It’s already July! I cannot believe it! Even though we don’t keep a traditional school year, we have still acknowledged that it is very much summer, and it’s flying by crazy fast!
We have found ourselves almost two weeks into this new month, and are just now breaking open our July Mother Goose Time box, Camping! We’ve been really looking forward to it, as my kids are dying to go ‘real’ camping.. My husband was able to go with a couple friends a few months back, and since then, they have been on us to go themselves. We even went as far as to purchase a tent, but had yet to take it out of the wrapping until this past week!
What better opportunity than a few holiday days off work for the hubs to break out the tent and have a practice run in our living room!
All in all, it was a great success (especially considering there were no bugs, minimal prepping, and I got to crash on the nearby loveseat).
So as I said, it was a great way to kick off the new theme!
With Peter being newly four, and already getting so many opportunities to learn alongside his older sister, I don’t feel pressured to make sure we are covering all the activities each month. I’m really just allowing our interests and natural flow to dictate our content right now, and I love it. I love that Mother Goose Time has already done so much of the work for me, so that I can just pick and choose what I feel like is a good fit for us right now. It so often feels more like playing than anything else, and yet they are learning so much! I get to enjoy my little buddy and be able to observe when he is turning a corner developmentally, just like I did this week!
Since I knew we wouldn’t have an opportunity to get to all the fun-filled activities for all 20 of our Daily Discovery Bags this month, I chose to highlight a few activities I thought Peter would really enjoy from Day 1. One of them was the journal activity for the letter “B.”
For one that has never been much into writing, I saw him take a very meticulous approach to tracing his “B’s” during the journal backpack activity. He also used the same precision to cut out his “B” card to create the flap for the backpack, as well as then proceeded in usual form in coloring in the entire image. He is not a scribbler. In fact, when his older sister even attempts to call one of his drawings as such, he takes great offense and we have to work through some conflict resolution before we can continue on. He takes a lot of pride in his work already, so it’s really neat to see this continue to develop and his personality come out more and more.
I loved being able to witness this new change in his approach to writing, and honestly it was a relief as I was really anticipating quite the battle with him this year. So once again I am reminded to just relax and allow my kids to develop at the pace that comes naturally to them, continually exposing them to opportunities to engage differently with each topic. Peter would definitely still prefer letter manipulatives to actually writing, but he’s not as resistant as in the past, and I will take that as a major win!
And of course, like most days, we start out with some imaginative play with our math manipulatives. We collected these a few years ago when my daughter was 4, but they continue to be usual go-tos when it comes to designing the latest boat or animal.
This latest creation was entitled “The Boat of Dreams” by Natalie Harwood.
As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador, I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum. Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.
Living Room Camping
JennyIt’s already July! I cannot believe it! Even though we don’t keep a traditional school year, we have still acknowledged that it is very much summer, and it’s flying by crazy fast!
We have found ourselves almost two weeks into this new month, and are just now breaking open our July Mother Goose Time box, Camping! We’ve been really looking forward to it, as my kids are dying to go ‘real’ camping.. My husband was able to go with a couple friends a few months back, and since then, they have been on us to go themselves. We even went as far as to purchase a tent, but had yet to take it out of the wrapping until this past week!
What better opportunity than a few holiday days off work for the hubs to break out the tent and have a practice run in our living room!
All in all, it was a great success (especially considering there were no bugs, minimal prepping, and I got to crash on the nearby loveseat).
So as I said, it was a great way to kick off the new theme!
With Peter being newly four, and already getting so many opportunities to learn alongside his older sister, I don’t feel pressured to make sure we are covering all the activities each month. I’m really just allowing our interests and natural flow to dictate our content right now, and I love it. I love that Mother Goose Time has already done so much of the work for me, so that I can just pick and choose what I feel like is a good fit for us right now. It so often feels more like playing than anything else, and yet they are learning so much! I get to enjoy my little buddy and be able to observe when he is turning a corner developmentally, just like I did this week!
Since I knew we wouldn’t have an opportunity to get to all the fun-filled activities for all 20 of our Daily Discovery Bags this month, I chose to highlight a few activities I thought Peter would really enjoy from Day 1. One of them was the journal activity for the letter “B.”
For one that has never been much into writing, I saw him take a very meticulous approach to tracing his “B’s” during the journal backpack activity. He also used the same precision to cut out his “B” card to create the flap for the backpack, as well as then proceeded in usual form in coloring in the entire image. He is not a scribbler. In fact, when his older sister even attempts to call one of his drawings as such, he takes great offense and we have to work through some conflict resolution before we can continue on. He takes a lot of pride in his work already, so it’s really neat to see this continue to develop and his personality come out more and more.
I loved being able to witness this new change in his approach to writing, and honestly it was a relief as I was really anticipating quite the battle with him this year. So once again I am reminded to just relax and allow my kids to develop at the pace that comes naturally to them, continually exposing them to opportunities to engage differently with each topic. Peter would definitely still prefer letter manipulatives to actually writing, but he’s not as resistant as in the past, and I will take that as a major win!
And of course, like most days, we start out with some imaginative play with our math manipulatives. We collected these a few years ago when my daughter was 4, but they continue to be usual go-tos when it comes to designing the latest boat or animal.
This latest creation was entitled “The Boat of Dreams” by Natalie Harwood.
As an official Mother Goose Time Blog Ambassador,
I receive curriculum in exchange for posting about our honest and authentic experiences with the curriculum.
Click here for more information on Mother Goose Time.