Animal Homes: Spider Webs

I love preschool!

So much wonder and excitement about all the things I take for granted.

Seeing life through the eyes of a child truly is a gift.

My almost 4 year old decided she wanted to learn about WEBS from our Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum yesterday and we had a blast!

I find that she stays engaged longer if I let her choose what she wants to learn about from a limited amount of choices I give her. 

To start things off, I asked her what she knew about spiders and she immediately found the spider web on our thematic poster.  I love keeping this up all month.  Each day you can use it to go along with finding what that day's discovery bag is all about.

She knew spiders had 8 legs and made webs to eat, and she mentioned Itsy Bitsy Spider.

MGT supplied us with the rhyme on a poster.

We blew the cut out spider down the spout each time she was washed out.

Avaleigh and I have never really discussed rhyming words, but my MGT teacher guide suggested it.

I showed her how "spout" and "out" rhyme because they have the same letters, in the same order, 

and are both at the end.

I asked her if she could find any other words at the end that had some of the same letters.

She found "rain" and "again" and colored them green.

We will definitely spend some more time with rhyming words in the future.

We then read Diary of a Spider which reminded my girl of last month's reading of Diary of a Worm.

After our literacy time, she wanted to make her Make and Play Spider and it's web.

MGT suggested paint, but since I was nursing my son at the time we used a large stamp pad to make her spider hand print, and she glued on the googly eyes MGT sent us in our discover bag.

Is that not the BEST spider face ever?!?!

I love how she added a nose, smile, chin and forehead.  (she told me what all those lines were)

After I punched holes in the plate, she used the pink thread MGT sent to make her web.

I absolutely love it!

While I made lunch, she used the left over pink thread to weave her own web between 2 dining chairs.  She also used her spider manipulatives from last year's Bugs and Insects MGT box to play with her indoor spider web. 

Our web day didn't end there!

After her Quiet Time it was time to connect with the great outdoors by doing our STEAM station.

We watched a spider spin her web on Youtube followed by a Spider Web Hunt in our yard.

We found a huge web in the front yard, found the spider, and discussed how hard it was for her to build this web.  Avaleigh told me that the web was sticky, but we didn't find any bugs in it.

Our STEAM station suggested making a web outside with masking tape and seeing what happens over time. I asked my girl if she would like to make a sticky web just like this spider.

Jumping up and down ensued.

I grabbed my packing tape and gave my girl some scissors, and between 2 garden hooks, we placed our sticky tape spider web.

I love this suggestion my MGT! 

I would have never thought of making and outdoor sticky web from tape!  We kept checking our web throughout the day, but nothing was stuck to it.  This morning as soon as Avaleigh woke up, she mentioned the sticky web outside, so we went to inspect. However there was only some "popcorn," aka crepe myrtle flowers, stuck to our web.

We will keep our sticky web up throughout the weekend in hopes that we will catch some more things on it.  I'll keep yall updated on our Facebook page.

I love it when we can connect with nature through our MGT study. It is such a great reminder that learning does not just take place indoors but anywhere and everywhere. 

That evening to close out our Spider Web day, I let my girl watch 

Magic School Bus Spins a Web.  It was alright, not my favorite, but still educational.

My girl was so engaged with our Spider Web day.  Everything about it was perfect for her.

Looking forward to many more days like this on our Homeschooling Adventure.

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.