So you’ve heard me talk about Mother Goose Time. You have seen our cute little crafts, but do you really understand what this program is all about and how it works? Is it worth the money? Come catch a glimpse of the magic that makes our homeschool come alive!
What’s in the Box?
This is the beautiful box that comes to our day each month! It is full of 25 daily bags each filled with crafts and activities and games and resources. It is quite literally a treasure trove of fun and opening it up is the highlight of our month.
The first bag in the box is your teachers toolkit. It includes your gathering list, your teacher guide and planning journal, your monthly CD, and more!
It also comes with your letter and number punchouts, sight words, color bird, monthly flag, character feather, monthly shape, and your monthly calendar and pieces (each day is a different picture, once you put them on your calendar you’ll start to see the pattern, great resource for patterning!).
You also have your manipulatives bag, this includes the hands on items for the month that will be used multiple times throughout your lessons. This month you get some shapes and a whole basket full of seashells!
Those are the basics, the bag changes each month based on the theme. So far we have done the rainforest, winter wonderland, dinosaur, it’s a small world, and more! Each month is different, unique, exciting, and new! But the best part is not the teacher resources and manipulatives, it is the easy-to-use daily bags filled with crafts and activities.
Preschool Program: Ocean Commotion Week 1 Preview
Day 1 looks like a hoot! Each day has an introduction photo with a great discussion question. The first day also includes a family newsletter to send out with your student’s families. This is a great resource if you are using Mother Goose Time as a daycare (which I would totally do if I were doing a preschool or daycare program)! Remember, each daily bag has enough resources for as many children as you request. We are sent enough for all the kids to do it, and you simply pay a few dollars more per student you add to the list. It also includes the theme poster for month to put on your display along with your discovery magnifying glasses. The kids use them to help explore their monthly theme poster. It looks like this month we will also be doing an experiment to learn about salty ocean water as well as our name tags. We have done a number of activities with these nametags, including playing games, pinning htem to our workstations, creating an art wall for the month with these seperating all our projects, etc. It is a great way to teach little ones how to write their names.
Day 2 we will be learning about the ocean floor. I love the photo for this day! We will be creating our own oyster with an awesome pearl strand inside (who thinks up this stuff! The creators of Mother Goose Time are so creative!). We will also be doing a number of other activities (each day has at least four different lesson/activities in the teachers guide) and it looks like we get our alphabet cards for the letter “O”! I can’t wait until we have them all and can paste these all around our school room!
Day 3 we discover ocean caves and crevices, we get to play with our seashell manipulatives, play with numbers and get our journal! We love these little journals, they coordinate with each day, learning letters, numbers, tracing lines, drawing pictures. The kids love how each month co-ordinates with the theme and gives them something special to look forward to. The “I am Respectful” cards are bracelets we get to give to the kids to learn our character trait for the month! I LOVE this aspect of Mother Goose Time, it is so special to give the kids these, using positive re-inforcement. Rather than just telling them to BE respectful, we talk about what it means and I give them this reward becuase they ARE respectful. It is a reminder they often wear for days, until bathtime makes it impossible to keep on any longer 😉
Day 4 we talk about ocean plants. We use our shapes to create designs on the ocean floor and will get to write our own stories! We also get a recipe card to make our own seaweed chips. I am really looking forward to making these with the kids this month! If I can remember to put it on my grocery list for the week that is 🙂
Day 5 we explore the coral reef. LOOK! I laid this all out and knew that Friday will be my favorite day of the week hands down. The kids get to sew! They will be making their own sea fan coral. As I have my own sewing business, my kids are constantly asking to learn how to sew and wanting to work with me in my sewing studio. They will be thrilled to see this on the table in the morning and while their little hands our busy, we will be learning all sorts of interesting facts about the coral reef! We also get our monthly book, each month we get a new book. These books are fun, educational, bright and overall fantastic. I can’t wait to dig into our book for the month and help Aliyah learn her letters!
So, for about $60 a month (more if you are using it for multiple children), you can get a complete guide for daily lesson plans, activities, bags with crafts books, and more! Keep in mind this is just 5 of the 20 days! Each week is just as fantastic! I will post each monday a preview of our week in advance, so you can see why we love this program and maybe have a better idea of how it is used.
Do you have questions? I want to hear them! Post them in the questions below and Ill see what I can figure out 🙂
I’m sharing over at Nifty Thrifty Things, Denise Designed, Epic Mommy Adventures, and Nourishing Joy!
