Creatures of the Rainforest

I continue to be impressed by the quality and creativity of the materials Mother Goose Time  sends me every month. This week we learned about some of the creatures who make their home in the rainforest. We are a little behind and there is so much fun stuff to learn and play with that it would be a shame to miss any of it. So we did our best to catch up from last week's material and learn as well as the fun stuff MGT planned for this week. 

We colored (and glitter glued) the pages I printed up but everything else was provided for us. 

One of the most fun things we made was the parrot. If you have seen any of my other posts you know the deep love my granddaughter has for the repeating parrot toy so this was right up her alley. She allowed me to hang this up in our tree for the day but then of course it needed to go home with her. 

I enjoyed the Jaguar J art project because she is just learning that letters have sounds and this was a great way to reinforce this to her. Plus she didn't know what a Jaguar was until now. 

5 has a pretty good memory and did surprisingly well playing the Matching Rainforest Animals game. We have played it several times this week and it's been fun to see her be able to name all the creatures on the cards. As always it has been an inside the hexagon game. 

And how about these monkey masks? 

After we made the masks we used the counting monkeys from Day 3 and played 5 Little Monkeys. Two year olds don't really subtract but they all know and love this rhyme. I held on to three monkeys and she held two as we had them jump up and down together on the floor. Like many children, 5 loves the "bumped his head" part of that story so these monkeys did elaborate flips and spins in the air as they fell toward the ground. I had recently looked for monkeys like this in a store so I was delighted to find them in the Mother Goose Time box when it arrived the middle of last month. We have hung them from the table, from our tree in our rainforest and they are currently hanging on a couple different cupboard door knobs in our family room. Monkeys are probably 5's second favorite rainforest creature. 

Today was especially fun around here. We had another 2 year old girl over for the day. The favorite toy of every 2 year old is another 2 year old and this one just happens to be 5's best friend (can toddlers have best friends?). This friend is a little more cautious than my granddaughter but she played along with our silliness. I hung tablecloths over the dining room table to make them a tent and we played the Build-a-Snake Game inside. Each snake is built by matching the patterns on the cards, much like a game of dominoes. 

We also made the Spiral Snake with the materials provided. I've made snakes from paper plates before but never thought of using bubble wrap to make snakeskin patterns with paint. After they dried we played with these the rest of the day. 

Like I said earlier, our friend is a quieter, more cautious 2 year old and I don't know if it was the googly eyes, the ribbon tongue or the fact that it was a snake, but by the time her mom picked her up she had had enough of the snake and didn't want to take it home. But her mom loved it so off it went. 

Another successful week of learning.

Playing in the Rainforest with Mother Goose Time

What a fun week with Mother Goose Time! We built our own rainforest, played with monkeys, chased butterflies, made a jungle vine and decorated it with bug stickers, learned about sloths and pink dolphins, and talked A LOT to our chattering parrot toy.

It's not easy to explain a sloth to a two year old, especially an active two year old. But I relied on my go-to, YouTube for help.

And when 5 learned that Sloths like to sleep the same way bats do (fun fact from last month's unit on hibernation) she was all in. What can I say, the girl loves to hang upside down. 

As always Mother Goose Time  provided an I Can Read book for 5. This month's book is, "Jump through the Rainforest" and she loves reading it and acting it out. 

She reads it to the parrot toy which begins to repeat it back while she is still reading. She tells the bird to stop it and it tells her to stop it and on and on it goes. I think this toy is preparing her for conversations with her younger sister about 10 years from now. I should send it home with her to train her parents to ignore things they can't change. 

We have also started the ABB pattern which is an important pre-reading skill. This is used in this month's calendar and reinforced again with a Sloth in Hiding game that we received. 

Next week we are focusing on small creatures in the rainforest. I have printed up some coloring pages for us to work on so we can add them to our walls. It should be another fun week!

Hexagon Happiness

"Grandma! There's a hexagon on your floor!!" I'm not sure how she knows what a hexagon is but those were the first words out of her mouth when she walked into the room. I don't think I would have thought to make this masking tape masterpiece on my own but thanks to Mother Goose Time I will continue to have shapes on the family room floor. 

 We started our morning with a Rainforest Walk game. Using the animal cards from day 1, we took turns choosing a card and then walked, crawled, jumped, slithered, and flew like we thought they would. 

 Tootsie Pop is still enjoying the leaves from last month's Weather All Around Us unit from MGT. Occasionally I put clear contact paper on the window and let 5 stick stuff to it. I saw a suggestion on Pinterest to draw a face shape on the non sticky side and give your child googly eyes, yarn, and other things to create a person. I cut up several colors of yarn and had them laid out by group. 5 immediately picked up the orange yarn, stuck it on top of the face and said,"Look, I'm making Mommy." (#4 in the back of the shirt picture) I, of course immediately took a picture and sent it to my daughter along with the quote. 5 isn't willing to add anything to Mommy's picture that isn't true to Mommy so I added the new sheet for other sticky fun. It's a fun, cheap, sensory play option. Photo bomb by Bird.

Another cheap sensory break option 5 enjoys are balloon squeeze things. I think that's the official name. We have a couple with play dough (from the Dollar Store), coffee beans, rice, and flour. She often carries them around and will sometimes stop playing for a moment and squish and squeeze one or two of them. They are good to have around. Stress balls, that's they're called. 

I have a shoe box filled with pattern blocks for the older grandchildren but the pattern cards I have much to complicated for 5 so she's never played with them. These design mats from Mother Goose Time along with the bag of pattern blocks were the perfect size for her. She knew the name of every piece except for the trapezoid. What can I say? Her parents are slackers :)

 After some decorations for Bird we got our Theme Poster and Looking Glasses from Day 1 and looked for matches. 5 usually insists on using the magnifying glasses I already have but she really enjoyed these and matching the pictures to the poster. And yes, she is sitting inside the footstool. She loves it. Again, I have no idea why. 

The new best friends had a lively conversation while sharing fish crackers and then went to the toy cupboard to see what they could do next. The hexagon is becoming a favorite place to play. Thanks for another great idea Mother Goose Time!

Rainforest Adventure

Last week we checked out some Rainforest books from our local library and we began to look at pictures and talk about the funny and beautiful creatures that live there. Over the weekend I laminated the nametags provided by Mother Goose Time and after calendar time I gave 5 some dry erase markers. In her two year old mind she writes her name and 7's name as clearly as I write my own.

But best (or worst) of all is the parrot toy I found at a resale store in town. When I saw it I knew it would be perfect for this month. Plus it was $3. Perfect. Have you seen them? They record what you say and then automatically repeat your words in a faster and higher pitch. I'm sure you will see this toy in every post I make this entire month. When 3 and 6 were visiting recently they all had a lot of fun talking to the bird and laughing at it. The laughing is the best part. The worst happens when 5 is trying to tell the bird something and playback begins before she is finished talking. She starts talking louder which makes the bird record at a louder volume which eventually results in a shouting match until I announce that Bird needs a nap. It happens daily. 

Next up was I Spy Rainforest but in a different way than the one suggested in the Teacher Guide. I borrowed the animal cards from the rainforest collage project and hid them around the room. 5 used the magnifying glasses from the dollar store to help her them all. 

We then found similar pictures on the Theme Poster. 5 made sure Bird saw all the things she found. 

I continue to be impressed by the quality of the materials from the people at Mother Goose Time. They provided the green cardstock, Rainforest pictures, construction paper, green tissue paper, and colored confetti for this Rainforest Collage. We got out a glue stick and then began one of our favorite things to do, tear paper! 

This project was fun and creative.  

Happy Monday Migration

I hope your Monday has been as fun and full as ours. Grandchildren 3 and 6 were here for the day so it was cousin bonanza! We played outside in beautiful mid 70's weather and the leaves were falling by the tree full. It was windy, warm, and smelled like autumn.

After introducing our calendar songs and routine to 3 and 6 the kids wanted to play outside in the sand tub. This is always fun if we can do it under grandparent supervision only. Parents have a tendency to get nervous about sand spilling even though its outside on the deck and then they worry about sand tracking. I try to remind them this is why I have dirt colored floors all through my house and a really good vacuum. It's just easier for everyone if parents are somewhere else.

While we were playing in the sand I told the kids that some creatures do not like snow. They were flabbergasted! The three of them are firm believers that snow is awesome! I explained that not everything can survive the winter so they make new homes in places where it never snows. I found puzzle pieces of a bird and butterfly and brought them outside to play. 3, 5, and 6 took turns digging nests and homes for the pieces to stay warm. 

They also decided to bury the letter N. Why not?

I remembered the animal pictures I found in the Day 18 materials and brought those outside too. These creatures don't Migrate but they do Hibernate which is something we all learned about last week. That's one of the great things about Mother Goose Time materials, they are so versatile. 

Once the majority of the digging was over and we were down to only sand tracking we switched activities to an inside, but still messy, painting one. I thought it was time to break out an oldie but a goodie, coffee filter butterflies. It was a lot of fun. We used water color paint and paint dabber markers. 6 decided to also paint dab her face but that's pretty standard for a year and a half year old. I forgot to take pictures of the finished product but you all know what they look like. After naps and after we waved good bye to 3 and 6, 5 and I decided to play with her butterfly before her daddy came to pick her up. She held it by the clothespin and I said, "It's about to snow!" She ran away, flapping the butterfly up and down and yelled, "Fly to Mexico!" 

Fun, fun day. 

Hibernation

I wanted to introduce the idea of hibernation before we started the lesson from Day 15 of Mother Goose Time and I remembered something my daughter-in-law did for her kids last winter using an appliance box. The box from my basement isn't quite that big but it is cave size for a 2 year old. We checked out the book, The Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and read it together. Then we decided to act it out. If you aren't familiar with the story here's a summary: a bear falls asleep in his cave for the winter. Other animals come into the cave, start a bonfire, have tea, and sing and dance but the bear snores on and misses it all. The first two animals to join the bear are a mouse and a bunny. Mickey and the Velveteen Rabbit were happy to play along but when we got to the badger, mole, raven, and the others, we had to substitute with Minnie, Daisy, Ernie, Sock Monkey, and Pete the Cat.

5 woke up from her nap with a fever which has lasted for a few days. Her mommy stayed home yesterday and they made their own bear cave. I went to their house this morning until my favorite son-in-law was able to leave work. While I was there we acted the story out again using her animals 

This bat puzzle from MGT was a good way to introduce other hibernating animals.  

5 had no idea what bats were and probably still isn't quite clear but if you asked she would tell you that they sleep upside down. At the suggestion of Mother Goose Time I illustrated this bat fact by hanging 5 upside down and asking her to go to sleep. She was giggling too much to comply. It was great to hear her laugh so much. Each time I would set her down she would say,"Again!" 

I asked her if people should sleep like that and she thought that was a funny idea. But she looked at the baby monitor, saw her sister taking her morning nap and said,"we lay down like 7 Baby."

She had had enough activity and needed to rest for a bit but first she wanted to show me how she looks when she sleeps. The eye covering was her idea. I have no idea why. 

After her little rest used the supplies from Mother Goose Time to Build a Bear Den. This one was a much more manageable size. It would have been fun to go for a nature walk and gather leaves and other things to make a bed for the bear cutout MGT gave us. But 5 was unable to go for a walk so we went to the backyard and gathered dry grass clippings. She drew a face on the bear and laid him in his bed. We decided her bear needed snow to let him know it was time to hibernate. A torn up paper towel was just the ticket. 

When enough snow had fallen I showed 5 the animal pictures provided for the Get Ready to Hibernate part of the lesson. We talked about them and where they hibernate. I hid them around the living room while she counted to ten (of course taking cheat peeks the entire count), and then began to "search" for the pictures. Every time she saw the chipmunk picture she said,"Hey, a chipmunk, just like Chip and Dale!" She decided these animals needed to be in the snow also.        

      

A fun morning. Thanks Mother Goose Time.