Phonics Awareness Made Fun

It's a Small World with Mother Goose Time

Week 2 of the It's a Small World unit was about things that you would find at an international/world market. (see previous post here.) I took Mr A to the market across from the Grandparent's house to see what we could find. We found that this particular market was a grocery store and we did find some quite interesting things. There were several American items that we could read and recognize, but other things we had no idea what it was. The store was fun to explore.

a thin tortilla like flatbread that was almost as tall as Mr A

 a vacuum sealed whole fish. Mr A did not want to hold it

 a bag of chips that we assumed were hot & spicy potato chips

 a giant bottle of root beer maybe.

 cheese in a tall can.

Anyway... that was our trip to an international food market. It was rather intimidating not being able to read the labels and know what things were. But it was fun.

On to Week 3... it was about a few of the Natural Wonders of the World. We talked about the Grand Canyon, waterfalls, Ayers rock, and giant trees. Mr A responded very well to this activity though during the day we learned a bit about the Matterhorn mountain.
We used the Pocker Cube for the letters of the month, K G & Q. We took turns rolling the cube. Each letter had its own mountain. Every time a letter was rolled a block was added to its corresponding block mountain. Before we could add a block though, we had to say the sound of the letter. Mr A had a great time strategically stacking different shaped blocks to make it harder for me to go after him. As we progressed through the game, we began also saying words that either started, ended or had the letter sound in the middle.

Our blue mountain for the letter G fell down the most.

My favorite is the giraffe Mr A put on the top of the letter Q mountain.

There aren't many phonics or language arts activities that Mr A likes very much. He's never really enjoyed that subject, but this he really liked and wanted to keep playing for quite some time. What a fun suggested activity that Mother Goose Time provided.

How to Help Your Kite Fly

It's a Small World with Mother Goose Time

Week 2

Week 2 of this I'ts a Small World unit includes learning about different things that you might find at a world market or international market.

Day 7 was about Kites. We talked about the origin of kites, what they have been used for over the years and how they were introduced to other countries.

Mr A thought it was interesting, or not fair, that nobody below a Samurai were allowed to fly a kite for a long time. Kites were introduced to other countries through the trade market from China. Over the years they were used for things such as aeronautical experiments, science & technology, photography, and military flights.

In the daily packet, a Make & Play was included to make a kite out of a paper plate and streamer paper. The boys finished theirs fairly quickly and headed outside. Mr A wanted to see how his would fly and conducted his own experiments. He used different methods to launch his kite with running power.

His methods included (with video clips below, not necessarily in the correct order)...

just running and holding the kite up himself until it took off,

jumping off of a heap of bushes,

placing the kite on top of the mailbox then running,

running with the kite starting off of the ground,

propping the kite in bushes of different height and then running

Mr A had a great time figuring out which method was best for making his kite fly. We both agreed that when the kite started from a higher place it flew just a bit better while he was running. But, it wasn't complicated and he released some energy running around the street. He learned to used what was around to answer his own question.

"I Love this Kite!" he said.

Accomodating MGT to Fit 1st Grade

It's A Small World with Mother Goose Time

Week 1:

Suitcases, Cameras, Airplanes & Boats, Maps & Globes, Currency

Hi!.. I've been m.i.a. for quite some time. I was having a hard time with some things for awhile. My husband was having a hard time with different things for awhile. My oldest was in school and I gave up on homeschooling for awhile. Needless to say, we've been doing other things and taking of other stuff. But, when my oldest, Mr A was having trouble in school for different reasons, I decided it would be best to homeschool him for now and he helped choose to use Mother Goose Time again. I figured that it may be a good idea... especially because this theme, It's a Small World was his favorite from 3 years ago. So, here I am...blogging as an ambassador and homeschooling again while accomodating a preschool curriculum to fit the needs of my first grader. It's interesting and sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I have no idea how to connect the curriculum to his level and feel lost. But Mr A has been enjoying it and we haven't had as many bad days since using Mother Goose Time again. So, here is what we've been doing to make a preschool curriculum fit a first grader's needs... ...
Day 1 was about Suitcases: what you need to put in a suitcase depending on where you travel, different kinds of suitcases and so on. One of the games provided by Mother Goose Time was this set of suitcase cards. We played memory with them for awhile, but instead of alternating turns a name was pulled out of our Dusty Crophopper suitcase. You could potentially go several times in a row or never be picked at all. Both Mr A and Mr Z had a good time with this game.
Then to kick up the learning level for Mr A, I started talking about skip counting. Skip counting is another way to multiply. I set out a group of 4 cards. I talked about how there is 1 group with 4 cards, so you only have 4 cards. Then set out a second group. 2 groups with 4 cards each equals 8. We did several different scenarios. I could tell if Mr A was confused or getting it. oh well.

On most days, MGT has a little song or rhyme in the Teacher Guide to correspond with the topic of the day. I wrote the song on strips of paper, one word per paper and I stuck them in a suitcase. We pulled one out at a time and set up the song on the floor. Then sang it each time we pulled out a word. practicing sight words is not Mr A's favorite, but making it a song was helpful.

Day 2 was about Cameras. A suggested activity was to place pictures around the room and collect them. I pulled several pictures of everyone in the family. The kids liked seeing pictures from when I was little. But we talked about memories and ways to capture them.

On Cameras day, I don't think I really expanded the topic to fit a first grader, we just had fun with it. But we did take the camera craft outside to the park to Make & Play with.

Day 3 was Airplanes and Boats. The Invitation to Create was a picture of a bi-plane and popsicle sticks. Mr A had the idea to make his exactly like the picture. I helped glue, hold pieces and place things, but everything was Mr A's ideas. He made a great little model.

Day 4 was Maps and Globes. This day included little people counters. We used them on a map and I tried to talk about the different continents and where there are in relation to us. They weren't really into that part of the activity. The boys took turns rolling the Pocket Cube and then placing that number of people on the map. I also added a bit more math here by asking Mr A to double and triple the number that was rolled.

This day had an Invitation to Create also. Mixing paint and shaving creme to make a picture of the globe on a plate. Little Miss is 17 months and she liked rolling marbles in paint... note. marbles don't roll in shaving creme.

 The boys had fun plaing in the shaving creme and paint and ended up being green monsters.

 The inspiration photo compared to the marbled world by Little Miss.

Day 5 was Currency. I didn't get any pictures of this day, though it was super fun. We looked at coins from around the world. Played Super Market and counted money. Played a Money Match game. And counted the money Mr A has saved up. Remembering the names of the US coins and their values has been difficult, so this was great practice.

We had a great first week. Mr A has had a fun time. I have found that it is actually pretty simple to adjust activities for his grade level. Language Arts and Math have been more fun for him too.

We are looking forward to using Mother Goose Time again for school.