On Day 3, we talked a lot about the elements needed for plants to grow.

 

We pulled out some veggies, as suggested in the Teacher’s Guide for Mother Goose Time, and made our own little plants out of different veggies. The kids had fun, and as they placed their carrots down as roots, we talked about the role that roots play in providing food, water, and air to the plants. We also talked about the importance in being rooted in God so that we can get what we need for each day, to grow and thrive like the plants that are being fed as well.

Natalie took her creating one step further and created a veggie mommy.

Do you see the resemblance? (I guess I only have 1 leg?)

While Nat was created her own flower picture out of construction paper (and apparently doesn’t mind working in a messy workspace like her mama),

Peter & I spent some time talking about Sunshine (yellow) & Rain (blue),
putting our weather in the sky picture.

We also practiced counting the weather pieces.

We followed this with another Little Goose activity for sorting colors,

putting the same color paper on the appropriate weather pieces.

This was really great for me to see Peter improving on his color sorting.
We have wondered for a bit if he was possibly colorblind, as he was struggling to identify colors correctly.
But I’m seeing some good progress in this and am excited for him!

“Peter, was that fun?” “Mmm, hmm.”

After this, while Nat was wrapping up her flower picture, we created a plant picture of our own.

Peter was snacking on cheerios at the time, while helping me paste and repeating after me the names of the parts of the plants.
He decided that the sun needed some cheerios, so I gave him some artistic freedom. And his picture obviously represented that plants need sunlight (and cheerios) to grow.

Natalie chose rain to show how plants grow.
And Peter’s sun cheerios inspired Nat to add ‘seeds’ to her plant picture. It is so neat to see how each of them are already benefiting from working alongside each other instead working with each child individually at different times of the day.

Next, we moved into the living room for a fun game.

Natalie pretended to be a plant and she could take a step for each number I called out. If she started near the sun, she was a plant that needed water. If she didn’t get to the water for that turn, she would pretend to shrivel up. Opposite for the rain side – moving towards the sun, and if she didn’t make it, she would pretend to be swimming in the water.

She made it to the rain and is drinking up the rain!

She made it to the sun and is flourishing in the light.

Then the kiddos has some free play with the blocks for a bit.

Peter and I practiced our letters while Natalie made a plant out of the blocks.

This was her original plant.

This was her version after I suggested color-coding the parts of the plant.
(On her own accord, she even added the orange to signify the seeds in the flower. I was impressed. It is SO fun to see her creative side come out!)

This was the final version when we decided to add roots.

We then headed back into the kitchen for some water fun. They each had their own tray and some various-sized containers to play around. The teacher’s guide suggested talking about the different sizes and asking which ones they thought could hold the most water, least, etc.

We also discussed how, just like plants, God created our bodies to need water every day.

The 6 cups represented the amount recommended for a toddler daily. I honestly can’t imagine Natalie drinking this much water every day,
but it has encouraged us to shoot for about three 8-oz cups at a day to start, including myself.

Then we added a little bit of color to the water for fun.

This is Natalie, pretending she is a plant with her roots in the water, growing.

This is Peter, thinking Natalie is hilarious.

This is the drinking Peter plant.

Silliness. And a little scary.

And I was really excited to see how these little cans fit right into our lesson.

These were a gift from my mom for the kiddos a while back, and so we took the time today to get them started.

We talked about the differences between the seeds, too. I personally have loved seeing the diversity in all the seeds, and being reminded of how creative God is. Natalie told me today that He is quite “original.”

We put the flower cans outside, along with some great plants that Natalie and I bought on the side of the road this past weekend.
A local high school was selling them through their FFA group,
and I thought it would be fun to grow them with the kiddos.
So far they’ve helped me water them each day, so we’re also talking about taking responsibility for what we have.

Whew – and this was only before lunch!

I’m learning very quickly that I’m going to have to be a little bit more selective with the activities we choose each day instead of trying to accomplish all that is provided in the daily packets.

Four days in and we’ve really enjoying it!

As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.