Safari Adventure

Today we had a craft in our daily package of activities from Mother Goose Time. It was called Safari Binoculars. Mr Z had no interest in participating so I made them with Mr A. But because Mr A already has a pair of binoculars, he wanted to make a telescope instead. That was a great idea, I thought. I helped him a little bit, but he was pretty excited about it.

 With all of the recent rain, our neighbor invited us to trek down to the lake to see how it has changed. Mr A was ready with his telescope and safari hat and we went on a nature safari walk. But, I'll admit, I was not interested in the walk at first, but figured it would be a good idea. I'm glad I went and watched these boys play down by the lake.

 Mr Z was intrigued by all the different tracks in the mud. We could only find tracks of dogs and shoes.

 Mr A discovered a few ducks in the water and even a lizard swimming by the edge (maybe not on purpose).
They threw different things in the water for awhile to find out what made the biggest splash. Rocks of different sizes, sticks, branches.. anything they could find. Mr Z laughed with delight when his made a big splash.

 Mr Z was bird watching for a little while with his binoculars.

 A large stick was found. They tried to play with it as a slingshot, but then we buried the bottom to make it stand up. Mr A hung his telescope on it and placed it in the 'v' of the stick. I thought this was a pretty fantastic idea. Sometimes your telescope needs a holder. We took turns looking through it while moving it up and down or side to side to see what we could find.

An outdoor adventure was just what we needed today. These Mother Goose Time crafts that double as dramatic play props are fantastic! They boys love them. They get used and used for many different games. I love watching and listening to the games they come up with and how they evolve and develop. So many ways to use a simple telescope craft.

More Math & Literacy

Mother Goose Time has workbooks called More Math and Literacy for kids to prepare for kindergarten. Mr A likes them. He practices simple math equations, cutting, measuring, counting, writing and much more. Each day there is a corresponding page in both books that relates to the topic of the day. Mr A doesn't really care for going in order though. He'll get through pages that I tell him to do reluctantly, but always finds a page that he likes better and will do that instead. He does like More Math better than the More Literacy workbook.

While Mr A was doing this safari vehicle math page, we talked a little bit about the vehicles. I asked him, "If we were on a safari in Africa for real with all those wild animals, would you want to get out of the vehicle?" 

No, then you wouldn't be protected by the car. was Mr A's response.

"That's right. Its not safe to get out of the vehicle. So, what if an animal was on the road where the vehicle is supposed to go?"

Then we'd have to sit there and wait for it to move.

"Yes. If animals are in the path of the vehicle, you need to stop and wait."

If the animal is asleep, we could use a noise to wake it up, like the beep of the horn.

"Well, if an animal is sleeping, like a rhino and it gets scared because it was woken up, then what happens?"

Oh, it will run and crash into the car.

"Right. Animals need to be left alone or else bad things can happen."

I enjoyed this little conversation. Mr A is a smart little kid. His answers to questions are usually pretty spot on. 

For this page, How Many?, Mr A likes to circle the objects while he's counting them. I'm not sure why. He enjoys circling things.

Going to Africa: Day 1

A new month, a new year, a new unit!

We love a new unit, especially when it involves animals and traveling.

Day one of the Mother Goose Time unit, Going on Safari, is about Passports.

A passport is so you can go places. Mr A says. I showed them mine and their Daddy's real passport. His had a stamp in it and we talked about how you need to have it with you to visit and come home from other countries. It tells where you live, where you are going and who you are.

We talked a lot about the different continents and focused a little bit more on Africa.

We found it on the globe and did an Africa dot-to dot. Mr Z did a pretty good job connecting most of the dots. For this, I just googled 'africa dot to dot'.

Then we used animal rubber stamps to fill up Africa.

While Mr A was still working on his dot-to-dot, Mr Z worked on his MGT nametag.

We tossed a pompom ball onto our MGT world map. Then measured how far away from Africa it was.

I stapled together the boys MGT passports. They have each continent and a few blank pages. Mr Z made a few marks one some of the pages.

Mr A colored in his continents. We used the continent cube to roll a continent, find the matching one in the passport and colored it the same color.

Mr Z used the spools, that we used to stamp the passports, as a tower.

Mr Z also drew himself on the information page of his passport. He was so excited that he drew a nose just like his on his face.

Then, he just scribbles all over the page. I think that's so hilarious. Mr Z will draw nicely and be satisfied with it, then will scribble like crazy and cover what he just did. I don't know why he does that all of the time.

After coloring, I got out the stamp pad again and the boys stamped their Africa page with the wooden spool.

The maniplatives from MGT this month included rubber safari animals. They have already seen many different types of play. Here they are using the MGT world map to make homes for the animals and sort them by color.

This was my favorite part of the day... Going on an actual safari. The adventure evolved in many ways and it was so fun. I found these bandanas at the store and the boys needed them as camouflage for the safari so that they don't get attacked by bad animals. I also found little glass lanterns and put a LED tealight inside so they had something to 'keep warm' and 'see with'.

First, the boys used kinetic sand and played with the safari animal counters and other animal figurines. They were making deserts.

Because they were on a safari, Mr A borrowed my phone to use a camera to take pictures of the animals he sees. (He was actually looking for the camera craft they made last year from one of the units, but I think they got destroyed awhile ago. Mr A loves saving the crafts. The prop type crafts he always comes back to at some point to use for a game.)

Mr A and Mr Z used this toy plane to fly to Africa and a few other continents. They both had to be holding it to be able to fly.

Mr A also got attacked by crocodiles in the Nile River. They chomped his feet. luckily he had his passport handy to fly home quickly. One of the things we talked about was that you had to keep your passport with you at all times while on a trip like a safari. If it got lost, you would be stuck and not be able to get home. So, a few times he would go hide and pretend to be lost on the continent he was visiting.
Well, I'll just use Mr Z's passport since I lost mine. I told Mr A that you actually aren't allowed to use anyone else's passport because it doesn't have any of your information on it. You can actually get into a lot of trouble if you try to use one that isn't your own. Oh, I'd better go find mine then.

Every time the boys went to a new continent or back home, they got their passport stamped.

Since Mr A was traveling the world with his MGT passport, he found another of his favorite crafts from last year. This was a craft of St Basil's Cathedral from the Its a Small World unit... that really was his favorite unit. He took a picture using my phone and came back to tell me about it.

What a fun day. The boys really love these units about animals and traveling. We are poor at keeping a routine. The boys have plenty of time to play how they wish. Our actual lessons that are tied into each activity are usually only about 5 minutes. I don't talk too long since they'll get bored pretty quick. I guide their play for a few minutes also, but they usually take over and make up so fun games... like their Africa safari. They traveled to Africa and other continents for at least 45 minutes. I like listening to them.

A Little Gift

Dear Carol,

We're so glad you're a part of our team. Please enjoy the enclosed gift. Looking forward to a wonderful new year!

Sincerely,

Your Mother Goose Time Team

I received this awesome hoodie and a sweet handwritten note from Mother Goose Time today for being a part of their blog ambassador team. Of course Mr A and Mr Z wanted to be a part of the selfie pictures too.

I'm rather excited about this surprise gift from the home office. It's the little things that make a day a little better.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to contribute to this wonderful company with my blog posts about how we use the curriculum at home. My posts could be better, I admit. I don't usually have a clear focus of what a particular post is supposed to be about and I'm generally just all over the place and telling just what we did during the day. Sorry for that. It's not very exciting. I'm not very good at writing.

I am coming up on one year for blogging for MGT. I believe I started receiving the curriculum for free, in exchange for blogging about our experience in March of 2015. In the 10 months that I've been doing this I have learned many things about all of us...
-Its easier for us to get activities and lessons completed first thing in the morning, usually before breakfast too
-Mr A loves the science experiments and crafts the most. He has gotten more used to creative freedom
-Mr A is more into math than language arts, but is catching on to the phonics of the letters and wants to start reading but is overwhelmed by it
-Mr Z likes the craft projects too and just does them. He never overthinks what he is doing and cuts, glues or colors whichever way he pleases.
-We are a very spontaneous family and I don't do well with sticking to a set schedule.
-Changing up the location of doing MGT helps reset ourselves to learn and enjoy each other better.
-When Daddy is home, doing activities is difficult and we don't get much accomplished.
-I still haven't found a setup of the circle time materials that I like. I am changing our display almost every month.
-I enjoy laminating our materials. I enjoy getting things laminated a little too much.
-We enjoy going on curriculum related field trips to connect with what we're learning in a real way.
-I struggle with balancing the house work with 'school'.
-Mr Z is on his own schedule.
...and the list can go on and on.

But Thank You Mother Goose Time for this amazing opportunity and I am so grateful for this wonderful surprise in the mail today.

Are you going to put it on and wear it for the rest of the day? Mr A asked.
Yes. yes I am.