Watching the Garden Grow - Watching kids blossom at Home using Guided Play

This week we looked at how gardens grow with Mother Goose Time. From where we left off last week with prepared soil, seed, and roots we now moved on this week to look at the stages of growth from sprout all the way to produce.

Homeschooling with Ease
This week a friend of mine was asking about homeschool options for Kindergarten and it got me thinking, if I had a chance to do Kindergarten at home with the kids again I definitely would love and all inclusive curriculum like Mother Goose Time. I understand why so many home educators use it beyond just preschool. Let me show you why.

Sprouts and Stems

PROJECT: Seed Story

SKILL - This project had the kids developing a combination of creative writing, science (observation and recording) along with art.

The kids wrote their own sprout story by making their finger prints into sprouts in different stages.

T Chose to turn his finger print at the end of his story into his favourite flower, a sunflower

SKILL - Counting, estimating and Measuring. Fine motor skills (cutting and tracing)

The kids went out into the yard to collect 2 natural objects to compare. They traced the object side by side and cut out a ruler that they used to measure each object and then I helped them record the size.

Flower

PROJECT - Flower Costumes

SKILL - Art and fine motor skills. Music, Drama and Dance

This was another full day at the table. Grandma and Grandpa were visiting so the boys got to miss a day of school. That does not mean they didn't do school with me at home. Since we still had our preschool kids during the day, we carried on with our learning activities as normal. This project was so fun. The kids each made a flower costume. Choosing their favourite colour to paint their flower, they made a head band and two arm pieces.

M Painting

T wearing his flower costume

Our Living Garden

Music Art and Drama .... 

Each month of Mother Goose Time comes with a themed music CD with original recorded music. The music is modern and upbeat. Because it sits in my CD player all the time, the kids frequently turn it on. I catch myself and the kids singing the songs throughout the day. Be warned!... They will get stuck in your head almost as much as Frozen soundtrack songs. Following making these costumes the kids had to put on a show to one of the songs to create a dance acting as growing flowers and using their costumes.

Reporting Made Easy

Highlighting the activities above I'm only covering 2 of the 5 days that we did this week and only a few of the activities in each day and, just with that, we've almost got to every subject and easily are arriving at Provincial Learning Outcomes for Kindergarten that can be reported to a support teacher with lots of sample work to show off.  

Teachers Guide Skills and Standards:

Take look at how MGT teachers guide easily highlights at a glance skills the kids are learning about.
MGT Skills and Standards

Planning Journal:

Along with your teachers guide, each month includes a planning journal which is basically a planner themed around MGT that prompts you how to assess and record students progress and skills.

Supplement Material:

So how does a preschool program meet Kindergarten learning outcomes? A lot of the activities we do at home with the 3's are very similar to the ones I observe being done in my boys' K and Grade 1 classroom, however in order to keep older kids challenged one could easily supplement with other workbooks and programs.

Guided Play and other Modern Learning Styles Achievable at Home

The teaching philosophy for Kindergarten in our local school district is 'Guided Play'. In a nutshell guided play means educators give the kids the right objects and directives so that kids learn through play. They are having so much fun, they are not even aware that they are learning, they think they are just playing a game. When I first sent Liam to a public classroom, he'd come home and I'd ask what he did. Every day the answer was - play! I was... concerned. Where were the worksheets. Were they even learning anything over there? My first year of K at home with Liam I had struggled to recreate this fun classroom atmosphere. Given time I think I would have got better at it but it's hard at home to get away from the workbooks and into achieving holding kids' attention with 'discovery stations,' manipulatives, smart boards. I now see how, with the right program, guided play can easily be duplicated in the home environment. 

Convenience

Less prep. I used to spend ridiculous amounts of money picking up supplies from the dollar store. I also spent ridiculous amounts of time on Pinterest pinning activities to do with the kids. Having all the supplies that we need for the month packed into a box and sent to my door is much easier and probably cheaper. There are still things that can be purchased from the grocery store etc. to enhance but it's not necessary.

Disclosure: I receive Mother Goose Time Curriculum free of charge for educational purposes in return for posting my honest experiences using the curriculum. Photos of children featured on my blog for review of Mother Goose Time are used with signed consent of the child's parents. I welcome any questions or concerns.