Take Flight ...

Nature Detectives with Mother Goose Time

Week 2 ... Mystery in the Air

We love these manipulatives from Mother Goose Time that we got this month... the Link Strips. Unfortunately half of them have already been lost. Mysteriously misplaced. It's so annoying. But, while they were around, Little Miss had a great time pulling them apart. She's still too little to fit them together properly. I would connect all of the same color and then she would pull them apart.

Meanwhile, Mr A and Mr Z were copying the shape pattern cards. Mr Z likes to make his own creations and ended up with some multi-tools, as he called them. That's how they disappeared, its the multi-tool's fault.

Since many things fly in the air, we made birds using feathers and paperplates. Mr A found the nametags to copy the bird on it. He cut it out and colored it.

Little Miss is always on the table interfering with what the boys are up to... or trying to help.

Little Miss likes gluing like her brother, Mr Z used to. She piles on the glue and layers things on top of it. She had a mountain of feathers on her bird.

 I love her concentration face. Watching glue drizzle is satisfying.

Mr A finished his small bird and wrote his name on his nametag. Mr Z did too. I couldn't get the other kids participate in many MGT activities, it was frustrating that they didn't want to join us in our activities and crafts.. they wanted to play instead which made it difficult for everyone in the end.

Now that we have time this week without friends, we will go back to complete some of the things we didn't get to with them here.

It's funny how you think 3 kids is hard until you have 5 to watch for awhile. Perspective. I'm grateful for my little ones. Even though they are difficult sometimes, I am grateful for my people. I love how they work together. I like that they do have some manners. I like that they're interested in many different things and will explore them. I love their personalities. 

Basics of a Garden

Growing Gardens with Mother Goose Time

A new month = a new theme. Growing Gardens for the month of May with Mother Goose Time. Week 1 is all about the basic needs of growing a garden whether its flowers or fruits or vegetables: soil, seeds, water & sun and a few of the crawly things like worms and also the importance of roots.

The nametags included in the curriculum haven't gotten too much use around here, but when I pulled out paint to paint names instead of write them, the kids were more receptive.

One of the Invitation to Create projects was to make a nature collage. First we painted brown soil so we could a flower on top. I like how Mr A painted a nice section of his paper brown, probably about 1/3. While Mr Z only painted one line across his page.

Little Miss had a great time using her fingers and multiple brushes to add lots of paint all over.

After they were done painting dirt and adding a flower, they decided they needed to go outside to find nature items to make a border around the frame. They found flowers, leaves, sticks and dirt.

 Here are the kids' collage paintings versus the Invitation to Create inspiration photo.

In preparation to either rent out or sell our house in the next few months, we've been working on the yard a bit. Our lemon was never in a good spot and so we decided to remove it. I used this opportunity to talk about the roots of a plant or tree. We looked at how there are the big strong roots to hold the tree in place. Then there are the small hairlike roots that help gather the nutrients the tree needs. It was interesting to see how the tree's roots found a way around/under the water pipe and drain pipe that are right next to it.

We also observed how our "dirt" is actually mostly sand, so there really are no good nutrients for a citrus tree here. The type of dirt or soil does make a difference on how a plant grows.

Thanks Mother Goose Time for allowing us to connect to our world in a fun way.