story book MGT sends in the curriculum.

The MGT book of the month is, One Busy Bee by Chris Lensch. Its a simple counting book with bees, butterflies and flowers. We read it while Mr A finished coloring the pictures to his story.

Mr Z helped re-enact each page of the book by finding the corresponding piece and moving it around the poster. He was excited when he would find the matching piece to the page in the book.

Some pages of the book did not have a matching story telling piece. Mr A remembered the Bingo game from the day before and the pictures that were on the cards. He brought them out for Mr Z and then he was able to match every page in the book. "I am a problem solver and remember lots of things." Mr A was proud of himself. That was good thinking to combine a few different activities to help his brother.

In the back of the book is a page of different bees and butterflies that can usually be found in someone's garden. Mr Z used the story telling pieces to also match them to the book's pictures. These story telling butterfly pieces haven't left Mr Z's hands since. He's been taking them everywhere and I'm sure a few of them are now lost.

The boys are loving butterflies more each day with all of these activities. We've been bouncing around with the order of the days and it has been hard to get them to focus on the days where we talk about bees. Somehow it always jumps back to butterflies.

Can Butterflies Be Pets?

Learning about Bees and Butterflies with Mother Goose Time has been fascinating. To enhance our unit, I purchased a live caterpillars kit off of Amazon. We watched them eat, grow, turn into chyrsalis', emerge as butterflies, flutter about the net cage and fly off into the freedom.
When it was time for the Painted Lady butterflies to emerge, we kept missing the actual act of them coming out of the chrysalis. My husband hooked up a video with time lapse to catch the act in case we missed it. It was a good idea because we did miss it and were able to replay it on video. It is above. We figured that the butterfly would have to emerge rather quickly so that it didn't get eaten by predators. We watched them strengthen their wings and flutter about the enclosure. They even survived an attack from our husky that wanted to 'play' with them in the net.
Today we let the butterflies go. We had 5 and only stuck around for a little while to drink from the apple and the flowers we had blooming. The other 4 flew off and we hoped they didn't get eaten by all of the Swallows that were flying around.

This butterfly that stayed behind sat on both of the boys finger for a little while. It was exciting. They both loved having this experience. Mr Z didn't want them to fly away. He yelled at them to come back. But, I tried to explain that they need their freedom because they would not survive at home with us. Later that day, one of them came back to visit but flew off again as the boys were trying to get it back to the flowers. It was great to see it for probably one last time.

His long proboscis gathering some apple juice from the slice to gain some energy and strength.

These were their empty chrysalis'. Mr A said that they were really soft without the caterpillar/butterfly in there. I didn't want to touch it to find out.