Wow we have had such a busy and full month so far! Summer hit us hard here in the desert, but that hasn't stopped the kids from enjoying every minute of our Discover the Desert theme this month! Our first week the kiddos were Cowboys! The enjoyed making lassos, hats and boots! I think the lassos were one of their FAVORITES that week. After the project was over they spent nearly an hour in dramatic play! I had a housefly of lassoing cowboys :) First they wrangled the castle and then they went around the room catching everything from blocks to babies and dinosaurs! I heard lots of "yew-haw's" and "giddy-up's" that week! And EVERYONE was a partner! I love how Mother Goose Time includes so many fun projects that get the kids imaginations working. I see their littler personalities come out and the more fun they have while learning the more of it they remember! The kids favorite activity while we were learning about the Sahara desert was our pyramid craft! Every age group had a blast with this. They got to dip rectangle sponges into glue and "build" their pyramids with the glue and sand :) They enjoyed feeling the sand and watching it run through their fingers. It was a great sensory activity! We also got to learn about desert plants and animals! We did a sensory and discussion activity on the cactus plant and cactus seeds. We compared the tiny cactus seeds to other plant seeds we've seen before (sunflower, pumpkin, apple, watermelon, etc). The older kids enjoyed sorting the bowl of seeds to find different sizes, while they younger kids liked running the seeds through their fingers! The kids really enjoyed making their desert Cotton Tail bunny puppets. This was another art project that turned into an extended dramatic play session AND the kids learned a new song "Peter Cottontail"! They wanted me to sing it over and over until finally they had nearly memorized it! Our FCC office on post was having a summer camp for the kids. One of the days worked out perfectly with our desert theme because the Desert Wildlife Manger came out and did a lesson for the kids. He had all his animals out for the kids to see. They got to learn about and see a live desert tortoise, rattlesnake (caged) and owls! There were several other types of animals and bugs too. He had great information about how the animals live in the desert, which ones are dangerous and why. He also explained what to do if you saw a dangerous or injured animal. It was great! The kids got to pet the owl and they LOVED it! We also had a friend over late on Friday so we had a Friday Fun Day! I had done some searching and found a lesson from great old friend and someone every teacher looks up to: Miss Frizzle!!!! <3 I found a great Magic School Bus episode all about the desert. This has been such a fun theme packed full of learning and I LOVE the kids response. Because we live in the desert I've gotten reports on how many cacti were counted on a walk with the family, one child talking about a pack of burros they saw (we call them the neighborhood watch because they roam all over post), A-Bear told me all about a bunny she saw while she was at the park, and so many more great stories the kids have brought in about what they've seen in our desert :)
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Science is an important part of life, it's all around us! I love doing science with the kids because they get to ask questions, tell me their ideas and then test those ideas out. Without even knowing it they are building the foundations of the scientific process. In May we did A LOT of life science. We studied bees and butterflies. The kids spent nearly three weeks learning about our metamorphosis! They got to spend and entire month learning about how things grow. Our Mother Goose Time activities and discussions really helped the kiddos learn more about the basic needs and that plants, animals and even themselves have. We got to see little tiny caterpillars and talk about how they would grow. We discussed how we eat food and it helps us to get bigger and grow taller! They observed the caterpillars growing bigger too. The littles got to see the cocoons forming and a few of them even got to witness the butterflies emerging :) After our butterflies had emerged and had time to stretch their wings we talked about why we needed to let the butterflies free! We discussed places where the butterflies might like to live. We live in the desert, with very little flowers. The kids knew that the butterflies would need flowers for food so we talked about the community garden and how there were lots of plants and some flowers there. I set up a field trip with the garden and the kids couldn't wait! The kids also got to observe a little earth science during the release! Originally we were going to do our release on Monday, but it was raining and VERY windy. I asked the kiddos why today might not be a good day to let our butterflies out and they all said the rain would be too hard for them to fly in. They observed the weather on Wednesday and we decided that the nice sunny day would be perfect AND there wasn't too much wind that day. The kids were so excited to see the butterflies go free. While we were there the kiddos made a few observations: "we should let them out by the big flowers, so they have lots of food to eat", "there is a net above the garden that's nice and shady, will the flutters like that shade?", "there aren't birds in here so they might be safe and not eaten", "when the flowers get water the butterflies will be able to get a drink", and so many other cute little things were said!
The littles were all hard at work exploring the new environment for our butterflies and how all the things in the garden would work together to help our butterflies grow. Science is FUN! One thing that I just want to say is how much I have fallen in love with "themed base learning". The way that all of the Mother Goose Time lessons work together for an overall theme is perfect! It helps young children and toddlers think through an entire process or idea and make connections. I feel like it's one of the biggest reasons L-Bug has learned so much already. So after thinking about the fact that ALL of our lessons in one month are tied in to an overall theme it makes sense to bring in the idea that animals have homes too. People live in buildings and houses, even boats and RVs like we learned in week one. This week we we are on a little bit of a school break. we aren't going to be doing a TON of lesson because we have VBS and a lot of other summer fun family things going on. BUT, we are still doing a little bit of school and following along with each weeks "theme" from our MGT curriculum. This weeks theme was all about animal homes & habitats, so what better way to learn about it then with a field trip to the Zoo!!! A big thank you to L-Bug's Mamaw and Papa for taking us on our zoo trip. We saw so many animals and along the way we talked about the animals, what environments they lived in and what kind of homes they lived in. L-Bug was very interested to learn that some animals lived in trees (like monkeys) and that others lived in holes in the ground (like foxes and anteaters). Actually she said "WHHHAAATTT?!" A lot throughout the day... haha Last week a friend of mine (and a fellow Mother Goose Time Mom) and I, took our kiddos on a field trip to the Aquarium! We had plans to go to the beach that weekend as well but the weather didn't really cooperate with us. Our two year olds had an AMAZING time! They loved running from tank to tank looking at the "fishes" or "sea animals" as L-Bug calls them!
They got to see an up close view of how a fish breaths through it's gills! L-Bug was able to show me the sharks gills, fins, head, tail, body and eyeballs. The girls were VERY excited when they got to splash in the water tank and touch a live starfish! I talked with L-Bug about how the starfish's body felt and we said bumpy, wet, cold and rough. L-Bug LOVED these sea horses and the sting rays! We had such an awesome time with our kiddos and it was a great way to delve deeper into the lessons that we had been doing over these past few weeks!
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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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