Always Green

Arrrgh! I just completed this entire post, thought I clicked publish, closed the page, and nothing is there! I have no idea what I did wrong(see my very first blog ever) but here I go again. That actually is the perfect way to finish out this hectic, crazy week we've had. We were only able to play and learn with our materials on Monday and Friday and even that time was limited.  

We started out Monday stacking the cube manipulatives from Day 4 to build something tall. Like all kids 5 loves building towers and knocking them down. We did this over and over until she got tired of picking up after the knock down. She tried to get me to pick them all up and bring them to her but when I told her she had to help clean up if she was going to knock them down she decided she was done with that game. Next we worked together to build a tower that was as tall as she is. I may have already said that she was a preemie and is still working on catching up on size so we didn't use as many blocks as you might expect for a child her age. 

On Day 7 of our Mother Goose Time curriculum we learned that a 4 year old spruce tree can already be 12 feet tall. MGT suggested we tape 12 pieces of paper together to see what that looked like and then have your child lay down on the paper to compare heights. We did that but she couldn't tell how much the paper towered over her so we laid her height blocks next to the paper and the difference was pretty impressive!

On Friday we were able to get back to Mother Goose Time fun. I got out the paint supplies and she put on her paint shirt. When I gave her the tree cutout that was provided she asked me for the tree picture so she could see what to do. And as much as I tried to tell her otherwise, she refused to call them spruce trees. They are Christmas trees. She's not wrong.

I'm just glad she didn't look at me with an "I told you" face when I gave her the sequins MGT provided for decorating it. She added glitter glue and was pleased with the results.

 I read the participation story, "Forever Green" using the color bird for this month. This story helped teach her that spruce trees always stay green. While the paint and glue dried we measured the pinecone and compared it to objects around the house. It is smaller than the tree picture from our Day 8 materials, the footstool she likes to climb in, her baby sister, Pete the Cat, and Santa. But it is bigger than the tea cup, caboose, grapes, petite carrots she was eating for a snack, and the counting bear manipulatives from Day 6. I think I have used these manipulatives in every elementary and special education setting I've worked in the past 17 years. They are wonderful for teaching color or size sorting, counting, big, bigger, biggest, and are often a source of creative pretend play, so I was very happy to find them in this months box. 

 

 

5 sorted them into color groups as soon as she saw them. Then she made them all family members. I know they will be a favorite.