Next week we will be leaving on a family vacation and I have been planning plane activities and some stuff to bring for L-Bug to do in our room so she isn't bored or always watching TV. I am super excited with the way these actives came out and how simple everything was to put together. It took me probably 30mins to gather all the stuff and put them in the bags! I ended up with seven activity bags but they can all be use multiple times and some have more than one game or activity. I used quite a few different bag types to fit the different materials. The left bag is a draw string bag. I needed a larger bag for this activity because of the size of the mail carrier. This is a simple lacing art activity from Mother Goose Time! Then it turns into a game Bug can play to deliver mail to all of our family and friends cruising with us. On the right I used a random bag I already had. Our vacation week we are working on reading -at words. So I included a Mother Goose Time "I Can Read" book and the Your Baby Can Read flash cards. We have been using these flash cards with our basic reading words and L-Bug has been doing GREAT!
I decided to throw in this fun travel kit I got at Costco. She used it on our last plane ride and it was easy and fun for her to play with. There are dry erase cards(numbers and letters), a work book, coloring pages, flash cards, etc.. It fold ups pretty tight and is easy to carry. Above are all seven bags packed with their activities! Everything fit nicely inside a regular size school bag and I had room in the front zipper pocket to slip L-Bugs Innotab and games into. I used another pencil pouch for all the game so they weren't just loose in there and added extra batteries too. I was inspired by this micro-training video that Mother Goose Time did a while ago! When I was watching it I immediately thought of our upcoming trip and the two long plan rides we were going to be on! Not to mention those times when we will be in our cruise stateroom getting ready for dinner or something and L-Bug will need something to do.
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This week has been a busy one! L-Bug and I got back from our road trip visiting family and got back into our routine. L-Bug LOVED this weeks lessons about the different ways we communicate. She had a few activities she worked on in the car and a few games she worked on while we were visiting family. It was really fun to have family see her do school and play with her during the activities. While we were at Starbucks I pulled out her Mother Goose Time Story Book and story telling pieces and she got to re-tell the story to her Aunts! Then when we were at dinner with friends another night I set up her tangrams and shape cards and she was busy working away on matching shapes while we waited for our food! This week she had a blast talking about how we communicate with family and friends that are far away! When I asked L-Bug how we talk to friends who are far away she was quick to answer "talk on the phone". This is the normal for L-Bug! We communicated with family and friends via Skype, Facetime and phone calls for the first 2 years of her life (and when your only 29 months old that's a lot of time!)... She loves talking on the phone with her Grandparents! We had a blast making these cup phones! We talked about how when the string is tight you can hear better than when the string is loose! L-Bug also really loves this play phone from this week. I think her favorite part of the phone day was when she colored her phone book and then practiced calling all of the different people in her phone book! We looked at the numbers in the book and then we "pushed the buttons" on the phone. L-Bug was so fun and silly every time she finished dialing the numbers she would pick up the phone and have a little "conversation" with the person she was calling and then tell them "Bye, I have to call someone new now". So much imagination!
Today we talked about one more way we can communicate with people far away: computers! We talked about the different things you can do on a computer and how you can talk to friends. L-Bug said she wanted to play games on a computer. I put together this fun craft computer that came with our Mother Goose Time curriculum and she was so happy to play with it! Then she pulled out her Winnie the Pooh Bear computer and told me how it counts and sings for her! Lastly we did some counting and reviewed all the different concepts she has learned over this past month! L-Bug remembered the letter P for pig all on her own, counted both #1 and #2 cards, the color blue, at first she said oval but when I told her to try again she remembered it was a circle, and even though she couldn't remember the other two letters she knew what all of the pictures were and then she sounded out the first letter with me. We have had so much fun learning through the Friends with Feelings curriculum, but I have been SOOOOO excited to get start October's theme In the Orchard! We have a field trip planned tomorrow with Daddy, we are going apple picking and we will be going to a pumpkin patch so I'm excited to start off our theme by taking Lily to SEE everything we will be learning about so she has that visual while we work throughout the rest of the month AND we are planning a second trip to a pumpkin patch when we go up at the end of October to visit family again!
This week we started our Mystery in the Air theme! We had quite a hectic schedule because it was our last week with our cousins visiting. I decided before the week started this week that I was going to blend the days and pull all of the air sub-themes together so that on our long car trip while we were taking the girls home we would be able to do a few projects in the car. It was a great way to break up the boring car ride and do some learning on the road! On the road trip we did quite a few fun projects:
Here are the girls working on their hot air balloon art project in the car. We talked about real hot air balloons and how they operate. L-Bug said she doesn't like hot air because it would burn her, she would prefer a helium balloon :) Here is Ky reading us our Detective Air Cards. We asked the questions and through the whole car ride when someone saw something that could answer the question we talked about it.
Here is our book for the month! "Get Close to Nature!" in this book one page shows a picture of an item up close, almost like it was under a microscope. You guess what it is then on the next page you get the full view of the item and you find out what it is! After we read through it the girls all got to make their own books.
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 We all know summer is full of fun travel and busy schedules! But for us being on the go is VERY normal. I don't want L-Bug's lessons put on hold or her school to take the back burner just because we have busy schedules so I try to make sure we can do some school on the go too! Typically while going through the month's curriculum and setting it all up I will "flag" days with activities we can do on the go. This way if I know we have a really busy day or two I can put together a car bag for school. Here is one that I put together for 7 hour trip we made in the car. Five different activities to do all sorted into their own little bags. You'll see a little later where they get put and I also have markers, crayons, pencils and stickers set aside for the trip as well. I have two different lap boards I like to use... this one holds all of the papers and little materials we will be using. L-Bug doesn't get this because if she opens it all of the materials will be EVERYWHERE! After "prepping" the materials, like I did in the photo above, I stack them inside in the order I will be pulling them out to do. This saves time from me having to dig through to find the pieces to this or the parts to that. When we stop for a restroom break we don't need mom spending 15 minutes trying to get the school bag pulled out and get everything ready to use. Here is the second lap board I like using. It's got a soft cushion underneath so there is no plastic pieces poking her in the legs. It also has two zipper pockets on the sides where I put crayons, pencils and markers. L-Bug can take out one at a time and we don't have to worry about crayons getting lost under the seat. I also like the bands in each corner that hold down the paper while she's working! Here is what our school "go bag" looks like once it's all packed up! I prep the whole day/trip to be put into this bag so school is easy to grab and hand to her. If there is something that needs to be read to her I typically record it because if I'm driving I can't read at the same time! All I have to do is push the play button once we start the lesson and pause it to ask her questions or wait for her response. Usually at a gas, food or bathroom stop I'll pull out an activity for L-Bug to do.While she's working I talk to her just like I normally would during a lesson, asking questions explaining different things to her... etc. Here is L-Bug working hard on our last road trip! She sure did have fun :) She was VERY entertained the whole trip and she had a lot of fun! It was a great way for her to keep busy without watching endless episodes of cartoons!
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!
This is a big month for our family! We are making a HUGE move from Italy back to the US, before we move into a new home we will be in a hotel for 10 days, visiting family for 20 days, in a hotel for another 10-20 days while we search for our new house…. THEN we should finally get keys to our new place. But, that’s not the end. After that we will be on the road visiting family for about another 5 weeks and after that our household shipment should finally be in from Europe and we can unpack. So over the next 2-3 months we are going to be practically living out of suitcases and we will be constantly on the go. I decided that I didn’t want to stop doing school during this time. I want to capitalize on all of the traveling and all of the different experiences we are going to have.
I took all of our circle time activities down and put them onto a tri-fold board. I had seen this before on a few different blogs and on Pinterest, but the problem for me with our board needed to fit inside of a suitcase since we will be bringing it with us across the ocean! I cut our board in half and to give me two pieces.
On the first piece I put our counting garden, birds nest, sight letter and word pails. Once you close it up the ABC flip strip is there! I'll talk a little bit more below about our feather, shapes and color birdies! I've got our letters and sight words in a small snap folder ready to be pulled out, I just hadn't grabbed them for this picture. I did realize that I accidentally packed up our weather cards SO I'm going to have to make some for us to use!
On the second piece is our calendar (and I forgot our month cards!) and our verse of the month from Mother Goose Time's Experience God Add-On! This is our first month doing it and we love it so much I'm going to be doing a WHOLE post all about it. The blank space to the right will be for focus topics throughout the week or our favorite art drawings... haven't decided yet ;)
Before the movers came I went through the entire month's curriculum and I sorted it all out. I pulled out any activities that I figured would be too advanced for her and I put them back into the box so they would all get packed up and sent off with all of our other stuff. Then I sorted through all of the stuff that we would be taking and made sure to have the materials ready to go into our suitcase. I really only pulled out 1-2 activities per day because A) I knew I wasn't going to have TONS of room and B) I know we aren't going to have TONS of time.
A few things I forgot to photograph are the actually daily bags, our art/craft materials and our manipulative pieces. The manipulatives are separated in ziploc bags. This makes it SUPER easy to keep them picked up and sorted. I also have glue sticks, tape and scissors in a ziploc and markers in another. L-Bug has a travel lap art tray that has some pockets where her crayons are being stored.
The daily school bags are actually in their original wrapping. Like I said, before the movers came I went through everything and pulled out the advanced activities that L-Bug wouldn't be able to do, BUT I kept the plastic bags and I wrote on the outside with sharpie "Day 1" "Day 2", etc. Those are all stacked up in order and I slipped them into a mesh zipper pocket inside the suitcase to keep them from spilling and getting all over the place.
With our coming move I've been thinking a lot about how I'm going to incorporate our Mother Goose Time curriculum into our travels. I mean we are going to be moving from Italy back to the US, visiting family, moving into a new home and then visiting family again for around 2 months before we will completely be settled down and getting into a new "normal"... Since we are home a majority of the week I really haven't had to worry about this. BUT I don't want L-Bug to go through a standstill during our move, I want to continue doing school with her even if it means a little extra work to do it on the go. This week I decided to incorporate our school day with a few activities while we were out and about. The day that I decided to take with us and do while we were running errands was all about money and different currency. L-Bug loves money... she's had a piggy bank for quite some time now and every once in a while we go to the thrift store with $0.50 from her piggy bank and she gets to pick out one book. I always give her the money and have her pay for it on her own. I've also let her pay for lunch and other things when I've got cash on me. She LOVES putting it in her purse and giving it to people when it's time to pay. So today I decided to make sure I was going to have enough cash for just about everything we would be doing. She REALLY had fun paying for stuff and kept insisting on keeping the change for her purse ;) Weekly we get to go to play group with all of L-Bugs tot friends and they have a ton of different stations set up for the kids to run around and meander through while playing! I know playgroup won't be something that will be happening often while we are traveling we will be visiting grandmas, and aunties, and on the plane and plenty of other places I can pull out some paper, crayons and change! Or other similar items for different studies and themes. L-Bug sat down at the coloring table and I decided this would be a good time to get her to draw some money! I grabbed some change and I traced a few pieces onto her paper. I had her look at the coins and I showed her how they had drawings on them. Then I asked her if she could draw pictures on the circles I made on her paper so we could make our own pretty money. She really liked this and even remembered exactly what we had done several hours later when we showed daddy her picture she told him “daddy mine monies!”. After running around other parts of the play room she went to the playdough table and I thought this would be another good time to do some more “money making”. I made some small balls and showed her the coins again. I said “look L-Bug lets make playdough money, can we make pictures on the playdouh with the tools?” she had fun with that! We tried stamping the playdough with the coins but nothing really showed.
We made a stop into the library where I found a few different books from the reading list and we sat and read about money. L-Bugs Favorite was one of the Cat and the Hat books: One Cent, Two Cent, Old Cent, New Cent. While we were getting ready for bed that evening I brought out L-Bugs purse with all of her coins from that day and we put them in her piggy bank.... I know that it'll take a lot more planning and preparation to make the curriculum easier to use while traveling, but this brightened my spirits and at least now I know it won't be impossible! Well our fist month of Mother Goose Time was a total hit! While I definitely didn't get to post everything we did I shared a lot of our favorites from each week. This was a super fun project! No judging my dino drawings.... The tails are pipe cleaners and L-Bug just slides beads onto the tail. It really helps build their fine motor skills and concentration. The first few times were a fail and she was getting frustrated fast. I decided to drop the project to do some running around outside. We did some simple gross motor activities (kicking a ball, jumping on her trampoline, smelling some flowers, playing chase and riding her car). Once she burned off some fidgety energy I brought her back and tried again. BOOM! She slid one on and it clicked. After that there was no stopping her. I incorporated a few different sized/shaped beads. She was able to get nearly all of them on, there were three that just had too small of holes for her to find. She likes this project enough and it's portable enough I'm going to add it to a travel pack! I like to make small packs of projects and activities that I can grab for on the go. We use them at the gym, in the car on the train and even while I'm shopping and running errands! I like having a few that I can rotate because pulling out an old project grabs her attention and keeps her entertained longer than doing the same thing she's done for three weeks in a row. This one is definitely a keeper and something I want to do with Lily daily! Our Mother Goose Time kit came with this simple and fun weather tracker. L-Bug had a blast sitting up in the window naming the different pictures on the cups and then telling me what it was like outside. Then when we went down to circle time and she put the weather piece on the calendar she wasn't having to try and crane her neck out of our basement window to see what it looked like outside. We already knew! All our projects from this lesson plan. What was supposed to be one month but we had to stretch into two because of all our travels and visitors! To say Lily and I had fun is an understatement! And this isn't even 1/2 of the projects that were included.... some of them we still didn't have time for, others were a little too advanced and some I just didn't have time to grab for the picture ;)
Well between having both sets of L-Bug's grandparents here in January and all the traveling we were doing, we weren't quite able to keep up on a whole month of school. SO, January's Dino month is getting spread out into February too! Which I guess is fine because Lily LOVES these Dinos ;)
This story telling kit is a paper mat of a Jurassic Land and dino cut out pieces that your little one can play with on the mat! L-Bug had them dancing all over the volcano, flying in the sky and she even lined them up along the glass wall and had them waving at me while I ran on the treadmill! Yeah… she has a great sense of imagination!
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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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