Passport Fun

Wednesday's are library day for us. We drop baby sister off at my parents (Grandpa and Grandma B) for her morning nap and then 5 and I go play and sing and read with other kids and their moms/dads/grandmas. We always have fun. This morning, my mom called to ask if 5 could stay with them for the rest of the day when we came back to pick up the baby. Mommy and Daddy both said yes and 5 was really happy about the idea so she is playing and napping there today. How many people in the 80's ask to hang out with a 2 1/2 year old for the day? My children and grandchildren are so rich! 

But Monday and Tuesday were travel days for the girls and me. Last week we learned about things we might find at a world market, beautiful carpets, lanterns, masks, etc. This week we are learning about natural wonders around the world. On Monday we got out our day 11 supplies from Mother Goose Time and found a passport for each girl. I cut their faces out of extra photos I have (why do I print up so many?) and 5 was in charge of glueing them in place since her 8 month old sister eats everything within reach. 

Then the girls prepared to board the plane for their trip to the Grand Canyon. I checked and stamped their passports and showed them to their seats. 

While enjoying their in flight snacks, the girls watched a YouTube video by National Geographic. 

Then we looked up the Grand Canyon to learn about what plants and animals live there. We found a lot of cool stuff here. When 5 found out bats live there she remembered the hibernation unit from Mother Goose Time and asked to hang upside down. 

Next she asked to play with the supplies from Day 8, She loves to wear the the loom loops as braclets. On Monday she wanted me to wear them too. We decide against sharing them with 7 because in spite of what she may believe, they are not food.

5 wanted to finish the carpet on the loom because she thought the doll house needed a make over.

And apparently the Grandpa doll is either in the dog house or he's having back trouble. 

On Tuesday it was a trip to see Ayers Rock. Back to YouTube since I had no idea where that was. Australia! We looked at the world map and decided we should travel by boat this time. Once again, passports were checked and stamped and 5 grabbed a paddle and off they went to the tune of, "Row, Row, Row You Boat"

Upon arrival they watched the video I found, we looked at Ayers Rock pictures, and learned about it from Wikipedia. Did you know the people who live there recognize 5 seasons? 

1. Wanitjunkupai (April/May) – Cooler weather
2. Wari (June/July) – Cold season bringing morning frosts
3. Piriyakutu (August/September/October) – Animals breed and food plants flower
4. Mai Wiyaringkupai (November/December) – The hot season when food becomes scarce
5. Itjanu (January/February/March) – Sporadic storms can roll in suddenly

Thanks Wiki.
Next was craft time. Yipee!

MGT had a really cool project for us. They provided this light blue card stock and red sand for 5 to make her own version of this beautiful sandstone formation. This was a great sensory and fine motor activity. 

 A perfect match.

Types of Dinosaurs

Last week was so exciting I forgot to post about our fun days. Our granddaughter's favorite friend spent a couple of days with us because her parents were at the hospital for the birth of her beautiful and sweet brand new baby brother. Yea!
We introduced our friend to the breakfast of budding paleontologists, Dinosaur oatmeal. She was amazed with the melting eggs, the tiny dinosaurs she got to eat and of course the snowflake sprinkles I usually add just for fun.

After breakfast we got out our supplies from Mother Goose Time. We looked at the picture of the Brontosaurus and then got out the shape design mats and shape manipulatives from day 4. The girls enjoyed matching the designs and then trading the mats. 

 

Next we broke out the supplies MGT provided for day 9. I know we were suppose to use this to learn about the Massaurus but our friend was about to become a big sister and we needed to celebrate! 

The plates were nice and sturdy so the girls were able to color them with markers inside and out. I divided the beans between the two tambourines, sealed them together with hot glue, turned on some loud music and a dance party celebration broke out.

Yes, my granddaughter took her pajamas off. She got too warm with her celebration dance. And our friend needed a thumb/blanket break, but it was a really fun morning. 

Dinosaur Dig

Has it been crazy cold where you live? It has been in NE Illinois. The girls only came to our house a couple of days this week because their teacher mommy's school was closed for three days because it was too cold to have kids standing at a bus stop. 

The days they were here were full of dinosaur fun, starting with Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal of course. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And why not watch eggs melt away to reveal tiny dinosaurs.

Last weekend I cooked a whole chicken in the crock pot and then dried the bones. I don't know if 5 has ever held a bone of any kind plus she's 2 so I knew she would believe these are dinosaur bones. Not to mention I've convinced all 7 of our grandchildren that I'm completely believable. 

Fortunately I was able to get some sand out of the sandbox on the deck before everything outside was frozen solid. I buried the chicken bones in the sand and waited for the girls to arrive. 

 After calendar time I reminded 5 that we don't pour sand on the floor inside the house, and gave her the paint brushes provided by Mother Goose Time plus a couple of bigger brushes. She brushed and brushed and when she found a bone she was amazed. 

Then she laid each bone on her mat, used the MGT brush for fine brushing and then as always, used her handy dandy magnifying glass. Each bone passed her rigorous and very scientific inspection. While she dug and inspected I told her about Paleontologists and excavation sites.

Later that morning we looked at the Mother Goose Time theme poster and matched the dinosaur picture cards, reading the descriptions and facts on the back of each card. It may take her the entire month of January to be able to identify each dinosaur with their correct name. Who am I kidding? She will probably have it by next week and at the end of the month I'll still be calling them by their Land Before Time names. 

 We found the matching mini dinosaurs for all of them except for the Stegosaurus. We had to us 7's musical dinosaur for that one. 

Hopefully things will warm up around here and we can learn a lot more next week.

Happy New Year!

We started this month celebrating the new year with the bonus material from Mother Goose Time. First we counted how many days we had in December and then talked about the difference between 2014 and 2015. Yeah, that didn't go over very well. She had no idea what I was talking about.

But she loved the game of jumping from 2014 into 2015. After we took turns jumping she decided to jump from 2014 and land on her bottom on 2015 and as much as she begged, I did not participate in this new version of the game. 

When Baby 7 woke up from her morning nap we used the Visual Arts materials from MGT to make footprints for the beginning of this year. It should be fun to compare them a year from now. We decided to outline their footprints with glitter glue because...well, why wouldn't we?

In the month of January our Mother Goose Time lessons and activities are all about dinosaurs. Our grandparenting adventure began with three grandsons so we already have some here and we learned that all the grandkids, the boys and girls like to play with them. Our daughter in law (#9 in the top of the blog picture) brought wonderful water beads to Family Christmas 2014. And she left some here! You can find them at several stores or online. They are a great thing to have around for sensory play. 5 just knew the baby dinosaurs would love playing in the squishiness of them. 

Then the big dinosaurs took turns giving the babies a ride.

We spent the rest of the morning playing with dinosaurs and trucks and tutus.

Polar Bear Fun

We had fun learning about polar bears today. Did you know their fur is actually clear, not white? Neither did I. Mother Goose Time told us this and that the clear fur traps heat by absorbing the sun. There was even a science experiment to show how this works. Fill two clear containers with hot water and record the temp. Cover one jar with clear plastic wrap like Saran Wrap, and the other jar with a white cloth and place them both in the sun. Wait a little while and check the temp. of both jars again. That makes perfect sense. It's cloudy here most of December so we haven't tried this yet but plan to as soon as we see the sun! Great, hands on activity to help her remember this fun fact.

Our skies remained grey all day long but that didn't stop us from playing through the rest of today's lesson. Jumping Icebergs was a big hit. As suggested, we laid out a few towels and pretended they were icebergs. We stood on our own towels and when I called out, "Jump!" we jumped to a new iceberg and then pretended to scoop fish out of the ocean and gobbled them down. It got pretty silly after a few jumps. 

Next we got out the bear counting manipulatives from Day 6 and some white washcloths. I told little miss Minnie Mouse to put them on the icebergs however she wanted to. 

 She chose to group them by size or as she said, "the cute little baby bears, big kids, mommies and daddies". Then she had the parent bears jump from iceberg to iceberg to get to their correct color baby. As you can see the big kids spent the whole time swimming in the ocean. 

To finish the morning we got out the supplies to make a polar bear mask. MGT gave us a mask cutout, a souffle cup, a black pompom, yarn, and those great double sided adhesive dots. I showed my granddaughter the polar bear picture and the instruction examples they provided and we talked about how she wanted her mask to look. It was a quick and fun project. 

In the middle of the project she decided the adhesive circles would be a perfect addition to her contact paper tree.  

She's pretty pleased with herself.

Penguins!!!!

I really like penguins. I like they way they walk and slide all over the place. I like that they are kind of weird, birds who don't fly but swim. I don't like how smelly their habitat usually is at the zoo but thats not their fault. I love March of the Penguins and Happy Feet. I always enjoyed them but when I found out they mate for life and the males carry their egg around until they hatch my fondness for them grew. 

We started our morning watching the beginning of Happy Feet. I wanted 5 to see how the males carry the eggs so it would make sense to her when we tried doing the same thing later on. While we watched I was able to tell her how the mommys worked hard to take care of their families which is something she can relate to. We saw the penguins swim and slide on the ice which was all going to tie in with today's lesson. 

I turned the movie off and gave her the white pom provided by Mother Goose Time and she tried to walk with it on her feet. 

 Unfortunately, tragedy struck when the egg rolled off her and she stepped on it! We took turns waddling with the egg and agreed we were glad we didn't have to take care of human babies like penguins do. 

Next we made a daddy penguin. This was a fun and cute idea from MGT. I offered 5 the option of using the black construction paper that was provided or a black marker. Silly me. Of course she wanted the black marker. She can be a serious colorer. 

This month Mother Goose Time has given us adhesive dots to use in our crafts. I had never used them before but have become such a big fan I bought a some to keep here. They were so helpful with this project. 5 used them to attach the googly eyes and beak. 

Her daddy penguin gave Baby Bear a boost to look at the awesome penguin picture.

She liked this project so much she decided it needed a snack so of course we chose Goldfish crackers. I can't promise that she doesn't think these new friends will eat the cracker she is offering. 

And it does look like the yellow duck is watching the blue one eat...

This was a fun project that allowed me to teach my granddaughter more about penguins. When her dad picked her up later in the day she was excited to show this to him and tell him all the things she learned. Nice job MGT.

When we finished this project we used the story sequencing cards to make up our own story about penguin food. Our penguins were named Timmy and Joe. They were playing outside one day and wanted a snack but didn't want to go home. Timmy saw a fish in the water and decided to slide down and catch it which he did. The final card was blank so I asked 5 what happened next. She said Timmy smashed the fish and ate it. I asked her about Joe. She said, "Oh, he went home and had lunch." I'm sure he did. We told the story a few more times but never with the same ending. Then we turned the movie back on for a couple of songs. 

It's called Happy Feet for a reason. 

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.