Experience a Day with Mother Goose Time {Review}
Mother Goose Time, the preschool program I use with Little Miss, has a sample of the program up on their website for you to try with your child at home. I know it’s easier for me to really understand how a program works when I can see it in play, so today I wanted to share with you what a day with Mother Goose Time looks like in practice.
The day with Mother Goose Time starts with “circle time.” This is going to look different in every home or classroom, but since this program is originally intended for schools and day cares, it follows the standard model of a group circle time activity. Having said that, us homeschoolers are an adaptive bunch, and there is no reason you can’t enjoy the same activities in your home with slight modifications. I have a whole blog post on how we do circle time with our children, but for this activity, we kept it pretty simple.
We started with calendar time. Since it’s the holidays, I don’t have my normal display up, so we’ve just been pulling out the calendar at the table. We count the days until today’s date, and look at the patterns. Then, we had a conversation about the weather and talked about what Em thought would happen if we went outside to plant a seed right now. It’s awfully cold at our house this time of year, so we decided it wouldn’t go so well!
Today we learned about the letter S, so we made a tactile tray out of soil, and practiced drawing the letter S in the soil and making the letter sound.
Then, we took the letter S, and provided grass seeds to play some more with the letter and sounds. Em covered the S with the seeds, and we talked about how a seed grows into plants.
Today had a small craft where we turned a cup into a little bird, with feathers and googly eyes. After Em made her birdy pot, she filled it up with the soil, and planted the seeds we’ve been playing with. We gave it a little water, and stuck it in the window. Hopefully, soon she’ll see some things sprouting in her soil!
After that, we moved on to the math activity, and pulled out the number line and counting beans. First, we simply put one bean under each number and counted to ten, and then she added more beans to each spot and practiced counting more and more. She spent a lot of time on this activity, and did it again and again!
A little later, we pulled out the story activity, and I cut out the characters. We used the provided script to tell the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, while we acted out the story using the pictures and the playmat. Once I told the story to Em once, she took a turn telling me the story using the pieces to help her act it out and tell it back. This was another activity that kept her very busy, which allowed me a chance to work with the other kids while she played.
Lastly, we pulled out the game after dinner, and all the kids got together to play. Even though this is a preschool program, the older boys often enjoy working with their sister, especially when games are involved. This game had the kids matching colors to the veggies on the game board to move from start to finish.
I have really loved our experience with Mother Goose Time for the past year, and I plan on sticking with it until Em outgrows the program…. and then it will almost be time for the next child to be able to start and enjoy it! Mother Goose Time works really well for us because almost everything I need is included right there in the daily bag, so it doesn’t take any time for me to plan or gather supplies, and I can just rip open the pack and run with it.
Em is a happier kid when she has things to do to fill her cup, instead of just being left out of the school day because she’s the little one in the house. Mother Goose Time spreads out really well during the day, so I can come back and forth between activities with the older kids and her and everyone is happy!
If you want to learn more about this program, I really hope you check out our big Nuts and Bolts review, and head on over to the Mother Goose Time website to see the upcoming themes for the new year. January is a great time to jump right in, and bring some life into your preschool at home!
I received this program free in exchange for sharing our experience with you through the Mother Goose Time blogger program.
Thankyou so so much for taking the time to write your experience with Mother Goose. Its very helpful to get an idea that you wont get from such staring at a summarized “list of contents”