Let's Go Camping - Guitar

Day 5 was all about guitars, which makes sense when you are thinking about sitting around the campfire.

Since today is day 5 we reviewed the number 5.  The activity on the agenda was called Race for 5 and it was an obstacle course race, ending at the number 5.  Somewhere in the obstacle course we were to have them do 5 of something.

Normally I start with the craft at the beginning of the day but on this day everyone was a bit rowdy and they needed to run.  So when I saw this activity I was sold.  I wrote a number 5 on a piece of paper and placed it at one end of the yard, which peaked all of their interests.

I told them to put their backs against the fence, run and go under the picnic table, around the tree, jump over the bronco and jump 5 times to the #5.

 Lachlan went first.  I timed them with the second hand on my watch and Mother Goose Time had us write their time on a piece of paper (I used little sticky notes) and tape them (or stick them) to their backs to try to beat that time the second time through. 

 Here Autumn is going through the course.

She's got some good hopping skills.  Here she is hopping over the Bronco and Peter with his time on his shirt.

The best part of this obstacle course idea was that after I got their imaginations going they wanted to come up with their own course.  I told them to go ahead and they preceded to show my their ideas while they ran and ran and ran and ran and ran.   Since on this day, I was a little tired, it was a great way to use up some of their energy. 

Next we came in and did the guitar craft.  This took up a lot of time because Peter was really focused.  It was so fun to see him so focused on a task.  He wanted every square inch of that guitar covered in color.

 You can see us all spread out here on the floor working away, Adam is a part of the fun.  If I wasn't taking the picture I would be sitting right there by the Lesson Plan Book.  As they work I usually look to the discussion questions to start a conversation.  I looked ahead and asked the question for the next lesson, Camp Song Spinner.  How can you use your body to make different sounds?  Lachlan's answer still amuses me. "By putting a bucket on my head and baming it." Well that's one way to do it. 

 Here is Peter with his laser focus. 

 Lachlan got all done with his paper guitar and pretended to play and then got out the real thing. 

 Autumn, Lachlan and I moved on to the next activity, Peter was still working on his craft and didn't want to stray.  So we got out the spinner, picked a favorite song and then spun to find out what style we had to sing it in.  We picked twinkle, twinkle little star and Lachlan spun Opera Style.  He had no clue what to do, so I showed him.  They were both in shock with little smirks on their faces.  Kind of like I can't believe she just did that.  Above is Autumn giving it a try, a little more reserved than I. 

And here is Peter, still going.  Towards the end he wanted me to do the coloring but I encouraged him to finish the project all on his own.  It's always good to build skills of determination, at least determination to accomplish things that are good.  Peter can get pretty determined towards other things less productive.

The last activity of the day again today was in our My Little Journals.  I asked Lachlan to come up with a word that starts with a G or the /g/g/ sound.  His answer was "gorilla".  Right on little dude. 

Let's Go Camping - Campfire

What do you think happens to fire when it burns?  Autumn says "it breaks and starts a forest fire."  Lachlan says "it burns and firefighters come and unburn it."
What color does it change to?  Black

As we sat at breakfast I recited the Opening Rhyme with them.

Five hotdogs roasting on the fire at camp,
(Wiggle all five fingers on one hand over the open palm of the other hand.)

One got hot and it went BAM!
(Clap loudly on BAM then take away one finger.)

We poured water on the burning logs!
Shhhhhhhhhhh!
No more burning dogs!
(Pretend to pour on a bucket of water and make a sizzling sound.)

Then repeat with 4 hotdogs and so on.

The kids loved this.  We had to do it several times.  I am not sure who comes up with all of these, but there is something like this for every morning.  It is quite impressive. 

After they got done eating they started on their Crackling Campfire Art.  Mother Goose Time provided us with small cardboard tubes, caps for the tube, sand and crackly cellophane.  The kids colored the tubes, we filled the tubes with sand, glued on the caps and then they taped the cellophane to the tube.  When you shake the tube it sounds like fire crackling. 

 Did I mention my boys wanted "cheetah eyes".  Perfect use for my eyeliner. 

Along with this art activity we asked, what sounds do you hear at a campfire?  Lachlan loves making a fire in our fire pit in the backyard with Dad.  So he knew the answer to this.  "Pop, pop, and then little fires float away."

As they were working on their craft I started preparing the materials for Fire, the next lesson.  Since this was Day 4, we were learning about the number 4.  I cut out 4 flames and blue squares for them to write out 1 to 4 on.

I actually had this sitting out for a while before we got to the lesson.  Lachlan hopped up on the learning tower and saw them sitting there.  I told him that he was to write the numbers on the blue paper.  So he got started.  He was enjoying himself so much he just kept going and going.  Jeff was in the kitchen cooking dinner and so he helped Lachlan when he got stumped.  But he wrote all the way to 20 and then wanted to know what came next.  He was facing the number line on the wall and used that as a guide and wanted to know what came after 20.  It was a fun and unexpected thing to watch.  The numbers were all very well written as well.

The next morning we actually did the lesson part of it.  I put the flames out and he had to use 4 of the blue water papers to put it out.  He matched up his written numbers here with the flames. 

I asked them, how do you think fires start in the forest?  Autumn said "by lightning."  I was very impressed by her quick response.  I continued to prod a bit because of the topic of the day.  What do you think happens if someone starts a campfire and doesn't put it out?  Then we talked about how a campfire would spread and moved into the Responsible Campers lesson.  MGT gave us responsible feathers.  We talked about how to be responsible around a campfire.  I asked them, should you run around a campfire or walk carefully around it?  Walk carefully. 

There was a really cute activity to go along with this.  Make a pretend campfire, sit some stuffed animals around the fire, shake your crackling campfire art props and say "it's getting too hot!"  Then have the kids move the stuffed animals back and away from the fire.  I am going to keep this one in the back of my mind for later.  We didn't do it on this day, we just talked about fire safety.  But it's an awesome idea.

We ended our day with the Letter F.  F is for fire after all.  On the F page of our My Little Journal there was a picture of a campfire to color and then tape the letter F card to the page.  We talked about what starts with the /f/ sound and Lachlan had fun coming up with all sorts of words.  This is his new favorite activity.  He doesn't necessarily know the name of the letter but if I tell him the sound he can come up with other words that start with that sound.  I think we are well on our way to flying through letters.  He is super interested now.

One day when he was telling me two words that started with the same letter my jaw dropped and I exclaimed "how did you know that?"  I just do he said as he shrugged his shoulders, like no bid deal.  I told him, stop that, stop learning, I don't want you to learn to read because that means you are grown up.  I don't want you to grow up.  He smiled a happy and sly smile.  If you grow up you can read your own books and you can read your own games, TV shows and signs and you won't need me to read them for you.

I wasn't sure when I said it, how he would respond.  I was hoping to find a way to get him excited about learning his letters and learning to read, because so far he has had no interest.  This was weeks ago now that we had this little conversation and it is still motivation for him.  He breaks out new words that start with the same letter all the time now and I always tell him to stop, no don't grow up.  And he always smiles with pride.  It's the perfect example of reverse psychology, but it worked!

Let's Go Camping - Tent

The first question of the day was, where would you want to pitch a tent? As they came up with ideas I wrote them out on index cards.  Peter came up with most of them as Lachlan was a bit grumpy for some reason.  Surfboard (that's a good one).  Dinosaur. Mountain. Backyard.

Then we started out our Mini Campsite Art.  Mother Goose Time provided us with a flat paper with a camp scene on it and lines for folding and cutting.  I first let the boys color and then we put it all together.  This is the finished project as it hangs on our refrigerator. 

 They also provided these yellow strips for making a tent and black straws to cut for logs for the campfire as well as red tissue paper for flames.  As you can see, when it was cut and folded as instructed it made the scene 3D.

Next was the Build a Tent lesson.  We were supposed to build a tent with blankets.  Which we didn't end up doing.  Not to worry, we do this every other day.  Just didn't happen to do it on this day.  But the discussion for this lesson was a lot of fun.  Use the index cards that we wrote out with the first discussion question.  Draw a card with an idea of where to build a tent and discuss what could be dangerous about setting up a tent in that location.

The card we picked was the surfboard card.  So I asked Peter what could be dangerous about setting up a tent on a surfboard. It could "flip over and be in the water."  I asked Lachlan and he said it could "float away".

The next two lessons kind of went together.  For Camping Stories we got out our new book that came with this months curriculum.  It's a fun rhyming book all about animals.  I read the book to them while they sat at the counter eating.  I have to say, this is probably the best time and place to read to my children.

If I sit in a chair and have them sit on the floor, they slowly start migrating to my lap.  Then one of them is on my lap and the other one is mad because he wants to be there.  With them at the counter, it eliminated this feud.  That, and their mouths were busy, so they were listening with out much interruption.  I just wrote a post on my struggles with reading time and my solution.

Moving on.  We got out our letter T card and set it next to the book.  They were to search for Ts.  Lachlan didn't want to share his book, so I got Peter his own and pulled out the superhero book from last month.

 Did I mention, that even Adam joined in on the fun.  He is eating his book.  But he really enjoyed watching me read the book. 

While still sitting at the counter we got out our My Little Journal for the Letter T lesson and turned to the T page.  On the T page was a picture of a tent and we were to draw things inside the tent that we would pack when going camping.  Lachlan packed his favorite toy, his pet guinea pig and a chair. 

Let's Go Camping - Backpack

It's August 3rd and I am blogging about the school day we completed August 1st.  This is exciting to me.  Maybe life will be getting back to normal.

This month is all about camping.  On our first day we learned about and made backpacks. 

I started with Peter making the Handy Backpack Art.  We took paper bags, made faces, hair and hands for them. 

 Eventually Lachlan joined in.  He is tracing his hands here to use as the hands on the backpack and Peter is fringe cutting the top of the bag for hair.

 Sticking some eyes on.

 Peter's complete backpack.  He thought it was awesome.

 Lachlan got quite upset after he drew a face on his first draft backpack, so we started over again.  The second time he got it "right" and drew a tongue sticking out.  He had to pose that way too.

Next we got out our Theme Poster to hunt for supplies.  

 First Lachlan had to look for the campfire and then follow the directions on the back.

 Peter got to do this one and he got another one that had him search for and name all the animals on the poster.

 Next we moved on to work in our My Little Journal.  This months journal has all the letters of the alphabet.  We actually worked on the B page, B for backpack.

 I love this picture of Peter.  They both have discovered the pencil eraser. 

 They have BOTH been writing their name on their own with out looking at it, but just remembering the letters. 

 Not perfect, but each time is better than the time before.  Practice makes perfect.

 Peter is working on the B page.  Tracing the letter B.  Next we cut out these awesome alphabet cards and taped the B card to the B page.  I think we might be doing this a lot this month.  I have a sneaking suspicion. 

Buy a Box Already

Over the summer months Mother Goose Time does review months.  Last month our My Little Journal's had numbers 1 through 20 in them.  This month they have the full alphabet.  Last month we also had the alphabet included with a Wonder Word Wall. 

I point this out because if any of you are looking into Mother Goose Time, these would be great months to try.  You could buy last months superhero theme and this months camping theme and you would have all letters and numbers covered.  You could use their lessons as jumping off point to expand from.  I bet if you used it in this way, 2 boxes could get you 6 months or more.  Or if you just want to get a good idea as to what MGT is all about, these months are great.

I highly recommend anyone with an 18 month old and up to buy a box, even if it's just one.  I had no idea the things that my little guy could do and would have never encouraged him to do the things he has done if I didn't have a guide.  I am not even talking school prep, I am just talking about fun times with your children.  They do learn as you play, but they give you some awesome ideas and they truly teach you how to make each moment a teachable moment.

I would have never thought to have Peter tell me a story about a hedgehog. But I am so glad I did. He was just over 2 and a half years old when he told me this story.

There is a lot of research to show that simply reading to your kids on a daily basis increases their chances of success in academics.  But my boys have never been a fan of sitting down for reading time.  I felt like a failure until I heard one doctor explain the research.  It's not necessarily the reading to your kids but the time being spent with them, expanding their vocabulary and building a bond.  If your little ones are like mine, and will not sit still long enough for a daily bed time story, buy a box of Mother Goose Time.  Do a lesson a day.  They give you rhymes, songs, games, crafts & arts, and adorable displays so your kids can have their letters and numbers all around them.  Did I mention the discussion questions?  There is one with each lesson, not each day, each lesson, 4+ lessons a day.  They have you ask open ended questions.  Again questions I wouldn't have thought to ask and you get answers you would never expect.  Little glimpses into their amazing minds.

Here is Lachlan's story.  I am so glad to have this recorded, I can still hear his voice telling me the story and I wrote it exactly how he spoke it.

I don't think I was a bad Mom before.  But I do feel like I am a better Mom now.  I have probably learned more than my boys.  Most of all, I have learned how valuable these moments are with my sons and how amazing it is to be there when they do something or learn something for the very first time. 

Trust me, all the kids that come over will be ecstatic over the Mother Goose Time.