I got a lot of great responses from my post with the "rotation stations" that I thought I'd share another example that included sensory, science, critical thinking and exploration! During our section in biology during our Science Fair theme we learned about living and non-living things. I loved the daily topic poster! The kids knew the difference between the living bear and the non-living bear and it made it easy for the kids to answer questions like "Does this one... breath, sleep, eat, grow or change... etc". For this rotation station set up I had five stations that the kids used. This first station was the one I helped with the most! It required me to ask the kids questions and help them critically think about whether an object was living or non-living. The child would choose a picture from the pile and then we would start with the questions. "Does it move all by itself?" "Does it grow and change?" "Does it breathe?" "Does it need food and water to survive?" After asking the child a question they would choose the YES or NO tag and put it in the column under the question. After all of the questions the children would determine if the object was living or not? The kids had fun picking a photo from the pile and then deciding if it was alive or not!
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During our Science Fair theme we got this awesome book from Mother Goose Time, Ingenuity. I am a huge fan of the books that we receive each month and I LOVE that they always integrate so well into our theme. The illustrations are fun and the stories are easy for the kids to comprehend! A lot of the books from Mother Goose Time have different learning levels! From simple to read lines to in depth ideas and concepts to discuss with the children. The book Ingenuity, takes our young learners through many scientific principles. The book teaches them about many of the great minds who established laws of science as well many other great scientific achievements. Here are a few pages about Isaac Newton. The kids enjoy the illustrations because they are fun and inviting! Alfred Nobel I really like when stories have interactive capabilities. For instance this page has a section where you are asked to find the matching pairs of rhyming words. These engage the kids more in the story. Albert Einstein I wanted to note something that I really enjoyed about this story. The authors started each scientist's story out at a point in their lives when they were children. I feel like this helps kids to relate to the scientist and see that they started as kids too and grew into great scientists. Thomas Edison Another favorite aspect of mine in this book... the quotes! There are quotes through the book from each of the scientist discussed. Rachel Carson You can see shortened the sections our "notes bout this book" were referring to. The bolder text are the shortened version of the book that you can read for younger groups. Did I mention I love the illustrations! Too cute <3 I love this "call to action" on the last page! The last three sentences encourage the kids and remind them that they if they put their minds to something they can do great things. What do you think?! I'm so thankful Mother Goose Time sends us a new book every month! The kids love them and I enjoy incorporating them into our lessons.
I've always loved the Little Helpers set up that Mother Goose Time sends every year with our set up materials. I've just never really found a way to utilize them in my classroom. We don't have a class pet, the kids don't help with lights... BUT I was running into some arguments about who's "turn" it was to be my big helper for snack time prep and clean up. Then a light bulb came on and I found the little helpers signs. YUP! There were snack helper and table washer signs in there that I could definitely use!!! I found this fun utensil caddy at the Dollar Tree and decided with some popsicle sticks it would be the perfect Big Helper station! I used some leftover popsicle sticks from a past activity and wrote all the kiddos names on them. Then I put them in a small box. Each day I pull out two popsicle sticks and have the kids see whose names they are. Those are my two Big Helpers of the day! One get's to be my table washer. They help me wipe down the table before snack and clean it and the chairs up after we are finished eating. The other kiddo get's to be my snack helper. They help set out the dishes we will be using and make sure every friend gets one for snack time. Then after we are finished eating they get to help me vacuum up the snack area to be sure we don't have any "squishies" on the floor :) The kids seem to really like getting surprised and seeing who's name comes out of the box each day! It's also a great way to get in some name recognition!
Though it may not seem like a large age difference the capabilities of children 18 months old versus 2 years old versus three years old can be VERY different! So I love activities that are easy to incorporate in my multi-age classroom. A great example an activity like this is our recent caterpillar building exercise! A simple project that really required noting more than a pipe cleaner and beads was able to captivate and challenge all the kiddos! At one level the kids are working on fine motor skills, stringing those beads onto that pipe cleaner. At another level encouraging those that can to say the bead colors as they string them on, and even helping those little learners who haven't mastered their colors yet. Yet another level, having the older range count their beads once they have finished stringing them on was one way I kept their attention while some of the younger ones were able to get caught up finishing getting all their beads on. Then we had all the friends line their caterpillars up from shortest to longest. This gave me several opportunities! 1) I was able to work with the children on positional phrases "underneath", "on top" and "next to". 2) It gave me the chance to watch some of the older kids assist the younger ones and I was able to use this time to remind the older ones about using kind words versus bossy words. Hearing these instructions don't just help the older ones I'm guiding but it helps all the children learn those important social skills.
This month Mother Goose Time accidentally shipped me an extra month's worth of curriculum! So I chatted with the my Blog coordinator and she said because shipping it back would be pricey I can do a local blog giveaway instead! So I'm going to share with you all of the awesome materials that come in the curriculum kit and do a drawing Sunday evening for one lucky winner :) To be entered please head over to https://www.facebook.com/KiddieKornerKare/?fref=ts and hit like! Then comment below with what you like the most about the curriculum. The kit contains enough materials for six kids to paricpate! For those who are new to the way the Mother Goose Time curriculum is set up let me give you a quick run down! The entire month comes packaged in a giant box. Each month we receieve a different thematic study. Under that theme each week is narrowed down into it's own category. Finally each day has a specific topic related to the week's category! One of my favorite things about the curriculum is how easy everything is to use. Each day is seperated into it's own bag. To prep all you need to do is open the bag, review the teachers guide and gather any of the additional suggested items listed in the guide. Sometimes there is some items that need to be pre-cut, or prepped, but it never takes me more than a few hours to prepare the ENTIRE month :) It's super simple to follow. Our December theme is Winter in the Woods! The first bags to grab and check out are the Teacher Tool Bag, the Circle Time Bag and for December the Santa's Workshop Bag. These bags contain the Teachers Guide, Planning Journal, Calendar, etc. Here is all the goodies hiding inside the Teacher's Tool bag and the Circle Time bag. Each month we focus on a new set of letters, numbers, a shape and a character trait. So you'll see the pieces for those below. The kit also comes with a custom CD full of fun kids music based on the theme. There are also two manipulatives in the kit (counting bears-left and stacking blocks-right). These toys are used throughout the month in the different activities. And again in the middle you see some hands on letter cookie cutters and a shape stamp! So fun :) So many awesome materials and activites come in the curriculum. Here is a snap chot of the different art projects for the whole month. Another fun thing to mention is the Santa's Workshop included in this months box! It includes invitations, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas Story with story telling pieces, a Snack idea, Santa Spoon Puppets, Santa's Beard Game and a Reindeer Training Game. Lots of fun to do with your little's as a group OR to use during an open house and invite the parents to participate. Winning the curriculum will not only mean that you receive the box of curriculum but a code to get access to the website for the month where you can download any additional resources for December that you would like!
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!
Teaching toddlers how to identify their names! I love our name tags that come every month in our Mother Goose Time curriculum, they are always so cute and coordinate with the new theme. I used the name tags in a little game this week! The kids really enjoyed it too :) First I put all of the name tags in the middle so see who could ALREADY find their names without any help or clues. I was so proud of KK because she went straight for it! Then I helped all of the other children find their names by giving them some clues "find the letter B, that's what your name starts with"! After everyone had their name in front of them I went letter by letter and showed each of them how their name is spelt. Then we flipped the name tags over and mixed them all! I put them back in the middle and turned them over to see who could find their name again! They loved searching around for their name and got excited when they found it! They wanted to do it again, so we spelled their names again and then shuffled them up one more time for them to find. After they all had their name tags back I got out my favorite little pencils and helped each of the kiddos trace their names. Really at this age it isn't about if they trace right, it's about teaching them how to grip the pencil and the repetition of hearing their name spelt and seeing it in front of them. As they worked I would ask them ago the letters in their name. "Can you show me where the first letter of your name is? What letter does your name start with?" or "Let' spell your name together!" Then having them point to each letter as we said them together.
One thing that really get's kids thinking are those little manipulative toys with open ended ways to play with them! When toys have multiple ways they can be played with a lot is left up to the imagination of the child. Another reason I love manipulatives is because you can use them for math! Counting, sorting (by color or size) and creating patterns are all some easy ways to teach math. Check out KK and Big Boy B using the farm animals (from this month's Mother Goose Time theme) and these awesome wood farm counter chips I got from a Citrus Lane box a while back! From lining app the chips and counting them out one by one (like KK did in the pictures below), to playing hunt and find the number (like you see the kiddos doing in the images above). Both ways were fun games that the kids enjoyed playing! Check out Baby O playing with these super fun stacking blocks! He did so well finding the hole and sticking the peg in it. After he had some time exploring and manipulating the pieces I showed him how to connect a bunch of them and I created a box with him. I noticed after he had this to grip he was able to control the pieces much better and fit the peg into the holes easily! More than focusing on math with him I worked on colors! I asked what color he'd found, showed him the colors I was using and even did a few patterns in the box I built. Speaking of stackers check out these ones that Big Boy B was using! He really enjoyed making towers, airplanes and I think he even called one a Banana :) Again here we did some counting and color identification. But he was having more fun being imaginative with this set of manipulatives so I let him lead the game. Math doesn't allows have to be about the numbers. With really little ones it is as simple as starting with colors and shapes. As they get older they'll start to enjoy counting games! Soon they'll even be able to identify the numerals! When I was brainstorming for this activity I was shocked by the amount of manupilatives I now have! My collection sure has grown over the past two years thanks to Mother Goose Time!!!
Fun-day Friday! What to do during those hot summer days when your stuck inside.... DANCE of course! All of these littles loved doing our Mother Goose Time Dance-N-Beats DVD "Dancing in the Desert" this past month! Movement is such an important part of learning for little ones. They are growing into their bodies and learning important coordination skills. Living in the desert it gets so hot outside that getting the kids moving and being active can be hard. That's just one of the many reasons why I love popping in the DVD and getting the kiddos to move :)
And ALL of the kids love it! From the youngest at 14months to the oldest at 7 1/2!
My FCC home has grown and expanded! I've welcomed several new littles and with the additions I'm having to learn how to teach a multi-age classroom. Kids in each age level learn differently and on top of that every child is on their own path! With varying ages you have to make sure that you are proving lessons that aren't TOO challenging and frustrating for the younger ones, but at the same time they can't bee too easy or boring for the older ones. Finding that balance is important.
Over the past few weeks I've been reading, researching and practicing different techniques to help my multi-age classroom be the best it can be! What does this mean? It means that our lessons vary depending on the children's ages and they are also slightly different from child to child. Sometimes the children work in age groups and rotate through an activity. The oldest ones might be reading books while I help the younger ones work on puzzles. Maybe the twos are in free play while the three+ are doing a board game! Other times the kids might be doing one activity as a large group with minor variation for each child. The older group might be working with markers while the younger ones have chunky crayons! One example where I use the "rotation style" is writing. When my older group is working on their name tags, work books, or tracing sheets I like to be able to focus on them. I like to watch their "pencil grip" and make sure they've got a good hold on their writing utensil. I like to observe their letter formation and remind them to give their BIG I a "hat" or "shoes" if they forgot. With these little learners starting to write they need those reminders and guidance, but if I have a one or two year old at the table with us the bigger kids have to worry about their papers getting pulled away or bumped. I am more focused on making sure the younger group doesn't have the crayons in their mouths... etc. SO, first my older group either has free play, book time or I may have a station set up for them. My younger group gets to sit at the table and we do a letter activity! They aren't writing yet, they aren't at that developmental level. So we work on letter recognition instead. Check out Big-E here using these Sassy foam letters. My little kids love them because they have cool textures :) In this activity we dumped the whole bucket of letters on the table and then went through saying each letter as we put it back into the bucket. Next we found all the letters in his name and spelled his name out. He really liked the part where he traced his name with his fingers!
When the youngest were done with the activity they were happy to go play! I find that working with the youngest first helps keep them from getting anxious and pushy for their turn. It really keeps them from disrupting the older group who are trying to focus. The youngest are tired of sitting at the table and are ready to go play again :)
So now the older group gets to come to the table and we get out whatever materials they are using for that writing activity. Sometimes its our Mother Goose Time Little Journal work books, sometimes its a tracing sheet, other times it's their name tags... I like to mix up their writing utensils to help them get used to an assortment of things! Their favorites are when I get out the big kid pencils (golf pencils), for some reason it makes them feel so grown up! They also use markers, crayons and pens.
Here is an example of when I implement the group activity with minor variations depending on the child. This was a Mother Goose Time art activity where the kids were learning about cacti. We talked about how they are poky and they used "pokey" materials to paint with!
While my older kids felt a real cactus I gave my boys (both 2yr) pokey "cactus balls" to feel. I was a little nervous about little hands grabbing the cactus and getting hurt. They loved the cactus balls and they had fun putting them into the empty paint trays. Neither of them seemed to even notice the real cactus that the older ones were feeling.
Next we moved into he art portion where the kids got to use wooden forks and the cactus balls to paint their own cactus with. During this activity I sat near the younger boys so I could help them with ripping, cutting and gluing their green paper to create a cactus. Then I let them loose with the paint. The older girls had scissors and have already learned how to use them safely. They still asked for a little help to finish cutting, but they did everything else on their own!
Big-E wanted NOTHING to do with the paint. He was to into sorting the cactus balls and trying to scoop them up onto the fork. Because I was sitting next to him I used the opportunity to work on his vocabulary and speaking skills. We talked about how the balls felt, what colors the paper and paint were, the plant we were making, etc.
Buddy-B on the other hand was ALL OVER the paint! He couldn't wait to dip his cactus ball into the paint and roll it on his paper. While I was talking with Big-E I included Buddy-B in on the conversation and we described the movements he was using to paint... dot with the fork, rolling the ball, swishing the fork, etc. The girls giggled and would say I can "swish my fork too!".
The nice thing about these large group activities is you have a mentorship going on. The younger kids watch and learn from their older peers and often times if an older child sees their younger friend struggling they'll offer to help. It really is great friendship building and helps the children be aware of each other.
I really enjoyed this post from the Mother Goose Time Blog, there are several great multi-age partner play activities! |
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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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