The kids have had a blast this month learning all about the people who live and work in our community! I think one of their favorite days was chef day. They love anything that has to do with imaginative play and they were excited to wear chef hats, go grocery shopping and cook up some tasty meals :) I loved these little grocery lists that came in our chef day bag from Mother Goose Time. I cut them out and laminated them so they can be reused with erasable markers! The kid used their shopping baskets to go on a scavenger hunt finding foods that were on their list throughout our room! Sometimes they were toy kitchen foods, other times we searched for materials that were the same color to pretend it was the item we needed! We talked about healthy foods and I was surprised L-Bug even remembered some of our food groups that we talked about a few months back in our Food and Fitness module! The kids had a blast with this imaginative game and after we were finished finding all of the ingredients we got to work in the kitchen and made up some delicious snacks!
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We had a pretty busy week!! Lots of new families came to interview throughout the week and I'm excited to announce that next week will have some new friendly faces at Kiddie Korner :)
With all the business we didn't get to do quite as many lessons as we would have liked, BUT the girls are loving our study on metamorphosis. We started our week talking about the lifecycle of a Butterfly. I really liked the layout of our Mother Goose Time daily topic posters for our discussion. We were able to use the posters from throughout the week with our Insect Lore Butterfly Lifecycle stages pieces!
I introduced the girls to our new friends! They were in awe of how tiny our little caterpillars were.
Check out this time lapse of our baby caterpillars!
One of the girls favorite activities this week was building their own caterpillar snack! We used cucumbers for the body, tomatoes for the head, pretzels for the feet and raisins for the eyes.
Here is a video of our not so little caterpillars! While the kids were observing the caterpillars on this day Little K said the caterpillars looked silly climbing upside down like that! I asked everyone what they thought the caterpillars were doing up there. The answers were pretty funny! "Trying to escape", "Running from each other"... etc. We talked about how full their tummies must be and how big they got, Then L-Bug said :O "Oh yay! Now they are going to sleep in their cocoons!!!" So awesome to see them excited about learning :)
Another activity the girls really enjoyed this week was making their own butterfly lifecycle plate. By the end of the week (when we did this lesson) they remembered all the stages of metamorphosis.
The last day of the week the kids got to see these guys working into their cocoons!
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!
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 ;)
Another thing I'm really excited about is teaching the little ones about the kitchen! Week #2's lessons are all about Kitchen Safety, Cleanliness and Kitchen Tools. There is lots of great things the kids are going to get to learn AND they are going to get to help prepare food, watch it cook and then enjoy their delicious work! I love these recipe cards that come each month in our curriculum. I'm still trying to find a nice large recipe box that I like to store these in. Any ideas?! And check out our book for this month! "How Are You Peeling - Foods with Moods"!
I have to give a big thank you and shout out to Mother Goose Time! Before we started using this curriculum I used to let L-Bug "help" in the kitchen on very rare occasions! And when I say help it was: let her stand on a step ladder with a spoon and occasionally let her pour some pre-measured ingredients into the bowl. But L-Bug LOVES being in the kitchen. She loves baking cookies with her Daddy, Grammy and Auntie and she loves when we have a snack lesson because she gets to help cook it! I've also learned that if we are going to be trying something new L-Bug is more apt to trying it without such a big protest if she has gotten to help cook it! I've started teacher her how to read a recipe card and the Mother Goose Time instruction cards make it easy for her to follow along. First we wash up and then we gather all of our ingredients. And instead of her just standing at the counter while I get everything I have her help me get the things she can reach! This has actually made other meal times easier too because she knows where her plates, bowls and cups are. And it gives her a little more independence to help! I have her point to the different steps as we go. "So we just washed our hands, right? What's the next step?" Sometimes she can tell me by looking at the picture and other times she isn't quite sure what's next. When things are difficult (like cutting a tortilla with a butter knife) I let her have a good try or two and then I help her out! She's always very proud of whatever she has made in the end! Letting your kids help in the kitchen may be a little scary to you at first. But start with simple things like making a fun and easy snack!
I love these fun little Recipe Cards we get each month in ourMother Goose Time curriculum! Before I never really knew how to have L-Bug help me in the kitchen. I was too nervous that she would get into things she shouldn't, make a big mess, or even get hurt. But these recipe cards helped me to get past all of that and I have started including her in more and more meal-time prep! She likes to help pour, stir and anything else I will let her help do in the kitchen {YES even washing dishes!!} :)
This was an easy little snack we did where I used my biscuit cutters to let L-Bug "cut" out the circles on her own. I really like that the cards have step-by-step directions and that each step has a picture. I like taking opportunities like this to teach L-Bug practically! So from the beginning we have always followed the recipe and directions. From repetition L-Bug knows we start at step one! By looking at all of the great illustration on the card she knows we wash our hands first. Then we go to step two!
It's fun to let her take the lead now because she knows the routine and then I like to let her tell me what she thinks step two says to do. Sometimes she gets it right and when she doesn't I usually say something like, "Well that is a good idea! But the directions actually want us to....."
This little snack was so easy that she was actually able to tell me each step correctly :)
I need to get a little recipe box to put all of these in so L-Bug can choose which snack she wants to make by picking a card out. I just can't seem to find a box long enough or tall enough to fit these cards! If you have any ideas I'd love to see your comments below :) Thanks!
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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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December 2023
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