W is for Wolf: Retelling of The Three Little Pigs

Hi! I'm Leslie- a homeschooling momma to an almost 5 year old girl and 18 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

We have been having so much fun with our A to Zoo theme this month from Mother Goose Time!

The last 2 weeks have been non stop busy as our church has prepared for VBS, but being able to pull a bag of our little bus box out, and make some memories with my kids while they learn, is so wonderful!

On this specific day, we went over Wolves and X-Ray Fish.

My girl started her day by making the letters X and W from loose letter parts.

You could use sticks, buttons, blocks, paper strips, or whatever you have to practice making letters without even picking up a writing instrument. 

I have had this amazing book called Wild Animals ABC: An Alphabet Book  

by Gary Fleming for years waiting for my children to reach this age.

The book has rhyme and illustrations that are beautiful.  The W and X days happened to match our animals of the day! Perfect!

My preschooler is recently obsessed with the story of The Three Little Pigs.

We have read multiple versions of it.   Her personal favorite is James Marshall's retelling.

However, everytime we turn on Netflix, she asks to watch the old Walt Disney version.  

When she saw the puppets for our Make and Play craft from MGT, she quickly cut them out, and created her own 3 Little Pig scene.  She then told me her version, incorporating elements from both the Walt Disney version (the wolf dressing like a sheep), and the classic tale.   I didn't even have a chance to read the version MGT sent us! Ha!

I am so glad MGT sent us these materials!

I might have never caught her retelling this and I love all the details she shared in her story.

Our month of A to Zoo Animals is coming to a close, but next month is the box I have been waiting for for THREE YEARS....

the Art Studio!

Can't wait to share with yall all the awesomeness that is in that box! 

Honey Bee Activities

We are into Bees and Butterflies around here 

thanks to our preschool curriculum from Mother Goose Time!

If you missed my last post on Beehive Stamping, be sure to check that out.

If you are looking for more bee fun, let me share what we did today!

First things first... grab some bee wings you bought at Dollar Tree last Halloween and put them on.

Math

Number Recognition

Using the cards MGT sent and some torn paper scraps to simulate pollen, my girl worked on her number recognition skills by moving the "pollen" aka torn paper from one flower to its matching big card flower.  She completed this in no time!  MGT suggested making it more challenging by using the number word names.  I might try that tomorrow.  On the back of all the little circles I will write the word name for the numbers 1-16.  Then I will read it to her and she will have to move the pollen to the correct flower.

Licking your finger makes the "pollen" stick to your finger thus allowing the torn paper, I mean pollen, to transfer from one flower to another.  She figured that out all by herself! Ha! 

Creativity: Invitation to Create

Nectar Painting

Using a pipette, cupcake liner, watery paint and markers, my girl created her own flowers.

We talked about how honey bees suck up nectar with their long tongues from flowers just like our pipette sucks up the watery paint!

STEAM

Sticky Paint

Loved this cool idea from MGT! Add honey or corn syrup to some paint in a small cup.  Use any painting tool to explore making marks and designs with the sticky paint.  Don't forget to taste the honey before adding to the paint!  That was my girl's favorite part!

This painting is super sticky and the honey gives the paint a really amazing shine!

LITERACY

Read Aloud: In the Trees, Honey Bees.

Our local library had a whole section on bees and butterflies...which I may or may not have checked out like 1/2 of those books....sorry library patrons!

That is how I stumbled upon this gem of a book!  

I love the simple rhyme throughout, but on each page, there is a little paragraph giving factual information about honey bees.  The pictures are stunning too!

Momma Needs A Minute?

No shame in the needing a minute game.  I have a one year old who likes to scream at me every time I set him down.  It's his favorite pastime.  I'm his favorite person.  When he's napping and I need to do school with my girl, but need a moment for myself, youTube and Cat in the Hat have been amazing! (it's also on Netflix). My girl loves this show.  I love how its short and sweet, lets me have a 10 minute break to myself, and corresponds with the learning we are already doing.  Just a trick to have up your sleeve when you need another cup of coffee, or time to prep dinner, or a minute in the potty without someone else talking to you or trying to smack the toilet paper to see how much rolls off.  We lost 1/2 a roll yesterday minutes after my son crushed a muffin on the bathmat.  I was putting said bathmat in the laundry when the roll was lost.  Ugh.... 

Cat in the Hat: Show Me the Honey

Of all our honey bee activities, my favorite had to be our book time.  Even though she's almost 5, my girl still likes to climb into my lap, place a blanket over us and have me read to her.  It'll be a sad day for sure when she decides she's too big for my lap.  

Excuse me for a minute... I seem to have something leaking out of my eyes....

Enjoy all the moments friends!

Even the crushed muffin/ toilet paper ones!

They'll be gone before we know it. 

Calendar Time Routine with a Preschooler

Hey friends! 

If you are new to the blog, WELCOME!

I am a homeschooling momma to my 4 year old preschooler and 9 month old son.

We are so blessed to share our adventures using our Mother Goose Time Preschool Curriculum, which we think is downright amazing.

We never have school at the same time everyday.  

However each time we start school, it goes in the same rhythm, and it always starts with Calendar Time- even if I get nothing else done homeschool wise.

So here is our Calendar Time Routine which is all completely provided by MGT.

Because I want my girl to learn to count, know number recognition, and think about pattern as we go, we start the month with a blank calendar and add to it daily.  Each day my preschooler has to figure out what the next number is, what the pattern is on that card (this month is boy/girl, purple/blue), and what the day of the week is.  She then tells me the weather and we go through our sight words that come with our I Can Read Book.

Here's a 3-4 minute video.  She is soft spoken, so you might have to turn up the volume :) 

 Once we complete all those things, it's easy to transition to our Daily Topic Poster and discuss what my preschooler sees and what she thinks we will learn about that day.

Here is a video to what Calendar Time looked like when she was 2:

And here is what it looked like when she was 3:

I am so glad I have these videos.  It really shows how much she's grown in the past 2 years.  

If you want to follow us on our learning journey, be sure to like us on Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel.  We'd love for you to join us!

What Calendar Routines do you have?

Homeschool Preschool: Learning the Value of Money

About 2 weeks ago, my 3.5 year old and I played a game, encouraged from our 

Growing Gardens unit from Mother Goose Time.  

It has now become a highly requested game that we play for at least 

30 minutes each time we play if not longer. 

It's called "Penny Produce Market."

All you need are some vegetables, fruit, and some pennies.  The veggies and fruit could be real, fake, or even made out of paper! Do what best suits you.

We grabbed some fruits and veggies from her play kitchen and I threw them into a basket.  I handed my girl 5 pennies and let her shop at the "store."  Each time she purchased something she had to give me a penny. We played until she had spent all her money.

The best part was when she realized she couldn't buy any more because she had spent all of her money.  This led to the question,"How do I get more money?"

Which led to a great discussion on work.

To earn more pennies, she would look for things that needed to be put away or picked up even if she didn't make that particular mess.  When we played the other night, she went around finding her baby brother's toys and put them away to earn pennies.  

Was it her mess? No.  But she did whatever it took to earn more pennies. 

She even picked up my shoes and took them to my room! 

Here is our game and her learning in action <3 

She played and our house became cleaner through playing.  How often does that happen?  

Usually the house gets destroyed during playtime, but not when playing "Penny Produce Market."

All the while, she is beginning to understand that earning money requires work. 

A perfect lesson to learn at such a young age.

Live Unboxing of February's Small World and Experience God

I decided to try to go live on Facebook this past week and show the awesomeness that is Mother Goose Time.  In the video below, I show you an up close look at the 20 daily bags that come in this February's Small World Unit.  We are jet-setters this month yall!

I can't wait to dig in with my girl!

Below is another video showing you the Experience God curriculum pack. 

During the month of February we will be studying how 

"God Asks Me to Love My Neighbor."
A perfect lesson for everyday, but especially during the month all about spreading love <3

Interested in seeing more?

Check out Mother Goose Time- a top notch preschool program here.

Click here to see more lessons offered in the Experience God curriculum... so great!

And be sure to follow our adventures by 

liking us on Facebook

and subscribe to my YouTube Channel.

Happy Learning!

Calendar Time: Teaching Patterns

Calendar time is one of my girl's most favorite parts of the day... and it happens everyday.

From my experience in public education, kids thrive in structured environments where they know what to expect, feel safe, and know where things are that they can have access to. 

We start our Mother Goose Time the same way everyday... with the Calendar and our brief circle time activities which could be a song or dance.  

The first thing I do is get my board ready the night before.  I remove the weather we had up, the day cloud and I hide Mother Goose somewhere in my house.

The board looks like this and you can find out more about it here:

Our school time mostly takes place after her nap, so if I forgot to hide Mother Goose the night before while she was asleep in bed, I can always hide it during nap time.  After Sweet Pea's nap (hence the pajamas in just about all of my posts), we go straight to do our Calendar Time.

One of the awesome things Mother Goose Time does with their calendar is teach PATTERNS with color!  Last month, in October, the cards were colored yellow and green and the pattern was aabb 

(2 yellow, 2 green).  This month, the calendar has 3 colors (purple, green, and blue),

 and the pattern is abc.

Sweet Pea is just now grasping that there is a pattern going on, and so each day before I give her the number card, I ask her to guess what color it is.  We review before she guesses, and I point to the cards saying, "Look, our pattern is purple, green, blue, purple, green, blue... What comes after purple? What color do you think is next?"  Sometimes she gets it right, sometimes she gets it wrong.  But I am proud of her picking a color that is there and not something like "orange."

She then places her number on the next day (great fine motor skill practice), and I sing her our little daily song to the tune of  "Faire Jacques" aka "Are You Sleeping?"

 I recorded it in a video along with our weather time below. 

I recorded that video at the end of last month (October), and you can see that Mother Goose was already in her nest.  This month, November, I have been much more diligent about hiding Mother Goose the night before or during her nap. 

Once we finish our weather I will say, "Oh my goodness! Look!  Mother Goose is out of her nest!  She must be hiding in _____(room).  Can you find her and put her back in the nest?"

So we go on a hunt for Mother Goose.

    

Sweet Pea will find Mother Goose and then go and place her in the nest.  Sometimes Mother Goose is sitting up, but sometimes Sweet Pea says, "Night Night" and lays Mother Goose down in her nest... as seen below.  You can barely make out her tail feathers and beak.

I wish all those calendars I bought for my classroom a few years ago were as good as this one.  I just love that it is more than numbers and days of the week... it's the perfect place to teach PATTERNS too, and Mother Goose Time does a great job implementing an new one each month! 

Watching a Child Create

Sweet Pea is a cautious observer.  Always has been.. and hopefully, always will be.

I have always known this about her, but I had never seen it so prevalent in her creations as it was on the day we had an Invitation to Create a Muddy Pig.

She did not pick up the picture of the pig, or study it any more than she normally looks at something.  But as I watched her place her "mud" aka brown paint on her picture of the pig, and compared it to  the provided picture of a real live muddy pig, I noticed just how much she paid attention.

We paint outdoors a lot. Sometimes in her frustrations, she throws a fit, she loves to run and throw herself face-down on the couch or chair or whatever.  With paint filled hands, I don't want to risk it indoors.  So we take it outside and place everything in our water table.  Works perfectly for us.

She placed the "mud" even in his ear (where the shadow makes it darker)

     

In the end, her picture of her pig mainly had mud on its nose, feet, ear, and a spot on its belly.  

Once Sweet Pea had these spots done, she didn't want to paint her pig anymore. "Done," she said.

 I was really surprised she didn't want to paint more since she seemed to enjoy it so much.  As I thought about it, she was done because her work resembled that of the picture. 

I am truly amazed by her and what she knows and comprehends.

Since Sweet Pea was done with her painting, she decided to have some fun with the paint, sand, and water... making mud.  She's usually not into getting really messy, so when she does, I just let her have at it!  I love to see her get dirty.

     

I learned something new about my girl through Mother Goose Time's Invitation to Create.

I learned about how cautiously she creates her images to look like that of the picture.

I learned that she has a goal in her mind, and when she reaches that goal she's done. 

(unless frustration takes over before the goal is met.  What do you mean 2 year olds get frustrated?? **wink wink**)

Would I have learned this about her without Mother Goose Time?  

Probably later on in the future, because honestly, I would never had thought to give my girl a picture and let her create something after looking at it until later on when she is older, maybe around 3 or 4 years old.

I'm so grateful for being pushed outside my comfort zone with her, and learning more and more 

about my girl each and every day. 

Watch this video to get more information about what Mother Goose Time's

Invitation to Create is all about!

Learning our Shapes

Sweet Pea is 2 years old and 2 months.  She is an only child and I am blessed to be able to stay at home with her. 

I say all of that because I do not have any other kids to compare her to or know at what age certain children learn certain things.  I am just doing my best to expose her to new things, be intentional about what I say to her, and teach her to the best of my ability.  

Mother Goose Time has truly helped us with the teaching part for sure!

Sweet Pea has known her colors for quite some time, but shapes are a whole new ball game. 

Mother Goose Time has sent us some great stamps to help her learn her shapes!

Last month, we received the circle stamp, and this month we received the triangle. 

We play with these stamps everyday whether in play dough, using a stamp pad, or placing it in glue or paint.  There's so much we can do with them!  It has also helped me, as a mom, be intentional about what to focus on throughout the month and toys to play with.

For example, I add more circle things into her play dough tray and keep using the word "circle" when talking to her.  We draw circles and then put something in the circle, or when we see something outside (maybe a rock or whatever) say "Oh wow, that looks like a circle!"

Fall is here in Texas!  The weather is beautiful and the humidity is depleting, so that means some wonderful afternoons spent outdoors.  I decided to make a little shape game for us to play.

I drew a circle and triangle on the ground (since these are the 2 shapes we have mainly focused on), but then I thought I would also challenge Sweet Pea with a square.

I would call out to her, "Can you stand in _________" and then she would run to whichever one and stand in it.  Here's a little video of our game :)

   

      

 Mother Goose Time has also emphasized our learning through the theme of a FARM.  

So we snatched up our farm animals and took them outside.  

She created her own little game with the shapes I drew outside.  I did not prompt her in any way, but she placed each of her animals in their own circle using all the circles drawn; however, Farmer Eddie was left out.  After looking around, Sweet Pea decided that he could go in a triangle.  

I was really amused watching her and found it exciting to see her using the shapes we have studied in our Mother Goose Time curriculum. 

   

Show off... 

:) 

I am grateful to have the opportunity to be intentional with what she is learning and how we play each and everyday.  

Art: Process vs. Product?

I went to college to be an art teacher. In fact my degree is in Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting, and I graduated with an EC-12 Art Certification.  I was blessed to be able to teach high school Art I for 2 separate years out of my 8 years of public education (art positions are hard to find and keep with all the cuts yall). 

Please allow me to tell you something about my experience as a high school art teacher.

The struggle is real.  Many kids struggle to be creative and create their own products.

They feel like their artwork has to look like something on Pinterest or Google images in order to be successful.  Getting students to create just to create is truly a struggle. 

In teaching, I would show a process skill (like creating a pinch pot out of clay), then gave my students the task of creating any animal they wanted.  The only criteria was that it had to have a pinch pot for a body.  I supplied books, pictures of animals, and all sorts of tools to help them create their work of art.  However, so many students sat stooped.  Many got out their phones and looked up "pinch pot animals" in google images and found one they liked.

I had one student who found an image this way of a tiger, and that is what she used instead of creating her very own.  

She copied someone else's work. 

She did a great job, but it wasn't her own personal piece of art. 

This month, Mother Goose Time has incorporated some art stations called 

Invitations to Create.

The Invitations come with a large picture (the owl picture above) and a smaller picture with an instruction guide on the back with guided questions.

It does NOT come with an example of what the product should look like.

Why?

To keep us focused on the PROCESS and not that our work looks like the picture.

So here is how it looked for my 25 month old little girl.  

First, we read the book Owl Babies from our local library.

                                Then, we watched the Read Aloud of the book on YouTube.

I asked my girl if she wanted to make some owls today.  Uh-huh. 

We used the Little Goose Guide, which suggested we place a stick on our paper.  We went outside and Sweet Pea picked out a stick that she liked from our yard. After asking her which way she wanted the paper to go, I hot glued the stick to the paper.

Next came the creation part.

Mother Goose Time supplied us with a small paper sack, cotton balls, and the black paper. 

(I added more cotton balls for my girl to use if she desired)

And Sweet Pea got after it.

She practiced using a glue stick.  Once she seemed bored with that, I asked if she would like to paint... always a yes to paint.  I used a clothespin and cotton ball to make a paintbrush and provided her with white tempera paint.  She did the rest.

After painting, she wanted the liquid glue, so we got that out, and she stuck on some more cotton balls.  Sweet Pea has been pretty obsessed with "eyes" and kept talking about the owl's eyes in the Invitation to Create picture.  I had some googly eyes in my stash of stuff and asked her if she would like to put on some eyes. 

Ummm...duh, mom.

We talked about how there were 3 owls in the story, and we counted 6 eyes.  Each owl had 2 eyes.

I gave her 6 eyes and we talked about how eyes come in pairs and a pair is two. 

She worked really hard on placing her eyes side by side. 

Look at that face!!! So excited about what she made <3

 

Instead of using the 2 eyes here, she glued one eye and one cotton ball and that is perfectly okay! 

Eyes placed in the black space instead of on the "owl body."  It made me think of the eyes creeping in the darkness when the owls were scared (you can really see that in the video).  This is something I would never had thought if she placed the eyes on the body she painted. 

My 25 month old's masterpiece.  

After it dried, I hung it on the wall during her nap. 

When she walked into her learning area and saw her artwork on the wall, she ran to it saying,

 "Wow! Wow, Momma!"

So educators, mommas, and anyone who is willing to make art with kids, let me encourage you:

what is best for kids and best for society is not what is easiest on us. 

 Education is messy...literally and figuratively.  It is not perfect or cookie cutter.  It can not be, because each child is different with special gifts, abilities, and interests. 

Let them be little.  Let them explore.  Let them create.  Let them learn.

Let them enjoy the process instead of be bogged down by "what it should look like."

Who knows...what they end up creating might just surprise you and be better than even a prescribed image.