Alligators at the Pond

At the Pond with Mother Goose Time

Alligators

Mr A's has been improving his storytelling skills. He wouldn't let me record a video of his story using the poster and pond animals. I will try to retell it though. He used the fish, turtle, water strider and frog photos from the storytelling set included in the daily bag.
One day there was a water strider. He flew to the pond and landed on the water without making a splash. Along came a frog and sat on a lilipad. "How are you" said  the frog. "I have something to show you." the water strider replied. (he lifted the water strider and made it jump onto the water.) Next a fish came swimming by. "Hello," said the fish. "Hi, I have something to show you." the water strider jumped up and landed on the water without a splash. A turtle popped up from the water. "I have something to show you." the water strider told the turtle. The water strider jumped up but then the frog ate the water strider. Then the fish ate the frog. The turtle ate them all. The end.
Before Mr A's stories weren't really stories, just playing with the animals. No dialogue. The animals just basically chasing each other. Maybe he would say a few sentences to appease me. But, I was surprised with this one. It pretty much had a beginning, middle and end. The school he attends tells stories orally. Pictures are painted in the imagination using words instead of reading a story from a book. So, I think hearing all the stories at school has helped him come up with his own that have a bit more detail.

The Invitation to Create included a picture of alligator skin close up. Also provided was the paper and squares of bubble wrap. I set out a few colors of paints and some brushes. It was neat to see the different ways they boys used the same materials. Mr A brushed the paint onto the bubble wrap and used it like a stamp.

Mr Z brushed the paint onto the paper and then dabbed the bubble wrap over the paint. The different methods made different textures and results, naturally.

Mr Z had to mix all of his colors, of course.

The reason we did alligators today was because Mr A was wearing his alligator slippers. His feet were getting eaten while painting and he thought it was so funny.

In every month of curriculum, there is a postcard. The front has space to draw a picture that coordinates with the theme. The other side is like a regular postcard, a place for a note and the address. Mr Z drew an alligator and a fish that lived happily ever after and scribbled a 'note' for his grandparents.

So, in previous past posts I had mentioned that Mr A was going through some difficult attitude things. We had a rough time for awhile. He had a lot of new things all at once. But, with all the new things, MGT was taken out of our days altogether to relieve some of my stress. One of the things that Mr A missed was the MGT activities and time spent together. With Little Miss older, we have been having a great time together again... because of MGT. Mr A is getting more time together after school and things have been looking up. We are glad to have MGT back in our not-so-daily routine. =)

F is for Fox

A to Zoo Animals with Mother Goose Time

F is for Fox

You've probably noticed that we've jumped around on the order of this unit quite a bit. It's been fun and we finally got to the day about foxes.

I remembered that I had a kids origami set with various animals by Djeco and one of the animals was a fox. In the guidebook it suggests reading the Aesop's Fable, The Fox and the Grapes. I figured they would pair together nicely.

So, Mr A and I got to folding the fox by following the instructions and using the pre-printed folding lines. He did very well following my instruction.

After our foxes were done, I read the fable while the boys acted out the story with the small bunch of grapes and origami foxes.
We learned that you shouldn't give up just because something is hard. Try again or try something new to figure out your problem. Getting mad and giving up does not solve any problem.

The boys love the storytelling sets, mostly for the cut outs. We combined a few separate activities into one, since I knew doing them separately would not work very well for the boys. The first was the storytelling set with the poster and cutouts, the second was the Story Starters and animal cubes. You were supposed to roll the two cubes and pick a story starter to tell a short story about the two animals that were rolled on the cubes. But, the boys rolled the cubes to add an animal to the poster and find a place for it to live. I chose a story starter and tried to get to the boys to answer. We didn't get very far with the stories.

The otter was laughing because he was being ticked by the bird.

The hippo was very tired from walking instead of swimming.

When the boys were over playing this game, Mr A wanted to take the animal cutouts outside. His favorite thing to do is hide them in the yard for someone to find. So, they played that for awhile.

Mr A lost interest in the MGT craft that was provided for the day. He said that it was something that they had already made and didn't want to do it. He's an interesting fellow. But, we did make a similar craft last year sometime... a letter F cutout that you turn into a fox by adding a tail or ears etc. I just think its funny that Mr A easily loses interest if its something he has already done or learned about.
We've been struggling with a few of the days this month because the animals have been repeats from other units... Dolphin, Elephant, Camel and several more. We've done them and Mr A was bored with it. The activities have been hit or miss. Oh well.
July's Art Studio should sure be fun... it's a lot different than anything we've done before.

StoryTelling with MGT

We started the morning talking about weather and what kinds we liked best. Mr A chose rain, Mr Z chose cloudy and I chose partly sunny & partly cloudy. Using the tune of Skip to My Lou, I sang a song in the Teacher Guide while the boys pretended to be buzzing bees and find the weather piece that I mentioned. (These pieces are from our Circle Time wall that we use to post the weather for the day.) 

Fly, fly, fly Monarch

Fly, fly, fly Monarch

Fly, fly, fly Monarch

To the (yellow sun)

Yes, the tune says "Monarch", but they buzzed like bees instead.

Then we talked about what types of weather butterflies would or would not like and why. Mr A said sunny would be their favorite because they can fly around the easiest. Windy and cloudy was weather they would not like because they be cold, get blown around and crash into the ground.

A suggested activity in the Teacher Guide was to have the child(ren) to tell a story using the story telling pieces and write it down for them. Mr A came up with this:

"Bees and butterflies had a nice day together to find nectar. It was cold so they went home together to their safe forest hideout home. One looked out to see if the clouds were gone and got blown away and it crashed down on the ground. The others went out to look for their friend and it was raining and had to go home. The next day was sunny and they found their friend. They went back to their treehouse home and lived happily ever after."

I used the pieces to trace the shapes of ones that Mr A wanted on his picture, then he colored them in. This was a great activity for Mr A to think through the process of telling a story. He changed it a little bit after I would ask a few questions or ask him to tell me again because I couldn't write as fast as he was talking. It turned out pretty well with a beginning, middle and end. He was sure to include all the different kinds of weather too.

The boys used the storytelling set provided by MGT to re-enact Mr A's story. The story telling set usually corresponds with the story book MGT sends in the curriculum.

The MGT book of the month is, One Busy Bee by Chris Lensch. Its a simple counting book with bees, butterflies and flowers. We read it while Mr A finished coloring the pictures to his story.

Mr Z helped re-enact each page of the book by finding the corresponding piece and moving it around the poster. He was excited when he would find the matching piece to the page in the book.

Some pages of the book did not have a matching story telling piece. Mr A remembered the Bingo game from the day before and the pictures that were on the cards. He brought them out for Mr Z and then he was able to match every page in the book. "I am a problem solver and remember lots of things." Mr A was proud of himself. That was good thinking to combine a few different activities to help his brother.

In the back of the book is a page of different bees and butterflies that can usually be found in someone's garden. Mr Z used the story telling pieces to also match them to the book's pictures. These story telling butterfly pieces haven't left Mr Z's hands since. He's been taking them everywhere and I'm sure a few of them are now lost.

The boys are loving butterflies more each day with all of these activities. We've been bouncing around with the order of the days and it has been hard to get them to focus on the days where we talk about bees. Somehow it always jumps back to butterflies.

Huts in Africa

Week 3 of Going On Safari with Mother Goose Time is about Life in the Grasslands for animals and people. The topics are beads, music, food, migration and huts.
First thing, we talked about what this hut in the topic poster is made of. Grass or hay and branches and... mud! Mr A couldn't figure out why mud would be used to build a house. So I explained that its used to make walls and keep the logs in place. But also, it keeps it cool inside when its hot and warm when its cold. Ooooh! Like the walls in our house.


The boys worked on making their own huts. I did a lot of helping by holding their materials. They were getting frustrated since the paper cups were rather flimsy. I helped Mr Z hold the people while he cut on the line.

I helped hold the hut while they boy spread the glue and then poured the sand on top. 

Mr Z liked the little people. He played with them for quite awhile.

After they were finished, the boys used their huts, people and the safari counters to play. They made a village and mostly used the huts for the animals instead of the people.

Each month with Mother Goose Time, we receive a Storytelling Set. It consists of a layout of a background and cut outs. They usually go along with the story/book of the month that comes with the curriculum. But, this time it was just a 'make up your own story' set.
Mr A was not into making up his own story. So, they paired up the animals, added the people and huts and played for a little while.