Mother Goose Time: Welcome Kit

 It came! It finally came!

Sweet Pea and I were so excited to see our new Mother Goose Time box on our doorstep Monday.  

Lately, each time she sees it, she decides she has to ride the bus, aka sit on the box.

She wouldn't give me a smile as she was too distracted by the dog in our yard. 

Today I only want to discuss the Welcome Getting Started Kit that comes with your first order or the order in September to kick off a new school year.

When we started MGT last year, Sweet Pea had just turned 2, and I wasn't very good about being diligent at doing our stuff everyday.  She turned 3 at the end of July, and with her vocabulary expanding and imagination beginning to come out more, I really do think we can have some fun and make time for our daily learning adventures.

What's in the Welcome Kit?

Developmental Continuum of Skills

Before September creeps in, I want to really take a good look at the developmental continuum of skills MGT provides... especially the Quick Reference Guide!

This will help me challenge Sweet Pea in areas we have never explored together all the while keeping me in check at what she is actually supposed to be doing at her young age.  

I definitely do NOT want her to feel like she isn't meeting my standards.  

Here's a quick video I made about the Developmental Continuum of Skills:

Pocket Cube Card Holder and Basic Cards

This is somewhat new this year! We had the cube last year and used it every month with different games both math and literacy.  But the added bonus this year are some basic cards that will be used constantly, like number cards 0-20, basic colors, and shapes.  

Circle Time Display Materials

Inside the Welcome booklet, there's this handy dandy picture of what you can make your Circle Time board look like.  I tried a board last year, and you can read about that disaster here.

Eventually, everything fell off and I ended up mounting most of the board to our windows in our breakfast room turned play space. It worked great after that! 

Currently, I have moved all our MGT to her playroom and did a complete overhaul this past weekend which I will post about later. However, I did include a pic of our finished Circle Time "board" at the end of this post. 

Weather Cards, Mother Goose, and Calendar Month Cards

I punched out all the above items and laminated them since they will be used or touched more often than our daily bag materials.  Mother Goose can hide somewhere in your classroom or home and the child can search for her and place her back in the nest.  This would be a fun thing to do each morning and maybe the kid who finds her receives a special moment to lead or hold the door or pick something out first.  For us, Sweet Pea just enjoys finding her and putting Mother Goose back where she belong- her nest.

Clouds: Days, Topic, Letter, Number and Extra Fluff

We use these clouds everyday.

We go over the calendar and Sweet Pea finds the cloud with that day of the week printed on there and places the card near Mother Goose and her nest. There are some extra white clouds that you could add to your board or write something on or place sticker names on.

Number Tree and Letter Grass

These are new for us this year.

Last year, our numbers were on fish, and we only received a few fish each month which was a little awkward.  But this year, I have all the numbers 1-20 and placed them on our tree..  I laminated these as well because I can see us removing many numbers each day and week matching and counting.  Having all the numbers now will provide more opportunities for better discussion on numerals.

Our Finished "Board"

Really this is only part of the finished product. 

I didnt use a board, but a window and I used sticky tack to mount everything to the window.  I love how Sweet Pea can look out, actually observe the weather, and pick the corresponding weather cards to place above Mother Goose.  This window is also the center of one of our walls, and her little table is in front of it, giving her access to looking at the display throughout the day.

The cloud shape cards are from last year's curriculum supplies and I just incorporated them into this years, as I did not notice a shape of the month, but MGT may be including that elsewhere. 

I'm also a hoarder when it comes to educational supplies and struggle all the time at throwing anything away that could be beneficial in the learning process.

Stay tuned for how we set up our new playroom/school room in the next few days... or weeks... 

I gotta figure out how to edit videos. Yikes.

Until then,

Happy Beginning of the School Year!