Grains: Food and Fitness

A new unit with Mother Goose Time is always exciting. February we are learning about Food and Fitness. Week 1 is all about the different food groups and we started off with Grains.

One of the things that I was able to add to our Mother Goose Time curriculum are these sight word readers. The boys each had their own books to color. I have a larger master copy that we read together. The focus words are I and like. After we read the story, Mr A colored his book and circled the word 'like' on each page. 

Another extra from the USDA that I received was this food groups poster. The boys found the grains section and named all the foods that they saw and liked in that area. Our Jane Grain poster is above the large poster.

Jane Grain is the character at the end of the sight word reader. She's made up of different grains. The boys named all of her different ingredients.
While Mr A was coloring his book we talked about where grains came from. His first answer was from the store. So, I had to be more specific in the question and ask before the grains get to the store, where do they come from. The grains come from a plant on a farm.
We talked about how the seeds from plants get ground to make a powder which makes bread, tortillas cereal or pasta. Just the other day, we went to a fair and Mr A ground some corn type seed to make a powder for tortillas. Using the mortar and pestle for smashing the grains was too much for him, so I had to help finish.

 Making new nametags.

 Craft of the day: Sandwich Art.

I got out blank pieces of paper so that the slices of bread could be glued on and we could hang the whole thing on the door. Mr Z glued one slice on then decided that the second piece needed to be glued on top... because that is how a sandwich is made. I thought it was pretty funny. Kids logic is so awesome.

Mr A finished his sandwich up and glued on all of his toppings... cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and ham. He didn't want to put the oats on.

He didn't want to glue his to the paper either and glued his sandwich together also... so he could eat it.

 Mr A found the grains section on our theme poster and pointed to his favorite thing on the topic poster. He chose that weird looking roll because it looks like cereal to him.

 We made the Pillsbury rolls for a snack and ate all of them.

African Birds

We googled African Birds on the computer and looks at different videos and pictures of various types of birds found in Africa. We listened to the sounds they made and tried to mimic them. We watched videos of the Secretary Bird, Ostrich and other small birds.

I asked Mr A what he thought his longest body part was. He automatically sat on the floor to stretch our his arms and legs. He decided that his legs were the longest.

I asked the same thing about flamingos. He also decided that the flamingos legs were probably the longest part of its body.

 Mr Z wasn't really interested in the flamingo craft provided by Mother Goose Time. I helped him quite a bit. He wanted it simple with the legs taped on, one feather and a tiny dot for the eye.

 Mr Z played with his flamingo for a minute then ripped all the pieces off and ran away to play with something else.

 Meanwhile, Mr A taped his legs on and added a bunch of glue to attach feathers all over the body.

I thought adding feathers all over was a clever idea. But after looking at the craft instruction sheet again, he got frustrated. Mr A didn't like his idea anymore and had to make it look like the picture. So, he ripped off the feathers and tried to draw in the wing. But, he couldn't make it exactly like the picture and got upset again and left to do something else.

We love the MGT crafts. They are always Mr A's favorite activity. But, lately he's been getting annoyed that he can't make it exactly like the photo that is given as an example. It looks like adults made the craft that is photographed. Last year, MGT used photos of projects made my kids usually by two different age levels. Mr A loved these. He was able to see that kids do projects differently and they don't have to look the same. But because the photos now show projects done by adults, he looses sight of his own creative freedom and gets frustrated more often that he can't make his look like the picture. Oh well, we'll get through it.
Going on Safari is now over and we will miss it but we've started a new unit: Food and Fitness.

Investigating Beetles

During our last week of our Mother Goose Time unit: Going on Safari, we learned about how we can go on a safari in our backyard. We investigated the grass, trees, water and insects like beetles.

Luckily I remembered that I had these insect tiles from Lakeshore. I do like being a school materials hoarding parent. I usually always have something extra to add to the lessons.
We found the tiles that were beetles and compared them to the Beetles poster provided by MGT. We tried to find the beetles ont he poster that resembled the ones in the tiles the best. Mr A found one that had spots, one that had similar colors and one that had stripes.

Mr Z used the insect tiles to make a tower... and dominoes ... and a home for his power ranger pegs from Little Peg Dolls.

While the boys were playing, we talked about how different species of beetles are different sizes. They can be tiny or huge. Beetles can also live in the grass, bark of trees, water and dung. Mr A thought living in poop would be rather gross.
He took a break and pretended to be an elephant spraying water on his back with this fun hat a friend dropped off.

MGT gave us these A to Z beetle cards as well. Mr Z immediately started matching up the beetles by color/style. Mr A told me what letter it was and the sound it made.

Then we picked them up in alphabetical order.

The boys had fun with Beetle day. I actually had things prepped the night before and that always helps with interest and transitioning between activities. It does make it more fun for everyone if I know what is going on with the lesson before hand.

Safari Park iSpy

The San Diego Zoo Safari Park focuses on animals from Africa. Since we have passes and live so close and are learning about safaris with Mother Goose Time, we had to get there.

I took most of our daily topic posters on a clipboard so the boys could play iSpy.

 While playing in the bushes, we figured out that Mr A had a better camouflage bandanna than Mr Z. The cheetah print was harder to find than the zebra.

 Mr A found these hut type structures while we were on the tram ride. They are just for shade for the animals, but they look like the huts we learned about, so Mr A made me take pictures of them.

 We observed African animals roaming freely on the tram ride. Its always a nice time to rest and listen to narrator tell us about the animals. We could see how the animals act in their 'natural' setting. We decided that these areas were like a game reserve. The animals are protected from bad things and can migrate and live on the land how they want.

What a fun day out and connecting with our MGT curriculum in real life.