Noah and the Ark

Noah's Ark with MGT's Experience God

Experience God is an add-on program that Mother Goose Time offers. We like the simplified version of the bible stories that are featured in the lessons.

This whole week I've been a day ahead of myself for some strange reason. So, I thought today was Sunday and planned to do the Experience God lessons. Well, I guess you can talk about God any day of the week and so we started our discussion.

Mr A was interested in the story since it was about a big boat and a flood. The packet includes a featured scripture to talk about throughout the lessons/month and so I tried to come up with examples that the boys could connect too to help understand what was meant. Mr A just said that non of it made sense. Oh well, it may click later.

We made a list of things that you may need or would be helpful to build a boat. I think Mr A's idea of paper was funny... because you may want to keep busy by painting pictures while stuck in a boat. Then talked about that if we "listen" hard enough to what God is asking us to do, He will provide everything we need to accomplish it, just like He did for Noah. Then I read the included story cards about Noah and the Ark.

The boys were rather antsy after all the discussion and the story. So, we hopped straight to the craft... the Ark Art. In the children's packets there are four crafts, one for each week that corresponds with the theme of the week for the story.
The boys cut out their animals and log strips. You can kind of see what the project should look like from the tiny picture on the right of the guidebook.

Mr Z chopped his papers up and began gluing all over the place.

Love Mr Z's tongue sticking out while he is concentrating so hard.

I thought this was clever from Mr Z. He added glue just to the feet of the rhino's. Then of course he added more animals on top of them.

Mr Z's Ark Art.

It cracks me up how he just piles things on top of each other and is just happy with it.

Mr A took a different approach to his ark. He wanted it to look so good. He was singing a song while he added his wood paper pieces to the roof... "I'm patching up the roof, with these squares. I'm patching up the roof to the boat."

He added some small fabric flowers to his ark to decorate it and make it look pretty for Noah and all the animals. Mr A also added his animals to the front and back of his ark so that they could be inside the boat.

While I was doing something in the kitchen, Mr A came out with this puzzle. He mentioned that it would be a good thing to do because it had all the animals and a boat on it. I told him it was actually perfect for the story we learned about because it was called Noah's Ark. I had completely forgotten about this puzzle in the closet. Mr A was pretty excited that it was actually about Noah's Ark and got right to putting it together.

The boys like to put together the boat first and can do the puzzle by themselves. We hadn't really noticed before that there were actually 2 of each animal in the picture.

What a fun way to spend the morning. The puzzle was a happy surprise that connected the story in a different way.
I'm grateful MGT makes it easier to bring these lessons into the home in a fun way.

Vulture vs Urchin

A to Zoo Animals with Mother Goose Time

V is for Vulture and U is for Urchin

As you may have noticed, we are not doing this month's curriculum in alphabetical order. Mr A likes to pick what animal he wants to learn about. I think that it gives him a sense of control and sparks more interest in the lessons. Because why should I prep a lesson and spend tons of time getting things together, if he doesn't even care about it. Well, I mean, sometimes I choose... but not very often. My favorite conversations with the boys is when I don't have anything in particular planned and one of them starts by asking, "What are we learning about today Mom?"

Now, I'm sure by now you know that MGT sends some pretty awesome things in each month's box. Since the theme is zoo animals, we got more animal figurines to use for various activities. These are always the boys' favorite. However, these animals are a softer plastic/rubber and are a little bit flimsy. They get frustrated when they won't stand up properly or the tails eventually get pulled off. But, those things don't actually make them love the figurines any less. Mr A and Mr Z will play and play with all of these shape counters/manipulatives/figurines... whatever you want to call them.

The boys started off by playing with these and sorted by color and animal type. They put them "into families" as they like to call it. It usually works out great with the colors that they are made in for when they like to divide them up... Mr A gets yellow and blue while Mr Z gets the green and red. It rarely differs from that. Luckily, they have pretty much settled when new shapes are sent in the box.

For the rest of the activities and discussions today, it was like pulling teeth. Mr A would say he wanted to do something then completely change his mind and go do something else. When I finally gave up trying to "do MGT", they were ready to sit and do some things.
So... we talked about the differences of the urchin and vulture by looking at our zookeeper animal cards. We noticed that they are pretty much opposite animal types. One living in water, the other in the sky/on land. One having (maybe) soft feathers, the other sharp pokey spikes.
 Then they sat nicely and painted a letter U paper, provided by MGT with a porcupine ball. I was surprised that they both actually used the porcupine ball the entire time. Both boys normally ask for a paint brush or something that is easier to hold.

 Mr Z likes to add lots of color right away.

 Then mixes it all together to make brown.

 Of course, swirling the paint all together in his bowl is a must too... so he gets even more brown.

 Mr A said, "My U is getting really sea urchin style with of these spikes," after he filled up his letter.

 Once a month, MGT also sends a postcard in the box somewhere. After talking about different animals that live at the zoo, they colored a picture on the front. Mr Z drew some kind of rainbow I guess. Mr A copied his favorite animal toy, Little Howler, and called it a coyote snow fox on his postcard. Mr A also dictated what message to write on the back and who to send them too

Some days are just a pain to try to do lessons and activities. This was one of those days. But, finally, it came together and we were able to do a few things. Even if we only get one or two activities done, I still feel accomplished or better that we did something productive.

G is for G-G-Gorilla

A to Zoo Animals with Mother Goose Time

At about 5pm last night, Mr A mentioned that we hadn't done any activities. So, I told him to go pick an animal picture from the Zookeeper booklet that he wanted to do. He picked gorilla. While they ate dinner and had a bath, I gathered a few things and looked over the MGT lesson. We ended up only doing two things since it was already getting late. But, I'm happy he was eager to do something from the lessons since they were busy just playing all day.

One of the extra things (manipulatives) that came in the month's curriculum were alphabet tiles. They remind me of plastic scrabble letter tiles. We used them for Mr Z to match the letter on the Gorilla Letter Search Card. Mr A liked to give him the letter and help Mr Z find the letter if he was taking too long himself. We went over the sound the letter and the name. 

Mr A did a great impression of a gorilla. He walked on his fisted hands, pounded his chest and made several grunting noises around the house.

The Gorilla Mask craft.

This is what the instructional sheets look like. It has a focus question, explore/play idea and instructions on how to do the craft. Mr A likes making his look like the picture. I tried to tell him that the comb that was included in the materials was to paint a textured hair look, but he had already decided that he was going to glue his comb onto the head of his mask... because that is how it looks in the picture.

We talked a little bit about gorilla's grooming each other. They thought it was gross that they had bugs that may need to get picked off and sometimes eaten after one is found.

Mr Z decided he wanted to use his favorite color paint to use the comb... after he had brushed his own hair for a few minutes with the comb.

Mr A just wanted to color his with marker. He left a space on the gorilla's forehead, where he had traced the comb, to glue it on when he was finished coloring.

Mr Z painted away with his comb, flicking his wrist to try to get a different texture. He ended up just getting too much paint in one spot and couldn't really make the hair-like lines.

It looks like Mr Z's gorilla got into a battle with the red paint... and of course, he needed to glue the comb to the forehead too like his brother did.

Mr A was proud of the ears, nose and mouth he colored on the face.

Zookeeper Animal Scavenger Hunt

A to Zoo Animals with Mother Goose Time

Yes, another field trip to the Zoo!

In the curriculum box, there is a Zoo Animals Identification booklet for each child. I laminated all the cards and put them together for the boys. I added a photo for the Zookeeper I.D. page and the boys have been pretty excited about their little books. On one side of the card is the letter of alphabet and the reverse has the picture of the corresponding animal.

We were supposed to add a new card to the booklet each time we learn about a new one... at least, that's what it suggests in the Teacher Guide.

The boys dad suggested that we go to the SD Zoo today since the MGT topic is about zoo animals. Mr A was eager to bring the alligator buddy we made yesterday and his booklet. He also suggested that we take all of the other animals and add the cards as we find them at the zoo. A scavenger hunt for live animals! Great idea, little man... one item from Mother Goose Time for on-the-go learning. This guy is catching on how to take learning everywhere.

Before we left though, I added another hole punch in each of the cards and to their books. The cards came pre-hole punched from MGT, but Mr Z figured out that it was rather difficult to keep them in order and find the animal he was looking for. So, I added a second ring to the bottom, so that it opened more like a book and the boys could look through it easier to find the animal they want to look at. So, if you are doing A to Zoo Animals too and have people with small hands, I suggest using a second ring at the bottom of the cards. The kids will appreciate it more.

Mr Z and I hanging out on the gorilla.

B is for Bird. We found the macaws pictured on the zookeeper card.

C is for Camel. This guy was up close and personal trying to eat the grass near the railing.

L is Llama. ...even though this llama doesn't look exactly like the one on the card, they are relatives and Mr A thought it was close enough to get added to their booklets.

Z is Zebra. Normally the zebras are too far away to really look at, but this guy was  munching away on some food and refused to stop. I couldn't wait all day for him to lift his head. I was impressed by its ears though. They're pretty funny looking.

O is for Otter. We love finding the otter. Sometimes he plays with the monkeys, other times he just does silly things while swimming... like curl in a donut and chase his own tail.

H is for Hippo.

Mr A was asking about the gharials the entire time, so I made sure it was our last stop. Alligators were fresh in our minds and these guys fascinate Mr A for some reason. He couldn't really tell me why but did mention he likes their skinny snouts.

It was funny to watch this turtle climb on the gharial's back to sun himself. The turtle's idea of a log didn't last very long, the gharial didn't like him up there and swam off to find a better spot.

We noticed their texture and figured it was pretty close to the fabric swatches I had out yesterday. Mr Z didn't want to leave this guy. He liked looking at it for some reason too... maybe because it was so close to the glass.

Anyway, we had a good time finding animals from our zookeeper cards and the boys are excited to have their booklets filled a little bit more with animal pictures.

Happy Learning.