The Book of the Month

Mother Goose Time is such a well-rounded curriculum. It seriously has everything from lesson plans written for you to a music cd to materials for art projects. Each month a book is included to incorporate the theme of the unit also. This month the book was a new version of Goldilocks. Now that Mr A is improving his reading skills, he likes to attempt rading them also. While I read the book this time, the boys put together the matching puzzle. 

Mr A always has to make things a competition and a little more interesting, so he counted while Mr Z put together the puzzle. He was trying to see who could put it together the fastests. The boys love puzzles, so this a great activity to keep them busy while I read the book. Little Miss also likes to get her hands in the mix and help put it together. 

This version of Goldilocks, retold by Leslie Falconer is about the girl losing her Baby Bear stuffed animal after he room is such a mess. She can't find it anywhere and dreams that she finds a house in the woods that is also messy. She goes around cleaning up the mysterious house and ends up finding her Baby Bear after everything is cleaned up.
We talked about the importance of keeping rooms clean or straightened up so that things you want to use can be found easily. It's not much fun to play in a mess or not be able to find what you want because everything is messy.

After reading and discussing the story, Goldilocks, we played our own game of Hide-n-Seek. I hid a stuffed bear around the house and the boys had to search for it.

I'm not sure why Hide-n-Seek with objects takes so long with kids. Well, my kids anyway, don't like to actually search. They wander and look on the surface of things. It seems they always forget what things like under and behind mean. Anyway, the bear was finally found and the boys had fun rehiding it several times. I think its still missing too. Who knows. We've had a fun time with this version of the story Goldilocks from Mother Goose Time and doing coordinating activities. 

Connecting with Animal Homes

We've been learning about animal homes with Mother Goose Time this week. We were excited to find one of the days was about nests since we recently found a hummingbird nest in our front yard tree. We love connecting with nature and Mr A's first response when I realized what I found was, "That's so neat. It's a new discovery and only we know about it."

Mr A and Mr Z were so curious about it and constantly climbing the tree to check inside. When we first found the nest they said there were eggs in it. When we decided to get a closer look several days later with a ladder, we found 2 babies.

The hummingbird nest is small. I have small hands and it is smaller than my balled fist. The nest is also wound aroundthe small branches in the fork of branch...  at the end of the whole branch. The nest sways and moves with the branch  in the wind. Sometimes it looks like it will fall out of the tree, but the nest is securely woven around the twigs.

I found it fascinating how their beaks are short... though it makes sense. The beaks grow into the long thin one as they get older.

The babies are rather ugly the first few days after hatching. Each day they will get more of the fine hair allover their bodies and then grow in their feathers after that.

Here's the Momma nesting (below). We researched that she will nest for about 50 minutes every hour and probably feeding the other 10, so food must be near. She deosn't stray too far either. One time while she was gone another hummingbird came close to the tree and she hurried right back to chase it out of her nesting area. Then she stuck around the tree, flying to different branches. She was defending her space and babies and I thought that was amazing.

What a sight this has been the last few days. Mr A has been loving checking the changes every day of the babies. Even neighbors have been curious about it. We shall see what happens next with this little bird family.
A matching game that was included in the Daily Pack for Nests is called What Goes Together? with a set of blue and a set of green cards. One set had pictures of different animal or human homes and the other set had the animals or humans. We played a few games of memory trying to match the thing to its home. Then Little Miss came along and stomped on or kicked the cards around. Things can't be done for too long if she's around.

Here are some updated pictures of the hummingbirds from today. They have continued to get more of the fine hair and the beaks have gotten dark and longer.

We haven't seen the Mama in a few days, so I hope she's just hanging out nearby since the babies have gotten bigger and there's not much room for her in the nest. Mr A said, "She could have been eaten or is trapped somewhere."

Homes for Everyone

June's theme from Mother Goose Time is about homes. It's called Alphabet house. So while reinforcing the alphabet through activities, we are also talking about homes.

We talked about our home and what makes it special to us. Mr Z said, "I love our house because it's so fun." Mr A said, "I like our house because it's just the right size." ... such great answers. hehe.

I tried to get the boys to understand that different families have different needs and wants and things that make their home special. Its always a trick to get the boys to be empathetic or to put themselves in someone else's shoes. I tried to get them to know that what we think is amazing in a home, other people do not. Mr A is a bit more sensitive to others and was able to get it. Mr Z on the other hand is a bit more hard-headed.

After talking about our home and what makes up a house, the boys headed outside for some free play time. They were playing nicely together, with no arguing. Every parent knows that you don't interupt happy playing between boys! So, I left them be. I was grateful for their cooperative playtime since this was a day was full of extra fights and yelling most of the time.

Mr A ran to find me after awhile and wanted me to see what they had done. He showed me this... a Fairy House.

They made an entrance in the fortress walls. Several hideouts, caves or homes were sprinkled around and lots of flower clippings were added.

Since attitudes seemed to simmer down after making the fairy house, we were able to get a few more things done. We tackled the Invitation to Create... painting a house.

Mr Z mixed all of his paint colors together to make one color.. for the most part. He was intrigued that as he mixed the paint, all of the colors seemed to lightly show through the brown color.

Mr A had more detail... a door and a window.

Little Miss painted slightly on the paper house cutout and ended up covering her body instead. She is my little artist that loves exploring different art mediums.

While the houses dried, and after Little Miss had a bath, we focused on the letter Aa for a bit. The boys practiced upper and lower case on the white board while Little Miss scribbled and erased.

I also wrote down words that had the \a\ sound in them. Mr Z made sure that I underlined the \a\ in every word. Mr Z copied a few of them too. I am rather impressed with him lately. He has been trying to copy letters because he wants to and has also been taking more time in his drawing and adding more detail than he has in the past.
Since Mr A is doing well with his reading, he was quick to think of words that started with an A or had an A in them.

And here is how the houses turned out with the inspiration photo. We loved these colorful houses in the photo.

I've never had a use for these MGT art notes since I only have my kids. They are meant to explain the art project of the day if this is done in a daycare type setting. I do like the concept of a simple note to help reinforce the child's day after they get home. It is a great way to connect with each other.

End of Unit Scrapbook Page

On day 20 of the monthly unit with Mother Goose Time, we are given an activity to complete in our MGT Scrapbook. We have ours almost completely done since the year is almost over.

This month the theme was Alphabet House, so we reviewed the alphabet throughout the month with various activities. The page in our scrapbook has a flower for each letter. The boys received a color key and had to color flowers the same as the key.

Mr Z just scribbled all over the place.

Mr A was rather confused with the directions actually. The key is printed in all capital letters. The letters on the flowers in the book were mixed with capital and lowercase. It was frustrating him and again he wanted to give up. It was so hard to keep him focusing.

Mr Z took a break from coloring and matching the markers and crayons to the key.

Finally, I thought of a bribe to get him to finish his page and coloring. Mr A would get 1 M&M for every flower he colored correctly. It got him to finish.

Mr Z matched his M&M's to his color key too.

What a fun month this has been. Learning about homes around the world, animal homes, how to take care of the home we live in and reviewing colors, numbers and the alphabet.
Learning with Mother Goose Time is always a happy time.

Rabbit Holes

We did some Mother Goose Time Activities that were about mainly rabbit holes. As soon as I said the word rabbit, Mr Z was off, hopping around the house like a crazy bunny.
I set out number cards on the carpet, provided by MGT. Mr A chose a different card with just circles or holes on them. He counted the holes on the card and hopped over to the number card when he spotted the correct match. Mr Z just matched colors of cards together. This activity didn't last too long though. Mr A was getting frustrated with finding the correct number. If he doesn't know the answer right away, he gives up and won't take the time to figure it out. How do you solve that problem?

Mr A wanted to make his rabbit headband though. So, I got the materials out for the project. Mr Z went straight for the stickers and ended up with 3 sets of eyes on his rabbit.
I talked a little bit about how rabbits hop everywhere, even in their underground tunnels and burrows. I also mentioned that the rabbits might have more than one way to get in and out of their homes, having several different holes. Mr A thought that was weird, or neat. He had a silly look on his face while I was trying to talk.

Mr A made his rabbit with unique designs just because that's how the rabbit is.

My carnivorous rabbits eating bacon. I asked Mr A if rabbits actually eat bacon. NO! How dare I ask a silly question like that. lol.

They have been hopping all around the house with their rabbit headbands on. The headband crafts are the boys favorite each month (if there is one).

An InLinkz Link-up

Spiders & Webs

Mr A chose Webs to learn about today. While I was trying to gather everything, Mr Z pulled out the Pentaminoes and started putting the shapes together. I figured it could be a "web of color". Mr A disagreed. I talked a little bit about rotating and flipping the shapes so they could fit into a space. Mr A says as he was able to get more pieces to fit, "Wow mom, I'm getting really good at this."

When pieces were getting fought over, I knew it was time for something new. I grabbed the Mother Goose Time science card to make a Stick Web and we went for a nature walk. We needed to find sticks in the shape of a Y that we could tape up to make our own webs. While we were out, we found some fun little bugs a tiny centipede and rollie pollies.

After finding some sticks, we came back home to add tape to them. The boys wanted their webs to completely filled. They ran around the yard trying to catch some flies but didn't have any luck. So Mr A decided he needed a large web in the yard. He wound the tape around the tree, a chair and the table. Mr Z was right behind him with scissors cutting the strips he had put up. Lol. Mr A was trying to make a large web to catch people food.

Spiders use webs to catch food. Mr A stated.

Mr Z colored his Web page. I never really noticed how much learning can go on in one simple activity, like coloring. So many skills are blended together in almost everything. Mr Z was using fine motor to try to trace the lines on the web. He was trying to count the sides of the web while coloring, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8!"

We made a spider and web craft today too, that was provided by MGT. All materials included! (I love that =) It makes me so happy that I don't have to run around trying to find everything and overbuy for a project. Its already neatly packaged for me.) The boys took turns with the single hole punch and made holes in a paper plate.

Mr A wanted a black and brown spider, so we used two paint colors for our handprint spider.

Googley eyes glued on and then they threaded string through the holes to make a web over their spider. We talked about what Mr A would try to catch in his web if he were a spider. Flies.
Mr A wanted to hang his in the house to scare his daddy. =) But it didn't work.

Mr Z strung up web a few times then dragged it around the yard with all the extra string.

So, we have been a little bit out of routine. I'm trying to blame the husband, but I sort of am. He's been off work. When he's off, its a bit of distraction. I get to go out and do things by myself, we do more errands, all the other kids on the street are out of school for summer or the kids are just more playful and can't concentrate. We've done bits and pieces here and there with our curriculum, but nothing consistent. I figure, we have an extra week for our unit this month, so we'll just stretch it out a bit more. And it gives me more time to plan our next unit a bit better.