Summer is here and living in the desert water play is a VERY big part of our outdoor activities. Water Play is fun, but important for so many reasons!! Check out this great post from Mother Goose Time about why children need water play :)
Water play can be free play where you give the kiddos some toys and a table full of water... and that's it! Let their imaginations and curiosity take it from there :) Here are a few of my Kiddie Korner littles in free-play at a summer bash event we went to with our local FCC group. They had nets, cups, squirt toys, etc in the water tables and the kids had a blast playing!
Other water play activities can be lesson based and directed. Here was a super simple water play activity I used during our Bees and Butterflies module. I used some simple pipettes for the kids to use to transfer water. The lesson was based on how bees and butterflies get nectar out of a flower. They use their proboscis (long tube like piece of an insects mouth used for sucking liquid)! The kids got to suck water up into the pipette just like a bee :)
For some extra fun during the activity I had two separate colors for the kids to mix into their cups. They thought it was awesome who the yellow and blue made green!
HOW DO YOU STAY COOL IN THE SUMMER?!
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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!
Play is such an important part of learning for toddlers and preschoolers! This past month the little ones here at Kiddie Korner have been playing hard :) I'm so glad that so many of our Mother Goose Time activity lessons involve play. Over the past few weeks I've seen the kids grow and expand so many different skills!
Here are the girls scooping the chunky lacing beads out of a bowl with peas in it. A task like this may seem like nothing but play, but what you don't see are the little wrist muscles building up and preparing this little ones for writing skills! In this same activity they practiced pouring their scoops into a basket and shaking out all of the peas. Their little minds were at work connecting cause and effect: The beads are big so they stay in the basket, but the peas are little so they fall though the small holes! They practiced math by counting and sorting how many of each "type" of bead they were able to scoop out. They worked on those fine motor skills by lacing the thread through beads!
Finally once all of our beads were counted the girls practiced following directions as I gave them places to put the different types of beads, "Put the bees ON the car", "put the flowers UNDER the table", etc. Not only did they get to work their ears by listening and following directions they were also being challenged in their spacial awareness! I was assessing to see if they knew the directional phrases "on, under, next to, behind, in front of, inside", etc?
The kids enjoyed so many fun art projects this past month! Art is a time that works best for us for lessons. I have a captivated audience as they sit and work on their projects. Because they are sitting and their hands are busy they seem to listen a little better! They interact with me by answering questions, telling me their thoughts and asking their own questions. Plus they are always so proud of their finished projects :) They loved those little bee head bands so much that they wore them for nearly three days in a row doing our bee week.
During free play they were running around using their antennas to sniff each other! I guess they were listening during the lesson ;)
Aside from the fun that comes with art and the pride they have when showing off the finished product, these little ones are once again at work building important skills!
I mean look at these little fingers at work cutting and gluing! Silly giving them a piece of paper to snip at helps them build up those fine motor skills. They build the tiny muscles in their hands and gain better control at manipulating small objects.
One last important skill I wanted to talk about was writing! Many of the activities I showed you above all help build up those important muscles for writing. Scooping and pouring work on wrist movement; Beading and lacing work on that two finger pincher grip; Cutting and gluing work those tiny muscles and help with concentration.... all of these tiny finger wrist movements build up the writing skill! Kids need all of these things to learn how to control writing tools.
Can you see all of the different GRIPS in these photos above? Tripod and quadruped grasp are the best appropriate way for a writing tool to be held. These skills are things that are learned through activities like coloring, sometimes kiddos just need a little help getting their grip right :) Check out this video for a great tool to help teach the right way to grasp a pencil. Remember FUN is the name of the game for toddlers and preschoolers! Here are some great tips on helping your littles grow their writing skills!
Wondering what skills your preschooler should know? Check out this great post from Mother Goose Time with some helpful tips :) This week we had lots of new friends at Kiddie Korner! I had a full house multiple times throughout the week and we sure did have fun :) The kids got to watch this video of our caterpillars making their cocoons over the weekend. They were excited to see all of our friends tucked away and sleeping!
We also talked about the colorful wings we were already starting to see inside of the cocoons! Sure enough they came out that same day! The rest came out yesterday and a few of the kids were here to watch it. They were in awe of the emerging butterflies. We talked a little about how we got our caterpillars just a few short weeks ago and how quickly they grew, created their cocoons and turned into butterflies! It has been fun hearing the kids talk about their observations and explaining metamorphosis to them. The kids had a blast playing this Mother Goose Time game! I had an "-ug" butterfly and there were several caterpillars in the middle of the table. Each child got one letter, we used their letter to build a word "h" + "-ug" = HUG. We would all sound out the word. The kids had so much fun scrambling through the pile and finding their caterpillars after we built the word :) My little emerging readers! It has also been a hot week! We had a blast at the water park this week. The kids enjoyed running in the water and hanging out in the sunshine at the park :)
The Kids were excited to come back to class this week and see our caterpillars in their cocoons! I had gotten a video over the weekend of one little guy hard at work making his cocoon :) Seeing this process was a first for all of my littles! It was interesting to hear all of their different opinions on how the cocoons looked.... gross, bumpy, sticky and hard were a few of the descriptions I got!
The kids FAVORITE activity this week was our Mother Goose Time butterfly art project! These beautiful butterflies got to hang in our class all week :) The kids loved seeing their work hanging in our room.
They ended up turning into kites because the kids saw it was windy outside and they wanted to make their butterflies fly! They spun, ran, danced and jumped all over the yard with their butterflies flapping in the wind behind them :) Though they weren't real kites, many of the kids said it was the first time they flew a kite! How fun that they got to create these ones AND fly them :P
The more kids I have at one time the more I realize how difficult it is to capture kodak moments! Helping and teaching the little ones AND trying to snap pictures with my phone is more difficult than I thought!! LOL This month I started working more with our concept cards and vocabulary cards. The kids have learned nearly all of them! Even though they many not be writing and spelling (like you would typically do with vocab words) they are expanding and growing their language base.
Another "win" this week, was during lunch! I have a few picky eaters... and when I can get them to try one bite of everything on their plate, I count it as a win! :) One day for lunch we had a tasty shrimp cob-style salad. The kids not only tried bites of everything on their plates, they found a few new foods they actually thought were tasty!!!
They were all so excited to get their "happy dino, try-bite stickers" too :D
A new first for me... learning how to occupy a 14month old during nap time ;) Peanut came by for a short visit during nap and she was not a tired girl!!! My older ones were sleeping so we had some fun playing with foam letters: touching, chewing and throwing were all involved! We also read some books, after peanut was done reading with me she enjoyed pulling them all of the shelf too! I think this age of exploration as well as learning about cause & effect is one of my favorites :)
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!
The first half of the week was so much fun, L-Bug has really enjoyed all of the sensory activities with water! These last few days we have done so many more activities while learning about water:
Then we tried to see how else we could make the water move. We blew really hard on the surface trying to create wind and we made ripples. Then we tried to reenact an earth quake by shaking the water table and we made the boats float around. We used our hands to spin around and around and make a wave pool. L-Bug really enjoyed all the water play! On Day 4: Washing with Water we had a ton of fun washing all kinds of things! First L-Bug practiced her listening and matching skills with numbers, letters and shapes :) Our focus concept of the day was the -SH sound/combination. So as found the letters on our Alphabet House Board and I wrote it on our white board so L-Bug would be able to look back as we tried to find all of the -sh combinations in our I Can Read! book "I Wash". L-Bug loves these little 3-4 page books because they are simple and fun! Every time we found the -sh combination we would either say "shhhhh" really loud or really quiet. We headed outside for some fun washing different things. L-Bug washed her toy truck and then decided that her big car need to get washed too. Then she came back and piled up some dirty dishes that needed cleaned up!
Day 5: Mixing with water we had so much fun combining colors by using food coloring and water! Then we used milk, food coloring and dish soap to watch the colors naturally swirl. L-Bug may not have understood the difference in densities, but she had fun mixing and watching the colors change! Can't wait to delve into next weeks Nature Detective lessons on dirt! I know L-Bug is going to have fun making some mud!
Here is L-Bug doing a measuring activity from Day 1: Measuring Water. I had a few empty bowls and one big bowl filled with water. First I had L-Bug practice her pouring and moving water from one bowl to another. While we did the activity we talked about a few different water formations like the ocean, lakes, rivers, pools and puddles. I explained to L-But that all of those were like our different bowls. The ocean was the biggest like our big blue bowl and the puddle was the smallest like one of our measuring spoons. I explained that the bigger ones are the deepest and the smaller ones aren't very deep at all. I reminded L-Bug of the swimming pool and how she can stand up in one part but if she walks too far out it gets too deep and her head goes under the water. She remember and told me "it's ok I blow bubbles, don't swallow the water". We also learned the concept of something being full! L-Bug got a little carried away and overflowed her small orange bowl. We cleaned up and the next time she was filling it up she knew to stop because it was "too full mommy!". So she took a scoop out and poured it into the green bowl instead of overflowing it this time.
After we finished talking I told L-Bug we were going to see which one was the deepest! When I asked her which one she thought was the deepest she told me the blue one was. I gave L-Bug a string with a washer tied to the end and let her measure how deep the bowl was that way. I told her when the washer goes to the bottom pull it up and see how far up the string got wet. She liked going back and forth and doing this. Next L-Bug measured the bowls using her hand so she could feel which bowl was deeper. Doing it this way she told me the deepest bowl every time! She was really excited when we got to dump all the water back into the big bowl :) Here is L-Bug playing about measuring. In this game we had our "start" puddle and our "finish" puddle. In the first picture we were trying to roll balls from one puddle to the next. We rolled them too hard and they would go past it, so we decided we had to be more gentle when we rolled the balls. Then they didn't go far enough so we would give them another nudge. Each time I had L-Bug tell me "Did we roll it too hard or to soft?"
In Day 2: Sorting in Water we learned about a few important concepts! One I found was the most interesting to L-Bug was floating vs sinking. She talked about how she wears a swim vest at the pool and she floats, but if she takes it off it's too deep. I was so excited that she made that connection on her own! So we talked about that a little more before we did our experiment. For the experiment I gave L-Bug a handful of rocks and said "these rocks are kind of heavy aren't they?" Then I asked her if she thought they would float at the top or sink to the bottom. She said "SINK!" Woo Hoo! So I had her plop them in and we watched them sink one at a time. Then we used our scoop to get them out and do some counting practice. Next I pulled out a pile of small leaves. "These aren't very heavy are they?" I said. Then I asked if she thought they would sink or float... again she told me SINK! "Hmm well the rocks were heavy so they sunk right to the bottom, but these leaves aren't heavy at all. Let's see if they sink to the bottom or float on the top." I said then I had her put them in one at a time. Once she put it in I asked her, "Well did the leaves sink or float?" and she told me "they are floatin' on the watey mama!". Then we talked more about how most heavy things will sink to the bottom and how most light things will float on the top. I handed her some foam shapes and asked her if they were really heavy or light? She told me they weren't heavy so I asked if they would float like the leaves or sink like the rocks and she said "float up here" and pointed to the top of the bowl with the leaves. Then I had L-Bug practice her listening skills and I had her search the "pond" for a (color/shape) "Red heart" over and over until all the pieces were gone. Then she sorted them into piles by color and we put them away. She was doing really well following directions so I had her scoop out the leaves and then the rocks. After we had counted the rocks one more time to make sure they were all there our pond was clean! :) Lastly on Day 2 we made up our own story with our Mother Goose Time story sequence cards. We took a big bowl of Ice Cubes out side onto the hot pavement. I asked L-Bug what she thought would happen to the cold ice cubes and she told me they would get burned on the hot ground without shoes on {LOL}. Then I showed had her scoop the ice onto the ground. I explained that when water is frozen it's cold and hard, but once it gets warm it starts to melt and turns into water again. We watched the ice cubes melt some more and then she wanted to splash in it. She said the water was cold, after a few minutes once the ice was almost all gone I asked her "Is the water still cold now?" And she told me "nope it's nice! I'm takin a bath!". Soon the ice was all gone and it was just water! I asked L-Bug what do you think will happen once all the water gets warm? She really didn't have much to say, I think she was too busy splashing. So I explained that once the water was all warm that it was going to evaporate and disappear into the air. I said once it disappears into the air it helps go make a cloud. Then I showed her the next story card and she immediately pointed out the first cloud and said "like that one?". Yup just like that! I Can't wait to finish this weeks projects, we've been having so much fun learning about water this week!
We had a fun week learning about trees. We talked about the different things you can build in a tree... like birds building nests and people building tree houses. We had fun using these giant blocks to build our own trees inside. The girls wanted to see if they could build one that would reach the ceiling but we didn't quite have enough blocks. They built it pretty tall though! Each of them had to help keep it standing by holding their part of it up.
Next we talked about different types of trees and which ones were our favorites. Ky and Kort said they liked willow trees the most. "It's pretty how the branches hang down and you walk underneath and you are surrounded" is what Ky said. I like pine trees because they have such a good smell! Then we used foam pattern pieces to make our own trees.
The girls were so excited about the bird seed project in our Mother Goose Time kit for this week! They were all excited to make the pine cone bird feeders. First we rolled pine cones in peanut butter and made sure they were covered REALLY well. Then we rolled our peanut butter in bird seed. We finished it off by tying string on the ends and we took them outside! The girls looked at the tree from the kitchen window to try and choose ta place they thought would be best to hang their feeders in so we could see the birds from inside. We knew that if we tried to go out and look at the birds we might scare them away. Once they found the perfect spot they went out and hung them up! L-Bug helped me fill up the bird feeder so all the birdies weren't fighting over the pine cones. The birds must have really enjoyed the pine cones because they were gone by the next afternoon! Later in the week we had a paint day! We did a few different projects with the paint to use a variety of materials and ideas! The first was a color game! We used these pom-pom + clothespin painters from the MGT kit. Everyone took a turn spinning the color wheel and whatever color it landed on you dipped your pom-pom painter in that color and added some leaves to your tree! We talked about seasons again and how the leaves chance colors on a tree. Then we talked about how we wish there were rainbow colored leaves like purple and blue! The girls made a beautiful array of trees :) In our next painting activity we worked with different nature items. I passed around several different paint brushes and had the girls feel the different materials. I asked "What different kinds of items could you find in nature that feel like these paint brushes?" The girls said sticks, leaves and sea sponges! Then we grabbed a few different items from our nature walk and tried to see how they worked if we used them to paint with. The girls used the nature items to paint with! And the used them as a stencil by painting around or over them to make the design pop out! They had a lot of fun trying to find different ways to use the materials. We talked about how people may have used the different items you can find in nature to make art, like before we had the ability to make paint brushes. L-Bug and I played an acorn counting game. First we talked about different things that grow on trees. L-Bug told me leaves grew on trees and she remembered from our garden themed month that apples grew on trees. I talked about all kinds of different fruits that grew on trees and reminded her that pine cones and other nuts grew on trees! Then we played this fun game! L-Bug rolled the dice, then I helped her count out the dots on the first die. She counted out that many acorns and put them on the tree. Then we did the same with the second die. Once we had all our acorns on the tree we counted them up and then used our number strip to find that number at the bottom of the tree. She really enjoyed this one and wanted to play it again, and again and again! LOL L-Bug really enjoyed this project! I started by drawing a tree on her page, then I gave her the markers. I asked her some questions and I helped her draw her answers. I also wrote her answers at the bottom so I could remember later. "What kinds of things can you do in a tree?" -Climb It. "What animals live in trees?" -Birdies & Squirrels. "What grows on a tree?" -Leaves, Apples & Acorns. "What can you build in a tree?" -House & Nest. The thing that I loved most about this was it gave me a chance to see how much she had learned from the past week! I was so excited to hear her answers because it just made me realize how much attention she is paying to the lessons :)
The new theme for this month is so much fun! I can already tell that L-Bug is going to LOVE all of the exploring that we will be doing while we act like Nature Detectives :) This first week we are exploring trees and the surroundings where we live. Desert is a very new climate and experience for us, L-Bug has only ever lived in wetter climates so the dry heat and dust is different than what she is used to! Exploring our new location is the perfect way to help her learn about her new surroundings and our new home! We have visitors! L-Bug's cousins, Ky & Kort are visiting for a few weeks and I'm lucky enough that they want to join in and help with L-Bug's school!! We had fun this first week exploring and learning about trees and the environment around us. We made some friends too.... ;) Meet our Koala Bear friends: Abby (Kort's), Geoffrey (Ky's) & Bubba (L-Bug's)! The girls had fun making there friends and we had to make sure they had some tree leaves to eat! But then we decided that we would take our Koala Bears on our Nature Walk and let them get some real leaves for dinner :) Once we finished our nature walk the girls whipped up some salt dough to create their own critters :) We talked about the different types of creatures that lived in trees and then we made a few. Ky made a giant caterpillar, Kort made a koala bear and a hedge hog, I made a birdie and L-Bug made some impressions and a fun little habitat that Ky finished up later by making some trees from our sticks and leaves!
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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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