Learning takes place in many different ways and through many different experiences. For little ones play is a large part of the learning process! Learning through Art! When we worked on our strawberry art project this month the girls got to practice a few different skills. First I asked them to look at the strawberry. We looked at it all over and described the things we saw: the red "flesh" of the strawberry and the green leaves on the top. Then I had the girls feel the strawberry and explain what it felt like. They described a bumpy texture. We looked at the strawberry a little closer and I explained that those little bumps they felt were seeds! We pulled a few off and the girls saw that the seeds were red, just like the rest of the strawberry. Next we pulled out some art supplies and I told the girls we were going to make our own strawberries. I put the materials on the table: a red cutout paper, a green square paper, scissors, a "pokey ball" and some red paint. I asked the girls how they thought we were going to use these different materials and they started exploring them. They both immediately knew that the red paper was for the strawberry and that the green was for the leaves. But they didn't know why in the world I had a little pokey ball in there. I explained that with the red paint and the pokey ball we could make little tiny dots on the strawberry paper and it would make it look like the little strawberry seeds. This got them very excited and they were both itching to try it. One problem, both of the girls do NOT like sticky things on their fingers. Miss L dipped the ball in the paint and tried to give it a roll, but she wound up with paint on her fingers and asked for a wipe! She tried again and got frustrated that she was getting "all icky". So I wiped down the ball and asked her to try dabbing or dotting the ball instead of rolling it. She got some pain on it and started spotting the paper with tiny little dots! L-Bug had been observing from the beginning and was excited to dot her paper next. Both girls enjoyed practicing their scissor skills and cutting up bits of green to use as leaves! Learning through Music This month the girls were especially excited to do Circle Time! When I would sing the clean up song for the first time in the morning they knew it was because we were going to do circle! They would race around the room picking up toys and hurry over to our calendar. Their favorite song was the Days of the Week song! Just about every day this last month of April they would ask me to sing the song a third and fourth time :) As I pointed to each day on the calendar the girls would sing along with me, watching intently. A few days ago I asked the girls, "who knows what today is?" neither of them could remember that it was Tuesday. But as soon as I told them, Miss L shouts out, "there it is, I found Tuesday!" I picked her up and asked if she could point it out for us and bam she smacked Tuesday right on the head! It made me so happy that in just two weeks of being in class Miss L had already made a discovery: She could find Tuesday on the calendar :) Another song that the girls really enjoyed this month was a circle time song about protein building strong muscles. L-Bug has been telling her daddy all month that he needs lots of protein to help him build his muscles when he goes to the gym! It's exciting that fun songs help instill real life ideas and knowledge in these little ones minds! Learning through Dramatic Play Dramatic play is a safe way for children to explore ideas, try out new roles, build friendships and to express a range of emotions. I really enjoyed doing the Mother Goose Time activity with the girls about "Fruits and Veggies with Peelings" ;) For this activity we ready a book about different emotions. Throughout the book were funny faced fruits and veggies acting out a range of emotions. As I read through the book I had the girls tell me what the fruit or vegetable was feeling and then I asked them to show me their faces for those emotions. The girls really enjoyed experimenting with their facial expressions and would show each other after taking a turn making the face in the mirror. After our story the girls played a game where they got to put different features on fruit and vegetable pieces. Then they got to make up a story about what the produce was feeling and why! The stories were great! We had a broccoli girl who was sad because she wanted to go to the park but it was raining and we had a sick pear who was happy because he got some medicine. Among all of the dramatic play activities we did this month I think that restaurant was one of my favorite! The girls got to take turns choosing what food group they wanted to eat and then helping each other find a food from that food group in the basket. The girls took turns helping each other and listened to why the other liked that kind of food! For the girls, I think their favorite dramatic play was when we made and baked pizza! They both really enjoyed the art project, but they LOVED getting to put their pizzas in the oven, turn up the heat and watch them bake. Their imaginations went wild with this for days! L-Bug would pretend to be the pizza man, cooking pizzas and delivering them to barbies and babies all over the room!
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The girl's really enjoyed the Dance-N-Beats DVD from our Mother Goose Time curriculum this month! They thought some of the outfits that the dancer was wearing were pretty funny, cute and silly :) The girls were excited to learn that dancing was considered a fitness activity! We know that the brain and body are connected. Movement based activities help children stay focused and can event help them practice language and math skills. During the Dance-N-Beats DVD the girls got to work on following directions, learn about the different way their bodies can move and just plain have fun! :) It is important for infants, toddlers and preschoolers to participate in movement and dance activities because it helps them to grow! Not only are they stretching out those muscles, but they are learning about their bodies. They might be moving their bodies in a way they have never done before! Dancing gives them the opportunity to feel their bodies movements and to have fun while doing it! It can also improve their balance and teach them to move more fluidly.
I think movement and dance is important for school-age children as well! Dance is a fun way to get the wiggles out and it's also a great way to get kids moving. Being active is an important part of health and fitness! Kids can get a great "work-out" from doing dance. This week have learned all about the kitchen! We learned about how to keep the kitchen clean and how it is important to wash our hands so we don't spread germs. We talked about ingredients and we reviewed our food groups. The girls got to practice chopping, measuring, pouring and mixing! But of all of the days I think baking day was their favorite! First we started of by "baking" some pizzas. The girls did an art project where they put all of their toppings onto the pizza paper. I thought it was comical how Miss L pilled all of her ingredients in one tower and how L-Bug lined her's up in rows. Once their ingredients were on they took them to the oven and put them in! L-Bug wanted to watch her's cook for a little. Later in the day the girls got to help me do some real baking! We made letter bread :) They had fun rolling the biscuit dough and tried their best to make letters, but mostly they handed pieces to me and told me what letters they wanted me to make! Another day this week the girls played a storyboard game! We read the "How Are You Peeling Today?" book that came in our Mother Goose Time box and I had the girls giving me their best emotion faces. Then they chose their fruits of veggies and added eyes, mouths, etc. Then the girls each got to tell a story about what their fruit was feeling and why! Miss L was explaining that her tomato was sad because he wanted to go to the park, but it was raining outside. L-Bug said her lemon was sick and kept sneezing. The girls really enjoyed playing restaurant! We got a basket full of food and everyone got a plate. Then each person got a stack of vocabulary cards and got to choose what food group they wanted from the "kitchen". Everyone took a turn saying what food group they wanted and then everyone else helped look through the basket until we found a piece that was in that food group :) Finally Miss L decided that she wanted one of everything from the kitchen and she laid out her cards. The girls had a fun week learning about the kitchen! They are really excited to learn about fit activities next week. L-Bug asked if we were going to "work out" at the gym like her daddy and I explained that the gym is great for adults to go to, but little kids could get hurt there so we would find fit activities and exercises to do in a safe way!
Oh my gosh, y'all I am so excited! I was doing some research online about creating healthy meal plans and with April being all about Food & Fitness with our Mother Goose Time curriculum I wanted to find some fun ways to incorporate the kiddos. I stumbled on the Super Healthy Kids website and I was BLOWN away with the awesome recipes. I watched a video about food prep and time saving tips for meal planning and I am so excited to get started working through the Fast & Fresh Kitchen Success Modules! With me having just opened my Family Child Care Home {Kiddie Korner} I'm realizing that any time saving tips are going to be very much needed! I had already completed my meal plan prior to opening, but I'm looking at some of these simple and healthy recipes and thinking I am going to need to make some adjustments to my meals!! Before getting started I reached out to see if they had an affiliate program and they did! I'm so excited to share my experience with the program and let you know what recipes the kids love the most! Let me know if you've ever done the Fast & Fresh modules or if you've ever cooked a SHK recipe before! I'd love to know what you think :)
It has been a fun and exciting week! We finally jumped into our Food & Fitness theme Mother Goose Time curriculum box! L-Bug was so excited to welcome a friend to our preschool class. Miss L joined us just in time to learn about food groups! I also had to give a shout out to an awesome 99 cent store find! These munchkin placemats! I had been looking all over for plates, placemats... SOMETHING for us to use at meal time and I hadn't been able to find anything! I was going to just make a copy of the Mother Goose Time Healthy Plate game and laminate them as placemats, but on a quick trip into the 99 cent store I found these awesome flexible, plastic placemats. And they work PERFECT! The girls were so excited that on day one they got to get messy with grains! We talked about the different things we use grains to make and the girls talked about how the different grains felt in their hands. Rice, quinoa, flour, oats, noodles and bread were some of the ones they got to feel. On day two the girls learned about vegetables! We talked about why it is important to wash our fruits and vegetables. The girls knew that fruits and veggies grew as plants in the dirt and outside. So they knew that they were dirty when the farmers pick them. L-Bug said they weren't dirty in the store anymore! I explained that the farmers washed them, but sometimes they didn't get all of the dirt off so before we cooked it or ate it we should clean it really good! Later in the day the girls went on a vegetable hunt around the room. And then they practiced their counting skills! Miss L is such a great counter, I observed her skills and she was able to count all the way to twenty! For a three year old I think that is pretty good :) For snack I asked the girls where their vegetables were and they both showed me their bell peppers! On day three the girls learned about fruit. We worked on a strawberry project and the girls got to practice their cutting skills using scissors. On day four we learned about dairy! The girls watched a video about how farmers milk cows. The girls seemed to really enjoy watching the video and as the farmer milked the cow and they practiced by rubbing the cows belly. After the video we went outside and practiced by using a rubber glove and water. The girls thought it was so interesting the way the water squirted through the small hole in the "utter". I explained when a cow is full of milk and the farmer milks it that is how the milk comes out. On the last day the girls learned about protein! We talked about how protein is an important food because it helps to build strong muscles. I explained that protein comes from things like meat: chicken, beef, turkey and fist! I also explained to the girls that some protein comes from other things like beans :) Then we got to do a fun project! The girls took a single bean and a cotton ball soaked in water and placed them into a bag. I taped the bags in the sunniest window in our school room so the girls can watch and see what kind of changes happen. Each day the girls take a look and poke around the cotton balls. They cal it watering the beans! This week we started to see some interesting changes! It has been such a fun week and I feel like I have learned many new things! The girls have learned so much about a healthy plate and about the different food groups. I've learned so much about observing the kids and assessing the skills that they have. Before I just had L-Bug and because she was my daughter I knew many of the skills that she had and I watched new ones develop over time. But with Miss L, I only just met her and I as her teacher it's my job to get to know her and to assess the skills she has to that I can learn how to guide and teach her!
Well tomorrow I will be officially open with my first little one enrolled in care :) That means L-Bug will have a new friend to do pre-school with! She is really excited. I had to share a few fun things we did today with our Mother Goose Time curriculum. I told L-Bug this month we are going to be learning about Food, Fitness & Health and that one very important aspect about staying healthy is learning about germs and how to avoid spreading them! It was quite a comical lesson today :) When I told L-Bug that our cards were germs, she wanted nothing to do with touching them or ANYTHING that they touched. It was pretty funny, she told me she just wanted to stand and watch the story this time.
carried some of the germs with her to her house! At her house Lindsey's mom and dad gave her lots of hugs and kisses, so the germs Lindsey brought home got on her mom and dad too. Lindsey's dad went to work and brought some of the germs with him. When he was making lunch for his friends at work he touched the food and the germs got all over the food. Everyone who ate the food got the germs on them. Then I explained to L-Bug that germs are what cause people to get sick. After the story was done I asked L-Bug if she knew why Sarah didn't take any germs with her. She told me: "because she remembered to wash them off of her hands!" :) She got the message! So that led perfectly into why hand washing is important. She did a fun art project that she got to hang on the bathroom door to help remind all of our friends to wash their hands. L-Bug and I also talked about Lindsey's dad making food for his friends and how he spread the germs to them because he didn't wash his hands before he touched all of the food. So L-Bug and I went and washed our hands before we moved on to our next project... making snack and talking about safety in the kitchen. We talked about things in the kitchen that are hot (oven, pots, pans, spoons on the stove, food that hasn't cooled, etc) and we talked about things int he kitchen that could cut us (knives and scissors). I helped show her the right way to hold a knife and we talked about keeping our fingers away from the sharp part while we cut. Then she sliced up her banana with a butter knife! After snack was over we played a fun sorting game with her mini-veggie manipulatives :) The best part of the lesson today was so funny... every time I touched the germs L-Bug would not let me touch her. She didn't want me anywhere near her! Haha And if I did touch her she had to go "wash her hands". She went to her pretend sink and washed them up! Once we were done with the lesson and L-Bug was putting her barbies away she told me she needed to wash their hands or else they were going to bring the germs to the doll house and all over it.
Yup... Mission Accomplished! She learned something ;) |
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Proud supporter of Mother Goose Time curriculum!All the posts in this blog are from real life experiences. We've taken the activities and materials provided in the Mother Goose Time curriculum and modified it in different ways to fit our lifestyle. Enjoy the read!
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