Mother Goose Time May- GROWING GARDENS

So it is early Spring here in Northern BC and this year our Spring has arrived early. In between the sporadic snow flurries, are the typical sun filled yet blustery Spring days that we experience here in Dawson Creek. (Meanwhile, my native land, Kamloops, is in the 20's with days on the lake, flip flop, short wearing season in full swing.)  We loved gardening season last year. Here's a pic from our end of August harvest day.

Matthew with the kids. This day we pulled everything out of the ground trying to beet the frost.

Our summer season here is very short. Our home daycare this month is exploring Growing Gardens. Being outside in the dirt with the kids this month just feels like a big celebration that the warmer season is arriving. My 2 - 3's and I are having so much fun with our first month of preschool with Mother Goose Time. I have heard about this program from a friend and am really excited to be using it! With this month being all about Garden, this week was all about PLANTING THE GARDEN.


SOIL

Our first day had us out in the garden, digging in the dirt finding earth worms and planting some of our own grass seeds. Mother Goose Time is amazing! It is very simple to use without much prep time required. I think it would probably go smoother if I read things over and prepped 4 activity stations before the kids arrive but that's probably not realistic for me. We open up the package for the day and just start digging in. Here's a look at what we did this week.


Tactile printing. The Teachers guide suggested doing this activity with soil. MGT provides everything in your kit for the month INCLUDING SOIL!!! However, we recently had a new addition to the house. A large 8 month fur baby named, Cooper. And while we were still in the process of perfecting our puppy pen system, Cooper broke into my room and had a fun filled hour with this months MGT supplies before we had even opened it. AHHHHH! as you can see, no soil.

The mess

The culprit

The Solution - Safe happy puppy. 

 So moving on… 
Tactile printing.
I didn't have any soft soil so I improvised with whole wheat flour which is awesome for this activity. Printing practice for 3 year old can be daunting and hard to do before hand strength is gained to hold a pencil properly and long enough to spend some good time practicing. Finding ways to practice printing without a writing tool by using an index finger in a soft material like soil or flower is a great way to do this.
Playdough can also be rolled and placed over top of letter cards. Hands on imbeds in the memory and is so much more FUN!

Each child had a name card I had made so that they could copy the letters in their name.

TIP: For name copy work. 

This comes from our Kindergarten teacher. Make sure that kids learn to print their name with capital followed by lowercase. Parents tend to emphasize capital letters but for kids to start reading, recognition of lowercase letters is actually more helpful as they will see lowercase letters more frequently than capital letters. Teach them to write their name the way they will be writing it the rest of their lives.

 PLANTING SEEDS AND RECORDING RESULTS:
Each child was given soil a dish and seeds to plant and water. Each day we recorded the results by drawing what we saw. Side note - I put the seeds outside and they got snowed on… they didn't grow. Moving on ;)

PLANTING SHAPES:
Our shape this week was the diamond. Our kit for the month came with these shape manipulatives. I encouraged the children to sort the shapes a plant a different row for each shape. Mimi (M) rebelled. She's more of a wild garden child.

T however loves to follow instructions.

We learned all about SEEDS.

~Garden Self Portrait~

The kids and I drew pictures of ourselves in a garden. We cut gardening clothes out of Sears catalogue and glued them on our bodies. This was a great creative exercise and practice of cutting skills.

We explored seeds by finding them in different fruits.

ROOTS

This Science experiment displayed how roots work moving water from the soil to the plant.

You can do this at home with your kids. You need 3 clear cups. Place water and food colouring in two of the cups and leave the one in the middle empty. Twist up 2 paper towels and loop them from the water cup to the empty cup. Kids can come back and observe over time how the third cup begins to slowly fill up.

WORMS
During our circle time we talked about how worms help soil by enriching it with their… poop. That's right I said poop and I had those kids' attention. Incorporate a little potty science and suddenly they are all ears. Ha!

This was my favourite day of activities in the week and it was a Non Instructional Day meaning our group of kids was much larger.

This artwork was made by dipping plastic earthworms in paint and pressing them onto the body of the large worm to paint it. There was one worm per child and given that a few of them broke the kids ended up mostly improvising this project into finger painting.

Here however is T following instructions to perfection again. I think this little boy might be made for complex and meticulous work. I love watching how kids interpret instructions differently and problem solve to accomplish a task.

 Liam scraping his nail through the paint to create texture.

It's a full table today!

GAMES 

Earthworm hunt. I hid 10 different coloured earthworms around the house and the kids had to find the appropriate colour when asked. I was so impressed how the older school aged kids participated and helped the little ones with this game. We also played a game of memory match with garden pictures. I love how memory games are easy for children of all ages to follow the rules and play together.

Curious about Mother Goose Time? Take a look here:

http://www.mothergoosetime.com