ABC’s Around the House
This month’s Mother Goose Time theme was “Alphabet House.” I love the simplicity of this theme, and after a couple months of wild adventures, I think Little Miss and I were both ready to relax a little and just focus on our home. It’s really a fitting theme for us as well, because the past couple month’s have been an overwhelming mix of home improvements, and last second home repairs!
One thing Mother Goose Time does very, very well is tie up all your learning (math, language arts, health, crafts, social studies, science… and so on) into nice and neat unit study packages. I know that by the end of the month, we will have touched on all the important skills a preschooler needs to do, but it will fit naturally into the theme, and Little Miss will be having so much fun, she won’t even realize how much she was learning!
Here are some of our highlights from the month-
The theme posters/ seek-and-find activity is always a HUGE hit with Little Miss. She looks forward to these each month, and (after the manipulatives) its the first thing she grabs out of the box. We love to do the little activities on the back of the magnifying glasses- things like “hop to the color red” and other goodies are there waiting for us to discover.
Speaking of manipulatives, this month, Little Miss got a packet of plastic keys to play with. This lead to hours (I kid you not) of her sticking them in playdough, making imprints, pretending they were all sorts of different things, and finally, trying to stick the keys in all the locks in the house. We had a chat about Mommy and Daddy’s keys- which is timely because she is always making off with my set of keys to one place or another.
This was my personal favorite game of the month. We played a game a lot like “guess who” where I chose a door, and then gave Little Miss hints so she could figure out which door I was talking about. Of course, these colorful doors reminded me of Monsters Inc. so after our lessons, we sat down for family movie night.
Little Miss’ counting skills are really coming along too. She’s still in that stage where the numbers go “12, 17, 16, 19, 19” but after a month of hard work, she is finally counting to twenty along with me! Maybe soon she’ll be able to remember the sequence on her own. I remember the teens gave Mr. Man a hard time too- they’re just rough to remember!
Speaking of math, Little Miss’ pattern making skills are coming along too. This month had us practicing three different patterns, and we continued the practice with our Legos, M&Ms, and anything else we could put into order.
I don’t know if this was her favorite part of the month, but I loved that a whole week was dedicated to helping out around the house. How to treat guests, how to clean up after yourself, and outdoor chores were all covered. We made a new chore list for Little Miss and she’s stepping up to help us keep our home neat and clean.
This was Little Miss’ favorite activity. Any day where you get to blow bubbles in the bathroom is a good day! We learned all about hygiene, and how to wash your hands properly, and that means playing with bubbles in the sink!
She also loved learning about animal homes, and making a Bunny headband. Her (well loved) stuffed animal is a bunny, and she thought it was so cool to have ears to wear like his.
Another fun activity- looking for animal homes in the yard! The last week was all about what kind of homes animals have, be it a hole in the ground, or a nest or something else. We checked the yard for critter holes and nests, and learned we have a couple things calling our yard their home.
This month, we also painted most of the house, we had a couple rooms flood due to heavy rain and a broken air conditioner, we bought some new external doors, we rewired some switches, and worked on building new furniture. We’ve kept crazy busy, but the learning has fit right into it, and for that, I am grateful!
Did you know there is a whole slew of Mother Goose Time Bloggers out there showing their experiences on the blog? I don’t get a chance to bring out the camera for every lesson (and I really don’t want to- there is a lot to be said about being fully present in the moment with your child instead of hanging out behind the lens), but between the whole bunch of us, I bet we have ALL the activities covered. If you’re interested in MGT for your child this fall, I really hope you stop by and visit some of the other bloggers today (see them on the MGT Facebook Page)
