Learning About Families with Mother Goose Time

This month the Mother Goose Time theme is Me and My Family.  The first week was all about families.  It took us a few more days than it should to complete because I had my wisdom teeth removed, and some days we didn't really do as much as we should have because I was anxious to get back to laying on the couch with a hot pack on my face.  However, I am still on schedule to finish by the end of the month, with only a few tweaks, so I am pretty excited!

We started out the week learning about Family Trees, using the unique manipulatives we got this month, Family Stampers.  Although we LOVE the counters we usually get, it was a fun change of pace.  For this activity Little Guy drew a "house" (he gets his art talent from me) and then he stamped family members in and around it.  This was fun for him because he hasn't used stamps before, and educational both as a fine motor skill and because we used positional words to talk about where the family members were.

The next day was Brothers and Sisters, which I posted about when I was explaining the new Invitation to Create method Mother Goose Time is using this year.

Next was my personal favorite day: MOM!  I was a little biased.  One of Little Guy's favorite activities we do every month is looking at the theme poster with the "magnifying glasses", he always finds the matches very quickly, then uses the open one to find literally EVERYTHING else in the picture. 

There was also a Baking with Mom activity, that was supposed to be play-doh, but I thought we would have more fun and less mess if we took advantage of being homeschoolers and one-on-one and did some actual baking.  Well sort of, I mean it was a boxed cake, and I baked it on a timed bake, but he is little, he doesn't know better.

Next up was Dad day.  We played "Father May I?" and practiced asking polite questions and following directions.  I put on one of my husband's hats (by the way I had no idea where it was, so I asked Little Guy and he immediately ran over to the refrigerator and said it was up there.  And it was.  This kid's memory is crazy good!) to pretend to be the father.  Then we rolled our new foam cube (which I will show you in my next post) and followed the directions.  Each side of the cube had a different way to walk (robot, baby, backwards, etc.) and before we rolled it he would say "Father may I...".  He unfailingly said baby steps.  I would roll the die, and then if I rolled what he wanted I would say "Yes, you may."  If I rolled something different I would say "No, you may not, but you make take *insert type of step* steps."  He was quite discouraged when it didn't come up. 

Little Guy is hilarious about rolling dice.  He doesn't seem to get that the GOAL is complete randomization.  He is always trying to figure out how to throw it so it lands on what he wants (usually a 1 or 2 because he is apparently lazy - also like me - and doesn't want to have to count very high). 

After that we played a counting game where we made a shirt for Dad.  Not really, but we stuck buttons (which had tape on the back which I really appreciated) on a paper shirt.  You roll the die, add that number of buttons.  Little Guy can count, but he gets SO easily distracted while doing it that he loses count.  I have to really work to get him to pay attention to the counting, not WHAT he is counting.

Little Guy with his shirt he decorated

The last thing we did on Dad day was another Invitation to Create, but it didn't go so well.  I think if I had followed the instructions and put glue and glitter on the table, instead of just the inspiration poster, keys and crayons he would have been better occupied, but I had spent all morning cleaning my house despite feeling like my head was going to explode, so I didn't want to do the glitter thing.  So that art project lasted about one minute while I showed him how to make a rubbing of something under a paper, he did it once and said he was done.  Oh well.  At least my dining room wasn't covered in glitter.

The last day of Me and My Family week was Grandma and Grandpa.  We ran a lot of errands, and took a walk (I was feeling much better than the day before.  Probably because I was miserable and finally decided to pray that I would feel better and then, even though I only slept 4 hours last night - a combination of being irresponsible and a baby that likes to eat a lot in the middle of the night - I was feeling physically better and in a really good mood!  I love answered prayers!) and before I knew it we only had a few minutes left for school time!  So we played a quick game of dominos, and then he did the "A" page in his journal.  He has gotten SOOO much better at tracing the lines!

This week was really fun, and it feels amazing to be on top of things and making Mother Goose Time a priority again. 

Little Guy and I are blessed to receive Mother Goose Time free of charge in exchange for sharing our experiences!  All opinions are our own!