Literacy with Mother Goose Time

This is my 100th post about our Mother Goose Time adventures!

We have loved our Ocean Commotion unit from Mother Goose Time!

Each month we receive 20 discovery bags about our unit, and each bag is filled with items to make art, crafts, games for math, and literary devices and games.

Here are some of our favorite literary tools they send us each month.

BOOKS

We receive 2 books each month.  One is a leveled reader called an "I Can Read" book.  It is filled with sight words that repeat over and over to help your child learn to read.  My girl loves these, and we read it each night as part of our bed time routine.  The other book is an actual paperback book that you read to your child.  This month is was all about ocean animals and learning to trace letters!  I caught my girl reading it by herself several times during quiet time- practicing tracing her letters and reciting facts about the animal on that particular page. 

At the back of the "I Can Read" book, is a spot for the child to draw or to work on a skill.  Can you tell what ocean animal Avaleigh drew below?

SIGHT WORDS, LETTERS, and STORY MAGNETS

To go along with the books, we also receive sight words and little picture cards.  I make these interactive which you can read about here and here.

The little picture cards match our letters of the month, and my girl says the word and the beginning sound and then places the picture on the corresponding letter.

The story board and magnets also come with our curriculum and go along with our book that MGT sends us!  There is so much to do to make our story expand beyond the words on the page. 

BOOK LIST

Each month we get a book list with suggestions to help our home library expand.  I can find a lot of these books at my local library.  Ones that I know my girl will love I'll try to order from Thriftbooks (super cheap) or look and see what Usborne might have.  Having a list to go from helps me spend my time wisely especially at the library with a newborn who can start screaming at any moment.

These are books I added from Thriftbooks based on our suggestion list by MGT.  There are so many great books we have been able to add because of these wonderful lists they send to us monthly.

LETTER COLORING SHEET

These past few months, my girl has steadily grown to love coloring.  She calls it her "homework." I have no idea why she started calling it that. lol!  This month we turned our "O" sheet into an octopus and used watercolors to paint the "W" page.  It was working on these sheets a few months ago when I noticed her coloring beginning to bloom.

MY LITTLE JOURNAL

We love this!  The reason I love it so much is I can document how much she has progressed from month to month just by looking in this book.  It gives tons of suggestions of what to do on each page, but mostly my girl just likes drawing or practicing tracing letters in the book. 

HANDS ON LETTERS

These letters are great.  On our whale day (hence the letter W) we practiced blowing like whales do out of their blow hole.  She had to have her Orca and Blue Whale come join in the action.  There are tons of activities throughout the month that allow us to use these letters, but I wrote about our Literacy Scavenger Hunt using the hands on letters here.

Fostering a love for literacy starts at such a young age.

Making learning fun and joyful will help your child cultivate that love.

I have seen so much growth this past year in her knowing all her letters, their sounds, and a few sight words.  She has started to love writing, coloring, and working with writing instruments. 

I am just so grateful we get to experience this, and I get to watch it happen.

Happy Learning!

Obedience: Jonah and the Whale

Obedience.

It's so hard to obey.

We have to die to our wants and desires and do what God wants us to do.

A heart that desires obedience is what I want for my kids.

What parent doesn't want their child to obey them?

However obedience stems from love, and in order to obey, you must know that the person you are obeying loves you and is looking out for your best interests.

Experience God's study this month is all about OBEDIENCE 

through the story of Jonah and the whale.

Our Experience God pack from Mother Goose Time came with all the supplies to make a boat and Jonah puppet, a whale, an obedience banner and a Jonah and the Whale coloring book.  Not to mention all the teacher supplies, like 4 story cards and a memory verse  (Ephesians 6:1)

Here's what we did:

First I read the story of Jonah and the Whale that is printed on the back of the 4 story cards.

There were parts we acted out, like when Jonah was thrown off the ship and into the sea, we made a throwing motion with our arms.

After reading our story, we took each story card and just focused on that part of Jonah's adventure.  

I placed the story card in front of my girl and let her color the coloring sheet the goes along with it.  While she colored, I asked questions or retold that part of the story.

 

After coloring her sheet, it was time to do the craft that went with that part of the story.

We made the Jonah and the boat puppet, the whale, and the obedience banner.

The craft pack also came with games you can play at home.  My girl is way into playing matching games lately so we played Match Jonah to the Whale at least 3 times.  

We will play more tonight when daddy comes home...I'm sure. :)

I wanted to see how much she actually retained and remembered, so I had her tell me about Jonah and the boat using her puppets.  Here's her take on it (1 minute long):

I love hearing her retell stories.

With her coloring book, we went page by page and I dictated what she said about that part of the story on that particular coloring page.  At times, I asked her questions like, "How do you think Jonah felt in the whale's stomach?" or "How long was Jonah in the body of the whale?"

  But she used some words that she heard when I told her the story, like "expelled" when describing how the whale threw Jonah up.  I was impressed.

We spent about an hour and a half doing all of this this morning.

I usually space out our Experience God stuff throughout the month, but we've been so captivated with all our Ocean Commotion activities, that our Experience God stuff has been put to the side.  

However, yesterday at church, she learned the same Ephesians 6:1 verse and made a flower with petals describing how to obey.

Today was quite the perfect day to do our Jonah study.

And there are still 16 more activities and 3 home games we haven't even touched yet! 

Want to learn more about our Experience God adventures? Click here.

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