BOOK Bug Scavenger Hunt

We are spending time studying the orchard this month with our Mother Goose Time.

  These last few days we have studied all sorts of animals that visit the orchard including: raccoons, porcupines, birds, squirrels, and today we looked at bugs!

Our Mother Goose Time STEAM station had us going outdoors to complete a fun 

Bug Scavenger Hunt.  Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating (cold, wet, and rainy), 

and plan "B" needed to happen.  

"B" is for BOOKS.... a BOOK Bug Scavenger Hunt!

I love Usborne Books.  They have some amazing ones for preschoolers.  

I recently purchased the book My First Reference Book About Nature  ($9.99), which coincides perfectly with this Orchard Unit from MGT.   I printed out the Bug Scavenger Hunt page from the MGT Member Resources, pulled out our book, and asked my girl to flip through the pages and find what was on her scavenger hunt sheet.

Not only did she check off the boxes and color the bug, but I had her record what page number we found that particular insect on.  This helped her practice writing and recognizing her numbers. 

The first bug she found was the dragonfly pictured below:

We had a whole page dedicated to flowers and how bees help pollinate them.

We found a grasshopper, ant and fly as we learned about the six major animal groups. 

Then we came across a page completely devoted to Bugs and Insects! Perfect.  We found all the rest of the bugs for our scavenger hunt on this page.  

I love how she worked on writing her numbers and coloring in the lines, which is something she probably wouldn't have done if we went outside and did a bug hunt in our garden.

Sometimes adapting the lesson plan turns out to be just as fun as the initial one... or even better.

Happy Learning! 

Animal Homes: Lodges and Dens

Did you know a beaver's home is called a lodge?

I think I learned that long ago, but it felt new to me today as we as we studied lodges and dens with our Mother Goose Time: Alphabet House unit.

We started our day by finding the beaver's home on the thematic poster.

Avaleigh even told me that it was built in the river!  I was surprised she just didn't say water.

Our Invitation to Create came with blue paper and a bag of wood chips!

I have a bucket of extra cups, plates and stuff, and asked my girl if she wanted to add anything to help her make her lodge.  She chose the cup below.  She worked on gluing and and placing the wood chips down to make her lodge. 

Our STEAM station for the day is pictured below.

My husband took down some dead trees in our yard 2 months ago, and cut some of the branches to be building blocks for the kids.  We usually use them outside, but I brought them indoors so she could build.  She was still mainly stuck on beavers, but we also discussed how bears live in dens.

Can you spot her little toy she hid in the lodge in the picture below?

We must have built and rebuilt its home 4-5 times.

In the end, she added a garden with some vegetables (letter s puzzle piece) <3 

I wanted Avaleigh to understand what happened when beavers build lodges on a river.  

So I drew a river and some trees on her chalkboard table.

Using the left over wood chips from our Invitation to Create, we pretended to send sticks and logs down the river and build a beaver lodge.   

Explaining that the lodge would block the river, I erased the river and drew a large oval and asked her what would happen to the trees.  She told me they would die, which was correct as they would be flooded out, but a pond or lake would be created, and new animals would live there.

She came up with all sorts of animals to add to the pond including otters! 

I would never have thought of that.  We did visit the zoo a few weeks ago...

I swear her memory is amazing... I think she took all of mine when I gave birth to her as I can absolutely remember nothing. 

We then read one of her favorite Usborne books, Peek Inside Animal Homes.

It has tons of little flaps and goes through all sorts of homes animals build or just where they live.

Below is the beaver page.  It has a flap showing the lodge and a flap showing the tree falling across the river. 

After reading, we crept outside while her brother napped in his swing.  I am still trying to get him to nap in his crib, but the hour long screaming that ensues when he has to nap in his crib drives me bonkers, especially if it's while we are doing preschool. #momlife.  You do what you gotta do.

After spending an hour outdoors, she asked for a cave to be built.  Everett was awake in his swing, so we built a cave.  We've done this all sorts of ways in the house, but the way pictured below is her fave. I clipped a large sheet to our fireplace and clamped the sheet to some stools.  She loves hiding and this is the perfect spot.  I love how I can still see what is going on under there.

We ended our study of lodges and dens by watching Wild Kratts on Amazon Prime. 

In season one, they have an episode on beavers. <-- link!
Perfect for today. 

Happy Lodge Making!

Castles, Crowns, and Coloring, Oh My!

This month is Vacation Bible School month.

That means, as the VBS Director, my life is super crazy right now.  

I am hoping to share a few tips on how to help with that in a future post, so if you are involved with your VBS please stay tuned to the blog. :)

However, in all the chaos of creating things for the church, I am so thankful for our 

Mother Goose Time (preschool curriculum) box.  With all its pre-planned activities and 20 daily discovery bags with all the things we need, I can still carve out some time to make memories with my girl while she learns.  Even in life's most chaotic times.  

This month our box is themed Alphabet House, which is all about different homes,
and Castle Day was so much fun.

My girl made a crown so she could become a princess for the day.  She actually drew a dragon on her crown.  I've seen such great improvement from actually trying to draw shapes rather than scribbles. She practiced standing and waving like a princess. 

We talked about how if our family lived in the castle then her Daddy would be the _____ (King) she told me.  I asked her what I would be, and she said Queen.  But she was a little puzzled when I told her she would not be called Queen but something else.  I asked her to remember Sofia the First and what she was.  A princess!  Therefore, you too would be a princess.  Princess Avaleigh and your brother would be Prince Everett.

Kinda off topic, but have you watched The Crown on Netflix?  I just got into it and am really liking the series.  It really has helped me realize that I NEVER want to be queen of a kingdom.  

Nope. No thank you.

Anyway,  back to our lesson.
After creating her crown, she was still wanted to color with her markers, so I got out the My Little Journal and had her review her colors.  She couldn't read the words, but once I told her the name of the color, she grabbed the correct marker and colored each bird.

She has been paying so much more attention to the lines and trying to color within them.  Lots and lots of  practice with coloring, but she loves it.   I always have a container of crayons, markers or map pencils on the table ready for her whenever she gets the inclination to color. 

Afterwards I got pulled away having to do some VBS work, but we picked back up on our Castle Day today.  And you can't talk about castles with out mentioning dragons!
MGT sent us the materials to make a dragon puppet and during her quiet time play, she made the dragon attack her princess castle (Little People).  She stayed in her room playing for a whole hour! 

As Everett napped  screamed in his room, Avaleigh and I took a quick break to read one of our favorite Usborne books, BOY.  It's about a King and Dragon who fight all the time until a young deaf boy forces them to stop and listen to one another. It is such a wonderful story.
I read it aloud here:

I know we won't get to each bag this month, but I have sure enjoyed the ones we are doing. 
I'm just so thankful I don't have to plan one more thing... 
This mom's brain is on the fritz.
And I get to just sit back, watch, and play.