Butterflies!

We completed our last week of our butterfly unit this week, and will be moving onto bubbles, boats, and floats next month. This butterfly unit has been so so much fun! Mother Goose Time has done such a wonderful job putting together great activities to go with the butterfly theme. One of our very favorite days was definitely the day we spent studying the butterfly stage of the lifecycle.

Our first activity was making these wonderful butterfly lifecycle plates.  The kids had so much fun using beans to make the different stages of a butterfly.  They turned out so cute! These required quite a bit of my attention, but the kids made it their own with their coloring and gluing.

One of the main lessons from this day, was a lesson on symmetry. A butterflies wings are symmetrical, and this activity helped the kids realize just what that meant. I created a pattern of shapes, provided by Mother Goose Time, and the kids were to repeat the shapes on the other side to create perfect symmetry.  We used this time to talk about how we are also a bit symmetrical, with two eyes, ears, cheeks, etc.

This was one of my very favorite activities this week. The kids were to roll the pocket cube, put their butterfly on the matching flower and I had them write the letter they rolled onto the big butterfly. This activity was great because it had them distinguish between capital and lowercase letters. Practicing their writing is always important!

Another big event in our house this week was our caterpillars turning into chrysalides! We actually got to watch part of one, and I got a great video of it happening! We have had so much fun with this whole project and the kids are really invested in learning all about it.

Thank you, MGT, for another great week in homeschool!

Caterpillars!

I have been looking forward to this topic all year! There is just something so miraculous about the lifecycle of the butterfly. Watching the discovery on my children's faces has been so much fun this week.  Mother Goose Time did a wonderful job helping the children learn with hands-on activities and a lot of movement. Perfect for my 4-year-old and 2-year-old!

This week, our favorite day (though all the lessens were so good!) was the day we learned about the caterpillar.

First we brainstormed what we already knew about caterpillars. It was so cute to see what they knew already about the larva.  I was surprised to see how much they knew already!

We made our own caterpillars from cornstarch noodles, sent by Mother Goose Time. This was such a fun project! We used this time to learn more about the caterpillars "defenses" and strategies it uses to protect itself.

Our next activity was so creative! We used word and picture cards to identify letters and punch a hole in that leaf letter.  The kids had so much fun punching the holes and pretending their caterpillars ate part of the leaf. It was a good activity for their sound/letter recognition!

We read the book, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," of course! We have read this book so many times in the past, this time the kids read it to me! It is definitely one of our favorite books and Eric Carle, the author, is another favorite in this family.

We then played a game with the math manipulatives Mother Goose Time sent this month.  First, we sorted our shapes into groups.  While we made our caterpillars with various shapes, we discussed who's "caterpillar" was longer and who's was shorter. We also talked about each shape and how many sides it had.

I added some special activities for this particular topic this month. We ordered our own caterpillars to do a butterfly garden! The kids are SO excited about this project. We will be completing our own butterfly journals, observing our caterpillars turning into a butterflies.

Thank you, Mother Goose Time, for this time of learning with my children. Watching them learn has been one of the greatest joys of my life.

Disclaimer: Our homeschool time certainly isn't perfect. Many times I am comforting a tired 2-year-old while trying to facilitate learning. I also try to angle the photos in a way that doesn't show just how messy my house is! Survival parenting at it's finest. Ha!

Though Hope is really great about participating,
she has her days too!

Bees, Counting and Number Sense

Hey all! As the year progresses, I can feel these blog posts getting less and less of my own attention, but I have so loved this season! Homeschooling has been such an amazing adventure for us! The Mother Goose Time curriculum has been a God send, and I am so relieved to know that I am giving my children the best start to their education.

One of our favorite days this week was the study on baby bees. There were songs and rhymes and a lot of counting! The art project was definitely one of our favorites all year. We made our own queen bee hats! While we were making these we talked about the important roles of the queen bee and how she is the mama to all of the baby bees. This was another chance for the kids to practice with their scissors and perfect that fine motor skill.

So cute!

One of my FAVORITE things the Mother Goose Time curriculum includes is the "My Little Journal" with all of the letters and numbers we are learning this month included.  The kids get to practice their writing skills along with the creativity of drawing something pertaining to that letter/number/color. We write in this journal every week! Jonathan chose to draw a bee on the front of his journal. His name writing has come a long way this year!

A great day to wear her butterfly shirt! :) 

The last of our favorite activities this week was "laying bee eggs in the bee hive."  The kids had so much fun with this one! They made little nests in the play dough, rolled the dice, and placed that many eggs in the hive. SO cute! To add an element of difficulty, I had them also write the number of "eggs" in the hive on the name tags provided by MGT. I laminated the name tags so they act more like sentence strips with a dry erase marker. We use these ALL month long.

I have noticed a big increase in Hope's "one to one correspondence" number sense in the last month! She can now accurately count a number of items one at a time. Especially if the number of items is less than 10. Activities like this one are an EXCELLENT way to increase that one-to-one-correspondence skill.

Another great week in our homeschool preschool! I have loved seeing my children grow in such leaps and bounds this year. What a joy it is to watch them learn! I am very blessed.

Bees and Hexagons

This month Mother Goose Time has us participating in the most springtime fun! We are learning about bees and butterflies in the month of April and are already having SO much fun! We have learned so many things about bees this week, we can't wait to share it all with you.

Spring is in the air! Bringing the beautiful flowers and bees out.

We focused on the letter "K" and the shape hexagon this week! Perfect for the bee because the bee hive is full of hexagons! Hearing Hope say the word "hexagon" is absolute perfection. :)

Hexagons! The math manipulative provided by MGT this month.

Our first project this day was to make our own beehive and fill it with the proper number of bees.  This activity was PERFECT to practice "one more, or one less" as we put bees in and took bees out of their home. This was also a perfect exercise to practice the fine motor skill of cutting paper. Hope needed a bit of help during this activity, but Jonathan mastered it!

I also had the kids write their names on the nametags Mother Goose Time provides. I always make sure to laminate them every month and treat them more like sentence strips with dry erase markers. The kids love this activity because they get to use a marker!

Our next activity had us filling our hive with honey using bingo chips and foam dice. The kids had so much fun with this activity and played it on their own later in the day again.  I had Jonathan roll his dice twice and add the numbers together to add a little difficulty,

Our last activity for the day had us making our own "bee sticks" and writing letters in "pollen." Mother Goose Time called for us to use corn meal to act as the pollen, but unfortunately, I didn't have any! So we used Rice Krispies instead, making letters and having a little snack. The kids were thrilled! I also used the letter cards provided by Mother Goose Time every month.

Another great day in Mother Goose Time homeschool preschool! I can't wait to tell you more about our coming weeks learning more about bees and butterflies. The kids and I will be getting our very own butterfly garden to watch and study. So fun!