Crafting and Making Messes with MGT

One of the crafts this week was to make a handheld mirror. We're talking about feelings this week and sometimes its fun to see what you look like while you're mimicking an emotion.

Mr Z just drew some squiggles and called them snakes.

Mr A took time to glue his reflective paper to the frame and then glued the sparkly jewels on. He loves the sparkly jewels and used all of them. I even had to scrounge up some extras from the drawer so that he could put them all they way around his mirror.
At first he was trying to copy the sample picture on the instruction sheet, but I told him when doing crafts and art projects, he has creative freedom to do what he wants. It doesn't have to look like the example. What's creative freedom? he asked. So I reassured him that it meant he gets to make all of the decisions on what his project looks like and he doesn't have to make it look like anyone else's. He can do whatever he wants while doing crafts. He was very excited about that.

Then Mr A started talking about that sun and the moving earth... The sun is going to other side of the earth because the earth moves. But we don't feel it because we are spinning with the earth too. I have no idea why this was on his brain. Lol.

While gluing though, he put too much glue on the reflective paper. When he pressed the two pieces together, the excess glue squished out the sides and made a mess on his desk. He was worried I'd be upset at the mess.

It's okay though isn't it because it's a learning desk? It's a real learning school desk?

That little comment stuck with me and made me feel bad. I guess I get on their case about messes quite a bit. But, he is right... his desk is for learning and making messes is a part of learning... even if it's just glue squishing out of his papers. Messes can be cleaned, especially if they're on his desk.

Craft provided by Mother Goose Time in our curriculum kit

Emotions Identification and Expression

I, personally, have never good at expressing my feelings. I still keep everything to myself. Communication is on my "I hate doing it because don't know how to do it" list. I tend to overthink everything, worried of being judged or in trouble because of my feelings,

Now that I have kids, I have trouble teaching them about emotions and to express or communicate them properly to others. I can already tell the effect that I have on the kids in this department.

Mr A is exactly like me and bottles everything up, thinks things over for far too long and won't tell anyone what is actually on his mind. He's  sensitive.

Mr Z is just temper driven, vocal and physical. He will yell at and hit whatever he can when he's upset. With him, its either happy or raging mad.

They are complete opposites in the 'express your feelings' department.

Anyway, I think that's why this themed unit will be important for us... it forces to discuss topics that I don't normally think about. Sure, as a parent you have plenty of opportunities throughout the day to talk about feelings and how to handle them, but hopefully this will help it stick a little better in their brains.

The boys found the magnifying glasses that correlate with the theme poster. They both picked a couple of the pictures and found the match on the poster. Mr A made the matching expression too. Mr Z made the expression on his face until I would try to take a picture of him, then he would smile.

In one of the daily packages was a My Feelings Book. Inside the child draws a picture of a feeling and they complete the sentence at the bottom. I feel happy when ...

On the cover are the pictures from the theme poster and I found Mr Z had matched up our children figurines to each face on the cover.

The game for today included the tangrams we received in the curriculum as manipulatives. Shapes with faces were placed in a bag and pulled out one at a time. We found the matching tangram and traced it on our papers.

Mr A drew his happy face on the triangle.

He then drew his own rectangle. He did the top line then one line down and finished by making dots for the other lines and traced them. I thought that was pretty clever. However, when he drew the face, the eyes didn't come out how he wanted them. Mr A got really upset and wanted to give up. I told to draw another rectangle and so he did. He completed the face, but it still wasn't just right and he got upset again, making excuses why it wasn't good enough and saying he couldn't do it because the mouth wasn't the way he wanted. How do discourage this kind of negativity and turn it into a positive? I tried reassuring him he did do it and he did it great. But he just drew a different man made of shapes on a separate sheet of paper instead.
Usually when Mr A gets upset he throws and tantrum and gives up, especially with crafts. I'm not sure how to get him past this. I don't want him giving up so easily when things get a little difficult or disappointing. I know this not be useful for him when he's older.

I traced my shapes, added different faces and bodies. Then Mr Z matched the shapes to where they go on the page. He loves matching.

Mr A drew this awesome little guy after we played the Feeling Shapes Game. Apparently its a duck boy because he has long big feet with a block on his head. Lol. He asked me to write some letters and shapes that were hidden in his picture. Mr A told me what letters to use. Then had his Daddy find the hidden letters. I think this idea was inspired by his More Math & Literacy workbooks since they have hidden picture pages in them too.

We tried our Dance N Beats dvd today. I did several songs by myself. Then Mr A joined in for one song but only because it looked like an easy one. Mr Z was trying to do something on his tablet and kept yelling at me to stop dancing.

This is such a fun add-on from Mother Goose Time. I really enjoy how the dvd says the name of the move you're doing in the bottom left corner of the screen. It used to not be like that when we did it several months ago. Having the written name of the move we're doing is helpful... to me, I think. It also comes with a guide book with dance moves, crafts and activities to coordinate with the song or dance. Since I am completely out of shape and have no endurance, it helps me raise my heart rate for a few minutes.

I Am Special

Setting up materials and not suggesting or telling the boys "its time to do this now", has really helped to 'invite' them to do the activity. Since we got this desk, I've been setting the craft from Mother Goose Time on top and taping the instruction sheet to the wall. Mr A either wants to do it first thing in the morning when he sees it, or he remembers at some point during the day. The other day, he did one of the crafts while eating dinner.

Here we made an I Am Special tree from our Mother Goose Time curriculum. I helped the boys trace their hands on the paper and cut out Mr Z's for him. Mr A cut his own out and we glued them down for the trunk and branches. I figured the less messy choice for making leaves, was to use the Do-a-Dots blotters. 

I love how Mr A made some of his leaves falling to the ground. =)

I also set out the basket of our manipulatives/counters. They boys found those right away too and just started making things and playing with them.

Mr A built a wall, added the 4 largest triangles on the top and called them shark teeth.

Mr Z sorted them by color.

Mr A made a kite.

I made the flower. Mr A called it a windmill. Then he pulled off two of the triangles and put them together then added the blue rectangle. Watch this. If you take these and put them together,  you can create something new. It's a tree... you can also make one like this. He grabbed one large triangle and added the red rectangle to make another tree. I was impressed. Him doing something so simple was pretty awesome to watch. Mr A is making more connections, using his imagination and knowledge to do things his own way. That's some cool learning... especially when none of it was prompted.

Then the started building wall with the buses and shapes. Houses and parking lots for the cars and trucks.

Stations. Invites to play, investigate and create. They've been the key to getting the boys to participate a little more. Its their decision to participate and initiative that makes it more fun for them, I think. I'll be doing this a little bit more to see how it goes. Trying different methods of 'teaching' sure has its benefits. I'm so glad the boys have a good time with this curriculum.

Manipulatives and Add-Ons from MGT

I can't believe the success of these little bus counters we received from Mother Goose Time this month! The boys have been playing with them all day, every day since I opened up the curriculum box. Mr Z always has at least 2 in his hands.
The other day, I got out one of spinners that came in previous units. Mr Z immediately started matching the colored buses to the spinner. That's when Mr A noticed there were no orange buses included.

They've been making "houses" out of various materials and tracks to drive them on.

One of the games in the daily package, was a rolling cube and cards. The boys took turns rolling the cube to find out where they needed to meet their friends. Friends (or buses) were placed at the different location cards. Mr A would roll the cube and drive a bus over to meet its other bus friends.

Having a special desk with special things in it is a great help for Mr A. The other day a school advertised its closing and was giving away desks for free. I got there just in time to snag the very last one. Mr A loves his 'real school desk'. He sat there very nicely to do his projects and workbooks.

MGT offers great add-ons for each unit. We are fortunate enough to get a few of them. For several months, we have been getting the More Math and Literacy workbooks. They cover basic skills like numbers, patterns, following directions, letters, beginning sounds and so many more concepts. I think they are fabulous for reinforcement. Mr A still really only likes to do the math book though. But, he did sit at his desk for much longer than usual to get some pages done.

We are still finding what works best for us. I struggle with consistency. The boys struggle with focusing. A part of me wants to be the disciplined teacher that makes them learn the basics now to be ahead in school later. The other part wants them to be happy and have fun while learning. I think the second wins all the time. I try not to force them to do everything my way. I try not to get frustrated if they just aren't into learning something or listening to what I am trying to teach. I think that's the hardest part of being the teacher and the parent... the lines gets crossed multiple times. They know how to push my buttons. They know they have more slack here at home with me, than they would somewhere else. Teacher vs parent is a tough thing for me. I like being the teacher. I like being the parent. Sometimes the cross of the two is hard.

Oh well... that's what MGT is helping us with... learning while having fun and not stressing about academics.
I guess its easier to learn the academics while you're having fun and playing.
Just be the parent and spend time with the kids... while doing activities.