Mother Goose Time Welcome

Professionalism: Mother Goose Time takes the thinking out of planning. They do it for you.

I searched for a long time, looking for a curriculum that I could use at home with my kids. Finally, I came across Mother Goose Time. It seemed too good to be true. As I compared MGT with other curriculum options, there was really no comparison. I was blown away by the curriculum and ease of everything. And I had to try MGT.

Mother Goose Time takes your day care, preschool or homeschooling experience to the next level. I mean, they make it so easy for you to be professional and it doesn't even take that much effort.
I am using Mother Goose Time with my two boys at home (sometimes another friend comes to join us), so a lot of this stuff doesn't really apply to me, as far parent conferences and other things you would normally find in a professional environment. But, I love that all these materials are available to me. Here is a link below for a welcome video that describes what type of materials are included in your first subscription box.

There is also a video link below to view a new product that MGT has provided in August's subscription box. This baseline assessment package has so many materials to help you prepare your new school year and it is pretty cool. It tells you how to gauge what learning levels each child is on and how to track their improvement. There are also materials on how to conduct a successful parent-teacher meeting. I can only imagine how great these materials will help parents feel about their child attending anywhere that uses this program... as long as the teacher implements them. I'd be pretty happy.

I do intend on using some of these materials to help my 4 year old prepare a little better for school. I can also track what learning path my 2 year old is on so that I can help him improve in areas of learning. Even though we do MGT sporadically throughout the day and don't really have a set routine, I love the contents of the subscription boxes. Mother Goose Time is fantastic and its hard to believe that everything you need to run a successful preschool is included. Its true. The value is great! and so many people are there to help if you have any questions. There have been so many times that I have reached out to MGT staff with questions.
This learning and teaching community is like no other.

p.s. My favorite piece in the Baseline Assessment kit is the Developmental Continuum of Skills guide. This thing is amazing. It has skills  and benchmarks that reach all the way to second grade! This is definitely getting laminated and referred to often.

Welcome video

Baseline Assessment

Making Bubbles Float

What can you find floating in the sky? Clouds, dandelion seeds, bubbles. One of the activities to investigate things floating in the air was to make our own bubbles. I used approximately 2 tablespoons of dish soap in about 1/4 cup of water. The boys took turns mixing the bubble mixture with the hand mixer. Mr Z thought the feeling of the mixing was funny. He said it tickled his hands, probably the vibration. Then Mr A got a turn for a few seconds.

 Mr Z tried blowing them around for a little while, but it mostly just ended up in his face.

 He had a great time playing in the bubbles.

His favorite was smearing it all over his body.

Since the bubble mixture didn't really float when we tried to blow it around, I pulled out real bubbles. Mr A blew those around for awhile.

 Mr Z kept smearing bubbles all over his body.

Then a few bubbles landed on Mr Z and stuck. Mr A was fascinated that they were sticking to Mr Z's hands and body. Mr A experimented with other things to make the bubbles stick to. He asked why the bubbles wouldn't stick to his hands, but would only stick to Mr Z. I reversed the question to have him think about it. Because he has soap on his hands and I don't. So then Mr A got his hands soapy and blew bubbles on them.

 Mr A noticed the bubbles would only stay where there was soap.

We had so much fun until Mr Z kept smearing dish soap bubbles in his eyes. He cried for about 30 minutes from the sting and wouldn't let me put Visine in.

Our craft for the day was to make a small Hot Air Balloon. All of the materials were provided by Mother Goose Time. 4 colors of a balloon shape were printed on cardstock and we were able to punch out the shapes. One side of one color was glued to the next to make a 3d balloon. Mr A strung his yarn through the holes and we taped the ends to a mini paper cup after he had colored it with marker.

 Mr Z liked gluing his balloon pieces together. I provided a hand to help hold.

The boys threw there balloons around for a few minutes when they were done making them, then Mr Z took his outside and dunked it in the bubble mixture we left out from earlier.

Mr A showed Daddy his hot air balloon craft provided by Mother Goose Time. Daddy, you know Mommy told me something. The hot air makes the balloon go up and down.

Observing Habitats in Nature

Yesterday I took the boys to Julian, Ca to pan for gold and gems/rocks. We had a great time and Mr A flu lots of treasures. Afterwards we stopped for some of Mom's famous pie and ice cream. We finished our treat and walks around the hard path nearby.

From the corner of my eye I spotted a little frog. We stopped to watch it for awhile. Mr A wouldnt try to catch it with his hands. I attempted but it hopped away into some bushes. We tried to figure out if it was a frog or toad. I guessed toad since we didn't spy much water for it to be a frog.

There were too many bees on the walk. Lavender plants were chalked full of them and the plants covered 90% of the garden. Amongst all the bees, Mr Z was distracted by the butterflies though.
It was time to go, but as we were walking out of the garden to the car, I saw a little pond. In it were fish. The boys played iSpy with the fish and picked out their favorites. They watched the fish hide under the lily pads, dart around the plants, eat the algae and chase each other from side to side. Above the fish pond was a calm tiny pool and it was filled with tadpoles. We scared the tadpoles around with the shadows of our hands. They nestled into the sand at the bottom to hide or in the sides with algae. I talked a little bit about how their legs would grow and the tails would disappear in a few weeks. After finding all these tadpoles, I realized that the little frog we found earlier had a better place to live than I thought.
We loved observing this little habitat. Mother Goose Time's Nature Detectives, has really helped me appreciate nature and let the boys explore it, no matter what the time restraints are. We spent a good 30-45 minutes watching the fish and tadpoles and talking about them. I am much more 'in the  moment' when the boys get excited about something like this. I let them enjoy it instead of rushing them around and in turn, I have a fantastic time watching them enjoy something out of the ordinary.

An InLinkz Link-up

SD Zoo Safari Park: Exploring Trees

The boys and I desperately needed a day out of the house. So, we agreed on the animal park and investigating the trees... and other parts of nature.
Mr A brought his magnifying glass to inspect the leaves of various trees and plants. He said several of them were very interesting as we took the walk up to the Tiger Trail area since that's where all of the garden walks are.

On our way, Mr A noticed a long fence made of wood from trees... and also remembered that he had forgotten his Spy hat (safari hat that he uses for detective work)

We came across a pond that Mr A likes and stopped to observe the fish and mini tadpoles. I liked the flowers popping up from the lily pads. We spotted 3 colors: white, yellow and pink.

The Bonsai Pavilion was our favorite to observe trees... since they are smaller versions of the real things. I explained that bonsai trees are trimmed very carefully and precisely so that they remain small and shaped to look like their larger versions.

Mr A had the great idea of taping the foam manipulative shapes provided by MGT to sticks. He figured it would be easier to carry them around to find the different mystery shapes. We found a heart shaped leaf in the Bonsai Pavilion.

Looking closely at nature helped us spy tons of ants on this little bush. It was grossing me out, so I could not watch long enough to figure out what they were doing. The ants were not on any of the other plants like this.

I liked this little bonsai forest the best.

Mr A liked the cave that was forming at the base of this tree.

The boys watched the stream and found tons of water snails clinging to the rocks.

There was a mini version of the trees that giraffes eat. We admired there long sharp thorns and talked about how they have tough tongues to endure these prickly trees.

Advancing on our walk into the Baja Gardens and California Native area we came across several cactus plants that were as large as trees.

We observed bees working on the budding cacti.

Mr A spotted several heart shaped prongs on the cactus too.

Mr A also found this little flower that he said resembled his star mystery shape. He found circles all over the place too.

We had a great adventure day!