Insects at the Pond

With the older boys being off of school for who-knows-how-long because of the virus, they have been doing Experience Early Curriculum with Little Miss and I. Its kind of fun. They ask what we will be doing together. They do have their own set of work to keep up with their grade at school, but having them join us for this period of time has been fun... so far... we'll see how it goes in the time to come. Anyway, week 3 has been about the insects that enjoy the pond life. Below are some things that we've enjoyed together.

All the kids colored all of the coloring pages from the member resources link. They colored ALL of them at once. They sat and colored for a really long time; using paint sticks, markers, do-a-dots and crayons. It was really great to see Little Miss color with her brothers so nicely.

The story included in the curriculum also has many corresponding activities to accompany it. One being a puzzle. Little Miss still hasn't really grasped the concept of completing a puzzle on her own, so her brothers helped her. Teamwork is great to see.

My kids love the Make & Play crafts. There have been several this week and they all have a collection of homemade insects. Little bigs have been flying all over the house this week.

The kids matched the foam stars to the mat. Then, of course they became shooting stars when they began getting tossed around the room.

During the day for Waterstriders, we played a game. We rolled a die and moved our bug across the board. Since the game itself was short, we just kept going back and forth until everyone decided they were done with the game. We all really tried to get Little Miss counting correctly. She still skips #4 when counting. We'll get there eventually.

The Invitation to Create for the Waterstrider day included popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners. Nobody wanted to use the pipe cleaners, so I found these art swabs. They worked perfectly for the legs of their striders.

The kids added a painting project in the mix from last week. They painted some algae, swirled it around for a long time before adding some glitter when they finished.

We have a huge bin of extra materials to use as desired. The kids raided it to make their own Mayfly craft. One was not included in this day, but they decided to make one anyway. They found all the pieces they needed to make adorable Mayflies. These are the ones that the boys made. Little Miss just tore up paper. Sometimes, you just have to let them do what they want. Mr Z made little tiny bugs to go with his Mayfly; the yellow one is getting eaten and the small blue one on the wing is its friend. Creativity is the greatest from children. 

I receive Experience Early Curriculum free in exchange for our honest opinion and experiences with the product.

Pond Plants

Week 2 in our preschool curriculum from Experience Early Learning was all about the plants that live in or near the pond. Some grow completely under the water, some float on the top and others stretch from the bottom to the top. I must admit, that Little Miss wasn't too interested in the subject matter for this week, but loved the crafts and projects the most.

We learned that the cattails live around the edge of a pond. They create a barrier and add some protection for some animals that live in the center of the pond.

I love how the Invitation to Create art projects inspires the child. Little Miss really only wanted to cut her paper into small pieces. But, then decided to actually glue a few things onto her paper.

The games included for week 2 and week 1 were fun for everyone. We played them often last week, especially after dinner. I'm glad the boys still love the games too. They are 9 and 7 and wanted to play with everything.

My middle child, Mr Z had fun with the magnet story pieces that coordinated with a book included in the curriculum, The Turtle, the Beaver and the Pond.

I receive preschool curriculum from Experience Early Learning free, in exchange for our opinion on the curriculum and the experiences we have.

At the Pond: Week 1

We recently started using the preschool curriculum again called Experience Early Learning. It was formerly Mother Goose Time. I wanted some quality time with my 3-year-old, Little Miss, while the older boys were at school. We were getting complacent and lazy and just needed something fun to fill our days. I used this curriculum with my older boys several years ago, but took a break since I was overwhelmed with having 3 kids. I knew that using this curriculum would be just right for us at this time. There have been so many great changes and additions to the Experience Curriculum since the last time I used it. I am excited to use and share all the great things we do and learn.

March's theme is At The Pond is about learning life in and around a pond area. 

Week 1 has been great; with topics including turtles, snakes, tadpoles, frogs and ducks.

This first game was a favorite. A mat with numbered turtles and small paper cups helped recognize numbers. Little Miss is still working on counting properly to 10, but she loved matching the "turtle shell" paper cup to the turtle on the mat. We also used the Duck Counters, which are included in the curriculum, to hide under the shells. We played "where are the ducks hiding." 

The Make&Play is a small craft that the child makes and then you are able to play with. Little Miss loved making a small turtle pull toy. We colored the bowls for shells and then glued everything together. She even colored her nose, for whatever reason.
I asked Little Miss a few questions while working... "Why do you think a turtle needs a shell?" Her response was, "To hide from the octopuses." I laughed and reinforced that she was on the right track and they do use shells to hide from bigger animals in the pond and protect themselves. I love the thinking of a child and to hear answers that are logical to them.

While learning about why snakes would be around a pond, we used the Loose Letter Cards as guides to fill them with yarn snakes. I've never really focused on the letters, so we just made the letter sounds as we filled it with small yarn snakes.

 The Inspiration to Create is a process-based art project that gives the child complete freedom. In the daily packet we were given pipe cleaners, straws and beads. Little Miss practiced cutting the straws and stringing the pieces with beads to make different kinds of snakes.

We learned about tadpoles and frogs for a few days. Little Miss used the Loose Letter Cards again to fill the letters with tadpoles made of play-doh.

Frog day included several fun games and activities too. We worked on recognizing numbers and counting using this lilypad number mat. We used plastic frogs to jump to the numbers in order.

Recognizing letters was fun with this Frog on a Log mat. After choosing a letter card, Little Miss used a pom-pom or felt frog to locate the letter log and jump to the letter.

She was rather excited when she could find the letter quickly. We went over letter sounds as the frogs jumped to different logs.

Patterns are still a bit tricky. Little Miss didn't quite understand how to put the cards in order to repeat the pattern shown. She just wanted to place them wherever she wanted. But, we kept repeating "Frog- tadpole- tadpole" and she eventually figured out to place the cards in the same order to make the pattern continue. She is being exposed to so many new concepts and it's so exciting to watch her enjoy them... or not.

Ducks! We started this day with The Five Little Ducks song and our felt puppets. Little Miss likes simple songs with felt characters. I'm a terrible singer, but she doesn't mind. Though, she did keep correcting my words because I was singing "...over the hill and far away..." and in the song on the EEL music cd, it says "...over the meadow..." I kept wondering why she kept insisting that I was wrong until we actually listened to the song on our music cd. She was right and I was surprised to find out that she knew the words and was paying attention.

An extra resource that is available to subscribers is coloring pages. We have been doing them every day while we have a small discussion about the topic of the day. Little Miss loved using the dot stampers to decorate her duck.

The math manipulatives have always been a favorite in our home. While discussing ducks we played a counting game with them. These oval ponds have different numbers of blue dots on them. We took turns rolling a die to see how many ducks to add to the dots on the pond. Little Miss practiced her counting and is getting better at remembering the number 4 since she normally skips it. She was excited when we filled all the ponds.

We played several times and also used the duck counters to practice color sorting.

What a fun week with Experience Early Learning.

I receive Experience Early Learning preschool curriculum for free, in return for our honest opinion and experiences with the lessons, games, crafts and activities.

Starting Again. Mother Goose Time with the Youngest

It's finally happened. My youngest is old enough to enjoy this preschool curriculum!
I started using Experience Early Learning formerly Mother Goose Time with my two boys several years ago. We used it for about 3 years. Then we had the Little Miss. I was overwhelmed with 3 children. I tried to keep up with the learning activities, but it was too much and I took a break. But now a few years later, I felt like I was in a place to do it again. I have a ton of old units leftover that are pretty much complete.
So, this week, Little Miss and I started with the unit, Ocean Commotion from April of 2018. We've had a great time so far. I actually forgot how much I liked it and needed this time to connect with my children too. Over the years, I've become bored and complacent and knew something was missing. I just didn't know what. My 3-year-old, Little Miss, was just watching TV all day while the boys were at school. We both needed a change.

Little Miss and I began our EELfMGT unit by taking a trip to Sea World to visit some sea life. Her favorite thing to do is pet the bamboo sharks, so we were there for quite some time.

Dolphins are silly when swimming upsidedown.

We love touching the bat rays too and fed them lots of fish.

We watched a sea turtle work his way out of a tight spot and the school of fish swim back and forth.

Day 1: Ocean Water
This was a fun day. Little Miss taste-tested different types of water. She came to the conclusion that regular water is better for humans and the saltwater is just right for the fish, sharks, and whales. She doesn't want to be a fish.
One of our projects provided by EELfMGT was an Invitation to Create. The inspiration photo is an aerial shot of the ocean. Since most of the earth is saltwater, the paint was watered down. With an eyedropper, Little Miss collected paint and squirted it onto her paper then sprinkled salt on top. She loved this!

She said several times, "I like you for letting me do this Mom. I love Mother Goose Time."

After starting her second picture, Little Miss decided to pour the paint. She loved watching the colors mix together.

Little Miss decorated her EELfMGT nametag also. She loves the stamper markers.

Since the earth is covered in water, the main bodies have names. To learn them, we had containers of water with the ocean names. The pocket cube was rolled to find out how many shells would be dropped into one of the oceans. We also found the ocean on the globe.

Our last experiment for Ocean Water was to see if objects would sink or float in regular, salt or sugar water.
What a fun day.

Day 2: Ocean Floor
We learned about things that you would find on the floor of the ocean; Sand, crabs, shells, plants, rocks...
Our Make&Play craft was to make an oyster with a small paper plate and bead. Little Miss colored her oyster and glued on her bead. She got a little inspiration from a few real pearls that I had collected over the years.

We used kinetic sand to play the shells for a while. We counted them and hid them underneath.

After a little while of playing with just shells, I remembered we had a ton of animal figurines and so we found all of our ocean animals. Then we picked out the ones that might be found on the ocean floor.

Day 3&4: Ocean Caves and Ocean Plants (I combined the 2 days)
Using a few blankets and a table we made a cave. We also glued some green strips of paper together to make some plants to camouflage the entrance. After talking about some animals that would live in a cave and some that wouldn't, Little Miss collected shells using a flashlight and placed them on the number cards. She's getting better at counting. Number 4 is one that she always skips though. But, we did do a lot in our cave that day. We read books by flashlight, we ate lunch, we played with play-doh. Even the dogs investigated the cave and hung out with us for awhile.

Learning about the Ocean Zones was not very interesting. She didn't care one bit about the Sunlight, Twilight or Midnight zones of the ocean. All she wanted to do for the Invitation to Create was to cut the paper. But that's ok. Sometimes your brain just doesn't care about any more information.

Thanks to Mother Goose Time (Experience Early Learning), we have had better days together this week. Hopefully, we can keep it up. By day three of the week though, I think Little Miss was going through TV withdrawals. It was a bit harder to keep her attention because she did want to watch her shows. But, it will take time to adjust.