Bells and Pajama Parties

We had a very special day right around Christmas where we learned about bells, the letter B, and the color green. I absolutely love being able to choose our schedule for homeschooling... Because we are going to Oregon around New Years, I decided to continue school for another week or so. We LOVED the day on bells! There was good quality learning this day, and also a lot of fun!

Our circle time called for learning about the color green, using a big, paper, green crayon sent by Mother Goose Time. We also decided to brainstorm the different places we see the color green! Their answers were so sweet and original. We did an activity where we played/paused music and pointed to something green. The kids were full of giggles during this activity!

The cup is green!

One of my favorite activities that we do every week is the "My Letter Book" that MGT sends for the kids to color and read. They get to practice writing their names, the letter of the week, and read the words in the little book. Jonathan and Hope love these little books!

Working on that pencil grip!

A finished product

We also made some bells on this day! I loved the activity where they rang the little bell every time they saw the letter B in our stories this day. We read "Owl Babies" (a new favorite! and a lot of the letter B), and "The Polar Express."

Later that evening we had a pajama party and watched part of the movie, "The Polar Express." Jon has been working such long hours and our evening have been ROUGH. My mother-in-law gave me the idea of having the kids in their pajamas and ready for bed before Jon gets home so that they can enjoy their time together before bedtime, instead of fighting them to get ready for seleep. We had the house picked up, baths done, and pajamas on by the time Jon got home from work around 7.  Then we had a pajama party complete with candy canes, popcorn and tea with Daddy. The kids LOVED it! It was a wonderful evening.  Jonathan was comparing the book to the movie throughout, and they both loved the part about the bell.

Sunshine and Snow

 As Christmas rolls around, I am getting  nostalgic for snow! In Oregon, it RARELY snowed on Christmas, but we usually got at least one dusting of snow throughout the winter. Now that we are in California, we are driving with the windows down and riding bikes without coats on Christmas Eve, and LOVING it! While we are so enjoying the sunshine, sometimes I yearn for a snow day.

With our homeschool last week, we had the opportunity to learn about different animal tracks in the snow. The kids had so much fun talking about the different patterns of the animals foot prints and what they look like.

We used play dough to demonstrate prints in the snow and the tracks animals might leave with their feet. 

The kids loved making their own tracks in the snow with q-tips and paint. They had a little reference guide to help them decide which track to make for certain animals. Most of all, they love to paint. I need to take our paints out more often!

Everyday, I try to have Jonathan practice writing the letter of the week or his name.  The letter for last week was "P," and Mother Goose Time provides these wonderful journals for the children to practice their letters and fine motor skills. Jonathan is really coming along in his printing! He is a hard worker.

MGT also planned this really sweet game where we matched the animal to the print they leave behind. We talked about how BIG animals leave BIG prints and SMALL animals leave SMALL prints. We also talked about other places we might find prints such as: sand at the beach, or mud in our backyard.

We read a couple different books this day, "Tracks in the Snow" (as recommended by MGT) and "Snowy Day." Amazon Prime happens to have a short film animating the book "Snowy Day" so I had the kiddos watch that one too. They LOVED it! We also may have watched part of their favorite movie, "Bambi" that night to talk more about animals tracks.

Since we are living in California, we don't see snow unless we drive to it.  So I pulled out some old photos and videos of the kids playing a couple years ago. We had so much fun looking at these old memories!

Snow Day 2016

Ha! That face!

Trains, Trains, Trains!

Last month we studied transportation including all sorts of different ways to get around! The kids and I took this opportunity to ride a train and I am just getting around to writing about it. This is a CRAZY time of year, but I wanted to make sure to log our memories including this train ride. It was the week before Thanksgiving, so the trains were PACKED with travelers, but we still had a wonderful time!

We took the Amtrak train from Hanford, CA to Fresno, CA and back again. The ride was about 40 minutes there and 40 minutes home.

I, of course, was armed with books about trains (mainly Thomas the Train), snacks and even train movies to watch while we travelled. Most of the time we looked out the window and I tried to engage the kids in discussion on how the train runs. We talked about the tracks, the engineer, the conductor, and even the snack car.

I think Hope said, "Choo! Choo!" every time she heard the whistle of the train. It was so cute!

The journey got a little bit long near the end, but I'm so glad we did it! Mother Goose Time of course had an amazing lesson planned for trains and the kids learned so much and thoroughly enjoyed it.

They made their own little trains out of noodles and string. They loved pretending with these trains! It was a great little "Make and Play" project.

We used our math manipulatives to play a game called "Roll to a Bridge." The kids tossed the pocket cube (most amazing resource EVER! The kids love this little cube!). and roll the dice to see how far to move their plane, bus, train or boat.

Here is a photo of the amazing pocket cube! The number pictures can be taken out and replaced with other pictures including: letter pictures, movement pictures, song pictures, transportation pictures, ect. We use this nearly every day! Such a useful little tool...

The kids also worked on their letter recognition while using triangles to help shape a train engine.  We used the pocket cube in this activity too! I simply switched out the transportation pictures for letter pictures. They loved this activity! For Jonathan, I had him tell me whether the letter was upper case or lower case, and also the sound of the letter he rolled.

We had so much fun learning about trains! We are so incredibly blessed to be able to homeschool this year. I am beyond grateful to my husband for working so hard in order for me to stay home with my kiddos. And I am SO thankful to Mother Goose Time for allowing me to share my honest thoughts and opinions on the activities in exchange for the curriculum. Thank you Mother Goose Time!

Learning about the Orchestra!

We have been so blessed in this season to be homeschooling. Life when your husband is in residency is HECTIC. Jon is working extremely long hours in stressful situations, so all of the family life has been my responsibility. I am so blessed to be able to use the time with my children to homeschool them and help them to learn new things. I am extraordinarily blessed to be using the Mother Goose Time curriculum, as it is so fun for the children!

This month the kids are learning about Sights and Sounds, and this week we learned about the orchestra. My children LOVE music, so anything that involves instruments or music earns their full attention.  One of our favorite days was learning about stringed instruments.

The activities this day were SO FUN! Jonathan and Hope especially loved creating their own violins and pretending to play them for the rest of the evening.

This activity had the kids watching a YouTube video of someone playing violin. I found one of a child playing the violin beautifully, and the kids were ENTHRALLED and inspired.

Another favorite was counting strings! They had so much fun rolling the dice and counting the strings they plucked. I also had Jonathan do a little bit of addition during this section. He was desperate to get all six strings, so we added a couple rolls of the dice so he could pluck all six strings.

My favorite part of the lesson is almost always the "Read Aloud."  This week, MGT included the cutest book about farm animals that wanted to form a blues band. The kids had so much fun reading it and pretending to play the instruments in the book.

Since the letter of the week is "P," one of the activities was to form the letter out of string. To challenge Jonathan a little more, we thought of words that began with the /p/ sound.

The guitar holds a very special place in our family. Jon plays the guitar, and nearly every night our family has music/worship time. Most of the time, it is silly and a way for the kids to get their last bit of energy out before bedtime. It is definitely one of my favorite parts of the day. We did our usual music time on stringed instrument day, and it made me remember some other special videos I have filmed of the kids playing music with their dad. Jonathan even has his own little guitar! Be sure to click the links so you can see our special memories.

Once again, Mother Goose Time hits it out of the park and helped my family and I create wonderful memories!