Week three was a pretty big failure at our house - school wise, we only did about half the activities, and not necessarily on the correct days. There were some really fun activities we got to do, and Little Guy really enjoyed it when we did school. He gets really excited when its "My Mother Goose Time!", which is great.
Day Five: Fireplace - We didn't actually do school time, it was a lazy, unstructured day. He wanted to do Circle Time, but we never got to it, I was really just using the activities as distractions while I did other things.
First came Sewing a Stocking where he decorated a paper stocking with star stickers and then threaded yarn to blanket stitch around the edges. At first he was really struggling to stitch the stocking, but when I wrapped some scotch tape around the end to make a "needle" he did really well. He did need help knowing which hole to go into next, but his 6 year old sister was more than happy to help him.
We also used the Storytelling Set that went along with "The Mississippi Musicians" book from our first week of the month. We reread the book and then he played with the pieces. He didn't do super great like re-enacting the whole thing, but once I re-enacted it he understood what he was supposed to do. He put the sack on the donkey's back and said "He can't carry it!". I asked him why and he said "He is old". He also counted the thieves because he really can count!!
I thought I had done really bad this week, but looking back over it, we actually got a lot done, and had a lot of fun. I did notice that when we are crazy busy I tend to skip over the things that have me supply a lot of my own materials and just use the things I can pull out of the bag with no prep (I pre-cut everything) and no mess. I am so blessed to use this curriculum that lets me teach my son and entertain him even when things are crazy.
Sights and Sounds Indoors was perfect for the week before Christmas, and if we had done a little more I think I could have connected it to Christmas a lot better.
Day One: Cookie - There were so many fun activities to do this day. We did exactly 1.5 of them. He started on Cookie Plate Art, but something happened halfway through and we never made it back.
Cookie Shapes was fun and easy, and Little Guy was able to do it with very little help.
Spiced Play Dough didn't happen, because my house is a mess and making play dough and then getting it all over just didn't seem like a good plan.
There was also Cookie Jar, but that involved printing something, and I guess I never got to it. I was so excited about Cookie Day and then I just failed, miserably.
Cookie Shapes was fun and easy, and Little Guy was able to do it with very little help.
Spiced Play Dough didn't happen, because my house is a mess and making play dough and then getting it all over just didn't seem like a good plan.
There was also Cookie Jar, but that involved printing something, and I guess I never got to it. I was so excited about Cookie Day and then I just failed, miserably.
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| Our supplies for Teapot/House Guests Day |
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| How Many Guests? |
Days Two and Three: Teapot and House Guests - I combined these two days, and did two activities from each day.
First we did Teapot Painting. Mother Goose Time provided a paper teapot and a teabag, and with just a cup of warm water Little Guy was able to paint with the teabag. At first he was a little lost, but once I demonstrated what he could do he thought it was really fun. I was lame and never got out real paint, so his was just tea colored.
Next we did a letter activity that looked nothing like a letter activity. I got out some blue plastic (disposable) cups, and wrote a "V" on one and an "X" on the other, and I filled up a measuring cup with water (we don't own a teapot). Then Little Guy picked a phonics photo card, identified the letter and sound, and poured water into the matching cup. For instance if he drew a picture of a xylophone, he would identify the letter it started with, then pour water from the measuring cup into the plastic cup with an "X" on it. He did really well with the letter identification, and pretty good with the pouring, cleaning up his own spill when he missed the mark.
Since we were also doing House Guests day, we played How Many Guests? This is a math story game, where you use counters to illustrate the number of guests coming to a party. He needed quite a bit of help, but enjoyed using the Jingle Bell Counters.
Last but not least we read a mini book called "He Plays", which is actually a bilingual book, but since I am not interested in teaching Little Guy Spanish, we just read it in English. First he colored it (I had to insist that he actually color it, not just one scribble on each page), then we stapled it together. After that we read it together, and then he "read" it himself. Which means he read the pictures, and forgot the word "the" on each page, but he did well at "reading" the correct information and turning the page at the right points. I also asked him who visits our house and he said Grandma Lisa, Uncle Tad and Austin (my brother's friend), so he knew what house guests were.
First we did Teapot Painting. Mother Goose Time provided a paper teapot and a teabag, and with just a cup of warm water Little Guy was able to paint with the teabag. At first he was a little lost, but once I demonstrated what he could do he thought it was really fun. I was lame and never got out real paint, so his was just tea colored.
Next we did a letter activity that looked nothing like a letter activity. I got out some blue plastic (disposable) cups, and wrote a "V" on one and an "X" on the other, and I filled up a measuring cup with water (we don't own a teapot). Then Little Guy picked a phonics photo card, identified the letter and sound, and poured water into the matching cup. For instance if he drew a picture of a xylophone, he would identify the letter it started with, then pour water from the measuring cup into the plastic cup with an "X" on it. He did really well with the letter identification, and pretty good with the pouring, cleaning up his own spill when he missed the mark.
Since we were also doing House Guests day, we played How Many Guests? This is a math story game, where you use counters to illustrate the number of guests coming to a party. He needed quite a bit of help, but enjoyed using the Jingle Bell Counters.
Last but not least we read a mini book called "He Plays", which is actually a bilingual book, but since I am not interested in teaching Little Guy Spanish, we just read it in English. First he colored it (I had to insist that he actually color it, not just one scribble on each page), then we stapled it together. After that we read it together, and then he "read" it himself. Which means he read the pictures, and forgot the word "the" on each page, but he did well at "reading" the correct information and turning the page at the right points. I also asked him who visits our house and he said Grandma Lisa, Uncle Tad and Austin (my brother's friend), so he knew what house guests were.
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| A fun start to Mouse Day |
Day Four: Mouse - Oh my, I don't even want to talk about Mouse Day. It was terrible.
It started out really fun, with a Mouse in the House game during Circle Time. We were given a bunch of colored house pictures and I hid an "M" Phonic Photo Card under one of the houses. Then we said "Little mouse, little mouse, are you hiding in the *insert color here* house? and Little Guy looked under that color house to find the "M". He really liked this and we played it for quite a few rounds.
Next we played Cat and Mouse Game, where we pretended our pom-poms were little mice and we were escaping a cat. This was a really simple board game, but he was a little lost on how to move the pom-pom and was pretty worried about the cat getting his mouse.
Then came Rat-a-Tat-Tat. Each month Mother Goose Time sends an I Can Read book for every child. You also get sight word pointers to help them learn new sight words. We read the book and he identified the word "look" which I taught him ages ago. I think the I Can Read books deserve more than one day and next month I might try to incorporate it into a few more days so he really learns the sight words.
So far, so good you are thinking right? Yeah, the last activity we did brought things very, very far downhill, very, very quickly. Adding Mice was much to stressful for us. Next time I will try to put an activity like this at the beginning of the day, because he was tired of doing school already at this point and it was a difficult game for him to play. He was supposed to solve "mouse equations" that equal 7 or 8. Instead we never got past counting to seven. I know he can count, but he refused to even try. He wasn't paying attention and it ended with me yelling and him crying and no mice getting equated and counted. Honestly it was pretty embarrassing, both his refusal to cooperate and my lack of self control. *shudder*
It started out really fun, with a Mouse in the House game during Circle Time. We were given a bunch of colored house pictures and I hid an "M" Phonic Photo Card under one of the houses. Then we said "Little mouse, little mouse, are you hiding in the *insert color here* house? and Little Guy looked under that color house to find the "M". He really liked this and we played it for quite a few rounds.
Next we played Cat and Mouse Game, where we pretended our pom-poms were little mice and we were escaping a cat. This was a really simple board game, but he was a little lost on how to move the pom-pom and was pretty worried about the cat getting his mouse.
Then came Rat-a-Tat-Tat. Each month Mother Goose Time sends an I Can Read book for every child. You also get sight word pointers to help them learn new sight words. We read the book and he identified the word "look" which I taught him ages ago. I think the I Can Read books deserve more than one day and next month I might try to incorporate it into a few more days so he really learns the sight words.
So far, so good you are thinking right? Yeah, the last activity we did brought things very, very far downhill, very, very quickly. Adding Mice was much to stressful for us. Next time I will try to put an activity like this at the beginning of the day, because he was tired of doing school already at this point and it was a difficult game for him to play. He was supposed to solve "mouse equations" that equal 7 or 8. Instead we never got past counting to seven. I know he can count, but he refused to even try. He wasn't paying attention and it ended with me yelling and him crying and no mice getting equated and counted. Honestly it was pretty embarrassing, both his refusal to cooperate and my lack of self control. *shudder*
Day Five: Fireplace - We didn't actually do school time, it was a lazy, unstructured day. He wanted to do Circle Time, but we never got to it, I was really just using the activities as distractions while I did other things. First came Sewing a Stocking where he decorated a paper stocking with star stickers and then threaded yarn to blanket stitch around the edges. At first he was really struggling to stitch the stocking, but when I wrapped some scotch tape around the end to make a "needle" he did really well. He did need help knowing which hole to go into next, but his 6 year old sister was more than happy to help him.
We also used the Storytelling Set that went along with "The Mississippi Musicians" book from our first week of the month. We reread the book and then he played with the pieces. He didn't do super great like re-enacting the whole thing, but once I re-enacted it he understood what he was supposed to do. He put the sack on the donkey's back and said "He can't carry it!". I asked him why and he said "He is old". He also counted the thieves because he really can count!!
Sights and Sounds Indoors was really fun. Little Guy had a lot of fun doing a huge variety of things. Although the daily themes don't allow for a lot of deep knowledge building, they give him a great overview of things he probably has never thought of before, like teapots and house guests. As he gets older I know he will do better at learning more about the topics through the discussion questions, which now he doesn't usually know how to answer.
I thought I had done really bad this week, but looking back over it, we actually got a lot done, and had a lot of fun. I did notice that when we are crazy busy I tend to skip over the things that have me supply a lot of my own materials and just use the things I can pull out of the bag with no prep (I pre-cut everything) and no mess. I am so blessed to use this curriculum that lets me teach my son and entertain him even when things are crazy. |
| Teapot Painting |
As always: I get this curriculum free of charge to use with my son in exchange for sharing our experiences using it on my blog. This in no way changes my opinion on how much I adore this curriculum!
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