Preschool: Car Wash Activities

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl (seriously can't believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha #keepinitreal.

Everything can turn into a fun learning experience!

We are enjoying a month of focusing on all things that have Bubbles, Boats, and Floats from 

Mother Goose Time.  This week we have had a blast learning about Soapy Water through daily topics such as Bath Time, Washing Dishes, Laundry, Bubble, and the Car Wash!

We usually hand wash our car.  It's been really fun seeing my girl get into it.  On this particular day, I had my kids wash their vehicles (Cozy Coupe and Trike) which they had a blast doing. 

Before we had fun in outside literally washing cars, we had some fun indoors too! 

What person does not love rubbing their hands through shaving cream?

I know I still do.  Break out that bottle (we bought ours at Dollar Tree) and practice writing letters in the foam.  I used our picture cards (that I turned into magnets...see that post here) from MGT.  My girl said the word on the picture, focusing on the beginning sound, and then wrote that letter in her cream.  I then passed the magnet to my son who put it on a metal tray.  

I am really trying to get him involved.  He is one of those people who did not like putting his hands in the shaving cream.  He is consistent at staying true to being completely opposite of his sister.

Car Washes don't have to be outside!

They can be inside too!  Our STEAM station suggested taping streamers or fasteners to an open box to allow kids to pass cars through.  Our MATH game had us sorting cars by size.  I just combined the two.  I taped some streamers to our chair, and MGT sent some sorting signs (Large Parking, Medium Parking, and Small Parking).  We gathered all the toy vehicles (including trains) and passed them through our car wash.  Usually little brother passed the cars to sister who then sorted them by size.  What I really loved about this activity, was how my girl had to keep comparing the cars to what we had.  We ended up with a lot of large cars, but we had some other sizes as well.

After my son's nap, and my girl's quiet time, we ventured outdoors to wash their vehicles.  

All I needed was a bucket of soapy water, 2 sponges, and their vehicles.  Fine motor skills were practiced as they squeezed the sponges, and they had to pay attention to make sure they removed all the dirt.  They really liked focusing on the tires. 

You should also try to eat soapy bubbly water at least once in your life.

You haven't lived your best life until then ;) 

 He's so stinkin' cute.

They were busy washing their cars for over 1/2 and hour and they both had so much fun doing it together.  I love seeing them work on things together.

I love how MGT turns everything into learning experiences... even car washing.

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Happy Learning!

Preschool: Exploring Waterfalls

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl (seriously can't believe I just typed that) and 17 month old boy.  The 2 are as different as night and day.  I share our adventures here to both inspire learning at home and chronicle our lives, because honestly, I never started the baby books and my kids will just have to look back on their childhood through this blog... ha #keepinitreal.

In my life before being a homeschool preschool momma, I was a public education teacher.
I taught 3rd, 4th, 6th grades (all subjects), and high school Art. You can read about those days here,  Creating "Wonder" in learning can be tough in public school, but it's one of my most favorite things to observe in my preschooler. 
As we explored waterfalls, I got to see that wonder again and again.  

We've been using Mother Goose Time as our preschool curriculum for almost 3 years, and this month is all about Bubbles, Boats, and Floats!

Our STEAM station on Waterfall Day suggested going outside to do this activity.  Anytime I can take learning outdoors, I try to do it!  Who says learning has to be at a desk inside all day anyway?

Grab some spray bottles and put different colored water in each one.  I put water in our bottles and added these liquid watercolors.  They are my FAVE, but you could definitely use food coloring.

Using primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) will lead to the best results, and a great experiment in color mixing!  I just used red (turned more pinkish) and blue since I only had 2 bottles.

I used some long copy paper and the kids got right to work spraying the top of the paper and watching the water drip down like a waterfall.

I love this picture below!  Look at them observing the paper... even little brother got in on it!  

They began to notice that the water kept going down the same path and eventually it tore.

They noticed the tear before I did.

"Why did it break?" our little friend visiting asked.

This led to a great discussion about how powerful water is!  

I wanted my girl and her little buddy to each have some artwork to hang on the walls at home, so I got out some watercolor paper- one for each of them and attached it to the fence just like the long piece of copy paper.  They then took turns spraying the papers and watching the water trickle down.

What did they learn?

-Water is powerful.  It can tear and break things.

-Water always goes down.

-Water likes to go down the same path over and over.

-When red and blue mix, it creates purple.

We had so much fun!

I am so thankful MGT has all these wonderful ideas I can pull from to create fun learning experiences for my kids (and their friends)!   Honestly, my brain is fried by the time they go to bed, and the thought of creating a lesson from scratch each and everyday makes that fried brain, spin.  

If you are looking to make learning fun, check out Mother Goose Time!

You can see our adventures daily on our Facebook page,

and if you are on Pinterest, you can follow me here or pin the image below. :) 

Happy Learning, friends!

Preschool STEAM Station: Pounding Colors

Last week we began our Orchard Harvest unit from Mother Goose Time, and it had an awesome 

STEAM Station involving flowers.  STEAM stations are learning stations that revolve around Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, or Math.  In this case, the STEAM station is focused mainly on Science, but I would also say Art. 

So last week, my 10 month old son decided he was not going to nap and after I took all the screaming I could handle, I decided the 3 of us were going to take a field trip and get some homeschooling done in the great outdoors (and hopefully wear him down for another nap).

We have a beautiful demonstration garden where we live.  Master gardeners take care of the space and it is for anyone to come out and enjoy. It was the perfect place to obtain a variety of flowers for our Steam Station. Unfortunately, I only shot the picture below which obviously doesn't show you the beauty of our garden...ugh.  I wish I had taken more pictures.  I wish I had more hands.
But I was enjoying just the moment with my kids and being completely present with them.

In the garden, we found a wide variety of flowers in all sorts of colors and we even came across a crab apple tree!  I love the texture of the crab apple... so interesting.   We tried to get one of each flower we found and placed in our basket to bring home for our experiment.  When we got home, and brother went down for another nap, Avaleigh and I headed to the garage to do our flower crushing.

 We placed the flowers on white paper towels, placed a layer of paper towels on top, and I taped the corners down to help.  We found one of Avaleigh's play hammers from a Melissa & Doug kit.  Then she got busy hammering away at the flowers.  It was so exciting to see the colors bleed onto the

 paper towels.  She really had to hammer hard and continuously to get a rich color.

We used white paper towels, but this would look great on some muslim or white fabric.  I just didn't have any on hand.  We did 2 different sets of the poundings.  The purple flowers and leaves were the richest in color, and it was so neat to see how much pigment was in such a small delicate flower.  Avaleigh's favorite flower was the one that looks like a spider in the 2nd picture below.

Can you even imagine that this is how they dyed yarns and fabrics a few centuries ago?
Can you imagine all the flowers and leaves it would take to make a purple robe?
Soooo many things we take for granted today that were such luxuries not that long ago.

My girl loved this experiment (along with myself) and I would have never thought to do something like this.  I am so grateful for our MGT curriculum.
I just wish I had done it on some fabric so I could frame it.  I might still frame it- the jury is still out on that.  I am so grateful that my boy napped for a little while so I could enjoy some mommy and me science with my girl.


What's one of your favorite flower experiments?


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Preschool Nature Study

Nature Detectives.

That is what we have been this month- up close and personal with nature.

Pretty fitting that our Mother Goose Time curriculum sent us a book called 

My Close to Nature! book.

Our MGT activity suggested to take some up close and personal pictures of the nature items around us and then write about them.   I taught her how to use the camera on my phone and had her snap the pictures of what she found interesting in our yard. Here are a few of the pictures my girl took to add to her book....once I get these developed at Walmart....

And then we found this dead guy....

It was so cool getting up close and personal to this cicada.

The feel of her paper thin wings- as if they were only made out of the line structure themselves was really unexpected.

We observed her folded legs and counted them.  Avaleigh was definitely reluctant to touch this dead cicada, but watching me be interested in it calmed her down and allowed her to observe longer. 

I did manage to get a picture of her touching the cicada below. 

Normally, insects and I are not friends!

In fact I hate flying insects and am pretty deathly afraid of them.  If we weren't doing this nature study, I probably would have swept this carcass out of my garage and into the bushes without a second thought.  However since we are doing this study, it forced me to stop and pause.

I have watched my fear of insects pass on to my girl as she too is mostly scared of flying insects and at one point, she wasn't.  As I was brave and touched and got closer to this cicada, so did she.  

I realized how much of an impression I can instantly make on my kids.

As a parent, I have been given so much power, for better or for worse, to help mold my children.

It's a scary, but powerful thought, and 

makes me want to be the absolute very best mom I can be for them. 

Pine Cone Bird Feeder

 We are Nature Detectives for the month of July.

Our preschool curriculum from Mother Goose Time had a whole week devoted to trees: 

Climbing Tress, Building with Trees, Painting Trees, Counting in Trees, and Writing with Trees.

On our Building with Trees day, we built a bird feeder from a tree part- a pine cone!

We've made pine cone bird feeders before, but this one was the best one yet!

Here's what we used:

3 glass bowls (or containers), yarn, spoon, birdseed, peanut butter, and a pine cone.

MGT sent us the yarn, the pine cone, and a small bag of birdseed.  All I had to do was supply the peanut butter and bowls/containers!

You need 3 small bowls or containers.  One for the peanut butter, one for the bird seed, and one for the pine cone to rest in. 

My number 1 tip:

Melt the peanut butter in the microwave for a few seconds.  20 -30 seconds should be plenty.

Melted peanut butter allows for an even and smooth coating all around the pine cone which helps the bird seed be evenly distributed all around the cone.  

My girl spooned the bird seed all over the cone and rotated it to make sure all the peanut butter was completely covered.  I helped her tie some yarn to it, and then we had to search for a place that would be best to place our new bird feeder. 

She chose to hang it from a garden hook outsider her playroom window so she could watch the birds eat from it.  Currently, we have tons of red breasted robins and cardinals all around and it's been exciting to see them eat from her feeder. 

I love how we can create something like this and I don't even have to plan for it!

I don't have to have bird seed on hand;  I don't have to hunt for a pine cone, or even supply my own string!  I just open the daily discovery bag and watch my girl learn and grow.