Some Planning Materials from MGT

Mother Goose Time

Teacher Planning Materials

Mother Goose Time provides so much in their curriculum that it can seem overwhelming at first. But, it seriously makes your life so much easier once you know what everything is.

We have always liked the monthly calender that comes with the curriculum. For a long time I just had the kids take turns putting the days on where it was supposed to go. They looked forward to it in the mornings and of course would sometimes fight over who got to put it on next. Recently though, I started using the calender for planning too. I write on the days of things that I need to remember plus things that the kids are looking forward to such as a birthday party, appointments or places of interest. It has been useful for them to recognize that something important is coming up and that has given them a better sense of time. Oh and of course the calender is a great math tool for recognizing patterns and numbers. 

The Gathering List is found in the Teacher's Tool Bag and is a great help when you need to quickly gather extra materials for crafts or activities. It lists all the things you still need in addition with what is in the daily bags.

The Teacher Newsletter and Family Newsletter are things that I never really paid attention to since I'm a stay-at-home mom. The Teacher Newsletter includes a layout of the activity titles for each day. There are short articles on topics to help gain understanding of topics or resources. It is a great quick learning letter. One Family Newsletter is included for each child in the first daily pack. It includes a schedule of the topics for the monthly theme, things to look forward to and tips and tricks or activity ideas to do at home to reinforce the monthly theme.

These My Creative Mind handouts haven't been much use to me at home, but I'm sure they are so great for kids that are learning wtih MGT outside of the home. They are small handouts to briefly describe the craft that was done during the day. Because you know, sometimes kids just "make a mess" and don't know how to tell you about their art. There is also a question to encourage a discussion about their craft.

I love this next page that is included in the Teacher's Tool Bag, The Supplied Tool page. Items included in the daily bags are sorted by the different tools like Literacy Tools, Make & Play crafts or Math & Logic Tools. The items are then listed by what lesson bag you can find them in. I love being able to refer back to this sheet if I need to find a game that was loved to play again or craft. I can find what day it was from in a jiffy.

There are so many other planning materials included and ways to assess your child(ren). It's amazing how you well you can help them get a jump start on loving to learn. My kids have always enjoyed MGT. Now that my oldest will be 8 soon, he just likes the crafts mostly. Little Miss is now 2 and really likes the manipulatives.
Anyway, but what great tools these are! I haven't used them as well as I should... but it's nice to know I have them available just the same. I just grab a bag and go. I've tried other curriculums and I keep coming back to Mother Goose Time.
Happy Planning. I dare you to find a preschool curriculum that gives you all these amazing resources to succeed.

MGT Manipulatives

Every month, different manipulatives are included in the the Mother Goose Time curriculum box. They are used for several activities throughout the month. They may be anything from feathers, plastic figurines, stones, sea shells or foam shapes. It all depends on the theme for the month.

One of the manipulatives we got this month was a set of colorful sticks. They are about 4 inches tall.

Yesterday while learning about Aesop's fable, The Bundle of Sticks, the boys used the sticks to make garages for their cars and a bonfire.

Today, Mr A figured out if he put the small stick into a clothespin, it looks like a spray can... like WD40. So, he made several and the boys have been spraying everything down. The spray has been sunscreen to protect from the sun, water to clean with and poison to keep bad guys away.

Next, they found small elastic bands, put them on their wrists and slid the stick underneath. They are now wrist guns. Crocodile needed one too.

Even though, these little sticks are for MGT activities, the boys have found several other uses for them already. I just hope they all don't get lost before we need them again for a different lesson.

Lion and Mouse Cont'd

We finished our Lion & Mouse activities in the evening and that seemed to work out alright. Here is what we did to finish up the lesson.

 The craft included was to make Story Puppets: a lion and a mouse to retell the story on your own. Mr A had a tough time getting started. He was frustrated that the face he drew wasn't more like the one had done and it just wasn't right. But I tried to encourage him to keep going and telling him I wasn't going to do it for him, because that's what he wanted. After a few minutes I saw him drawing a new face. He solved his own problem by flipping over the circle and drawing a face on the other side. He ended up finishing both lion faces to have a double-sided lion puppet.

Mr Z just wanted to cut the yarn that was supposed to used to make the tail of the mouse. His piece was cut into tons of tiny pieces.

One side of Mr A's lion talked in a happy voice and the other in a mean voice as he retold the parts of the story that he remembered.

Before bed and before Mr A could have his dessert, he had to complete his workbook pages. Bribing to get the pages done before dessert was a great incentive... I'll have to use that more often. He's usually not interested in doing them at all. More Math & Literacy are great little books! For each day, there is a page in each book that corresponds with the lesson. Mr A was quick to find the hidden numbers in his math book. He always chooses to do math first.

The literacy book is more difficult for Mr A. He's just not that interested and gets much more frustrated with writing. If a letter he tries to write isn't to his liking, he gets very upset and discouraged. 

Mr Z found an extra activity from last month. He traced the paths over and over.

Find the activities we did earlier on the day... HERE!

The Lion & Mouse: Helping Others

A new month brings a new unit with Mother Goose Time. August is Fables and Folktales. I was excited when I glanced at the daily bags and the focus questions. Many of them cover core values like kindness, service, helpfulness. These are all subjects I need to get better at to pass along to my children.
We love transitioning to a new theme. The boys are always enthusiastic about finding out what we will be learning about at the beginning of the month. I'll admit, I struggle with consistency of doing our activities and lessons, especially towards the end of the month. The boys just get so antsy with everything and I get lazy. But lately, Mr A has noticed if there is not a new daily poster on the wall. There's nothing there. What are we learning about today? Are we doing any activities? he says. So this morning, he was excited to see a new picture on the wall hinting towards the subject of the day.

Aesop's Fable: The Lion and the Mouse

While writing our names and drawing on our new name tags, I asked Mr A a few questions.

How can you help animals? By feeding them. If an animal is stuck in a hole, what could you do? I'd get the duck out.

What do you do to help others? Help them when they're in trouble.

What can you do to help your brother? I'd grab him and run with him if a bad person was trying to get him.

We played a game, throwing balls into different size containers. After a few minutes of playing Mr A had them all lined up. He needed to measure their sizes and put them in order.

While playing, I asked him what kinds of animals can catch other things. Mr A's answer: Cheetahs... they catch animals smaller than them. The containers were 'catching' the balls like an animal would catch something its hunting.

Our theme poster for the month has several different animals from various stories. We explored it for a little while. I found our plastic figurines and the boys matched them up to the picture. One of the magnifying glasses has ants pictured. Mr A found the ants on the poster and counted them all.

One of the other magnifying glasses has a picture of a turtle. Mr A found the turtle on the poster and I read him the prompt on the other side. It asked if the child could walk like a turtle. He started to crawl, but then realized his safari hat was on his head. Turtles don't have shells on their head, they go one their backs, he said. So he asked for help on putting the hat on his back like a shell. He did very well crawling slowly like a turtle, then tried to tuck himself away when he reached the other side of the room.

But, tucking into one tiny shell was hard... so he needed shells all over to cover him up and be protected. Kids can be so creative, if you just let them do their thing. Its very amusing what they come up with.

While reading our storybook that came in our curriculum kit, Aesop's Fables for Preschoolers, the story of The Lion and the Mouse, we used our Safari Ltd lion and mouse with string to act out the story as I read it aloud. The first time through, I read slowly so that Mr A could figure out what to do with the props. 

Then we acted out the story and took turns playing each roll. Mr Z was waiting patiently as the lion stuck in the toilet paper net.

(I'm really trying to pay attention to the boys' answers more. They sure are funny... but it also helps me know them better and what goes on in their little heads.)

Find additional activities from the day... HERE!

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