We are going on a safari! Hello and Happy New Year! This month has been so busy! My husband came home from deployment and I wanted to make sure I was fully here to help get him back into the swing of being back in the fold of the family. But that meant a ton of my projects were put to the side. So I am going to do a full overview of the month of January and going on a safari! This month the children started off with a grand adventure of learning about the continent of Africa. I am going to break this post up into the 4 themes of the month. It will give an overall clear picture of what we did and how we worked on it. Getting Ready for Safari For this theme we discussed the equipment needed for the safari. The two projects that the children were most interested in were the Passport and the packing list game. These two things are something these children have dealt with a ton in their short lives. They are military children and they have packed to move and travel basically since they were born. Playing a game that they could directly relate to their experience was super fun and tested their memories. They also loved the passport art project. But while they all have passports, they loved it because they were able to actually put stamps in them all by themselves. This gave them a sense of accomplishment. (Pictures) Wild Safari Animals This weekly theme covered a few of the animals that live in the safari. This week while having interesting subjects was a little bit of a struggle for the kids. The art projects were not as engaging and seemed to require too much adult input. These types of projects seem to turn the children off and keep their interest less. They love projects where they have total control and build from top to bottom and a lot of these just were not doing that this month. But we did take the time to expand and learn about the animals more in-depth and watch the LION KING!!! The rhino horn was especially not an exciting project for them. But they did love making the lion mask and the zebra. Life in the Grasslands
This was a fun week! We found recipes from Ghana that we want to try during snack or lunch one day. We watched a video on street food in Ghana and went over the fact that Africa is a continent and that there are other countries on the continent. We go over this every Tuesday for Geography Tuesday but it doesn’t hurt to go over the information again whenever the situation presents itself. I am proud to say that they all love to learn about places on the map. We do not go too in-depth because it’s a lot of information to take in. BUT I firmly believe that children should be exposed to many different types of experiences and information. It is the building blocks of other information. Until next time, Live long and Keep Teaching! Ms. Tessie This is my year of Prek. This year all of my students are heading to Kindergarten next year. As we enter our pre-kindergarten year using Mother Goose Time, I know educators want to know if this is actually something that can be effectively used to teach pre-k concepts to children. I am here to say that: Yes it can. You can prep a child for kindergarten with Mother Goose Time. The reason I say yes is because of the picture at the top. That is a cherry blossom art project. Mother Goose Time gave me the blue paper and popcorn for this project. Everything else? Came from the child. I showed them a picture of the cherry blossom and told them...*make your own* and this is one of the pictures that came out. They are able to create their own art without it looking like it was mass produced. THIS IS GOOD!! I have discussed why its good in another post, but this post is about the stories that develop as a result of the art they have created. The goal of children doing their art their way is to get them to think up their own ideas. You do not want to discourage them from using their imagination during their work. During art projects I try not to interject too much while they are working. By that I try to encourage them to talk to each other while they are doing their projects. It is usually then that you are able to hear their imaginations come to the front as they are speaking with their friends. They begin to take ideas from each other friends to make their own ideas for the stories. During the cherry blossom art project I heard entire stories come forward about how where the cherry blossom tree was located, who planted it and who lived in or near it. They made art decisions based on the stories they had built up about the story and it was quite lovely to hear from the children. I enjoy listening to their chatter. I think that is why I love the journal prompt sheets so much. Now that my prek children are writing their own sentences, it has been a joy to step back and totally let them take control of their ideas and to only interject when I need to help them with sounding out words that is not in their Starfall dictionary. I really hope Mother Goose Time never removes this from their curriculum. It inspires imagination and independent thinking and it really falls into what I am trying to do with my classroom. I hope you have come away with some ideas of how to encourage the independence of writing and imagination through art in your classroom. Live Long and Keep Teaching! Ms Tessie *Mother Goose Time provides the curriculum for an honest review . I love gardening in my preschool program. I think preschoolers learning about where food comes from and the work involved in growing and feeding people shows them 1. the importance of hard work and 2. helps them to see that taking care of the earth is important. During the theme about the orchards we were able to connect what was on the table with where it came from. This is important because technically, growing food could be considered an abstract concept and most educators believe that you can not introduce abstract concepts to children. I do not fall into that category though. Mostly because I have been able to use my Amazon account to find documentaries and videos so that they can actually see what I am talking about. We may not be able to see it in person, but we access to a whole host of resources now that can be used to help children put a face to the concept we are learning about. The Orchard theme with Mother Goose Time could be considered abstract for the children because not every child has been to an orchard or have the ability to go to one in person. So an entire farm dedicated to the growing of fruits or just growing a fruit can seem a far off and not interesting topic if you do not find resources that can help bring the subject to life. One of the videos I used to bring the subject to life was John Deere Farm Days. This video showed farm equipment and plant life. You do not have to have the children watch the entire video, you can watch the video a head of time and have it ready to at the section that fits into what you want to teach for that day. Another resource that I use for helping me with the theme of the month is Scholastic Magazines. Specifically, My Big World With Clifford. I have been incredibly lucky this year, Clifford has been right on the mark with the Mother Goose Themes. Which means that it has been super easy to streamline the lessons and use the magazines to help reinforce lessons that we have been working on. In summary: Farm to table is a good lesson and Orchard was an awesome way to teach this lesson. And resources are an awesome way to teach abstract concepts! Live Long and Keep Teaching! -Ms.Tessie *Mother Goose Time Supplies Mother Goose Time for an honest review. If you search for math activities at the preschool ages they tend to be all over the place. Some say you need to let it develop naturally in child led activities, others say you lead the activities with various supplies and manipulatives and games. It can be hard to figure out which way to go. I have found in the years, since I have begun my program, that there is no one size fits all way to teach math. It's based on the individual. Which is why this post is highlighting the modifications within the Mother Goose Time Curriculum. When you base the teaching method on the individual child you have a better chance of reaching the child. The modifications within the Mother goose time lesson plan booklet have two types of modifications, simplify and challenge. The example of this would be the small group math Shaped Fruit from week 2 day 7. This activity was about creating shapes with their hands, arms and legs. After the exploring part they are given fruit the trace. They then use the shape links to find similar shapes of the fruits they have set out. The simplified version of this activity is to trace the shape for the child and then to ask them to choose the fruit that fits that shape. This simplified activity allows the child to focus on developing one skill and stops everything from being so frustrating for those who are not ready for tracing. The challenge activity involves describing the shapes and counting the sides. This helps children that at are ready for more advanced activities to pay attention to the finer details. Math activities, are more than learning to recognize numbers and counting. It is important to remember to add in activities that may not seem like they are math related but actually add to necessary math skills. Such as board games, drawing, and sports. Dancing and music are also excellent ways to help children develop their math skills. Dancing and music help children with keeping on beat and helping them learn cues. Math can be super fun to learn and can encourage children to expand math into their natural play. Live Long and Keep Teaching! Ms. Tessie *Mother Goose Time supplies the curriculum for an honest review* Are you ready for fall?! Well, I am not ready either. But the children seem to be ready! We started off October learning about Orchards from Mother Goose Time. I loved it to be honest. I keep trying to take the children on a field trip to an actual Orchard, but the ones around us are so far away. The next best thing is being able to take them to the pumpkin patch. One of the activities was the matching apples game. I find that matching games are a great way to challenge children who do not like to stay still. If you set the game up on the floor, the children are able to move around as they play the game and it will stand a chance of keeping their attention longer. Matching games are an excellent way to help children develop their memory and logic skills. It also helps to develop their ability to take turns and to be friendly during the game. I have found the the game in encourages the children to help their friends. When they notice that another player is not doing well, they will make sure to point out the answers to the others. Its not to show off, it's because they want them to feel good like they do about getting a match. It's very sweet, it can also lead to the other child becoming dependent on their friend to give them the answer. So having them play with you as well as their peers is a good idea. Apple seed art was incredibly cute. The children thought the beans that came with the daily bag were actual apple seeds and wanted to plant them. This simple art project seemed to take longer than a lot of our other ones because they related so much to the project. It was interesting and I am glad that Mother Goose Time included this project. The amount of creativity that was exhibited during this project and the stories I heard were entertaining and a window into their minds and how they work. The apple orchard was a lot of fun and felt like fall had arrived in the desert of California working on these projects. The ability to connect the theme to things we have eaten and seen. It made the process more enjoyable. Live Long and Keep Teaching! Ms. Tessie *Mother Goose Time provides the Curriculum for a fair an honest review.* |