September is proving to a be a fun-filled, but FULL month for us. I was so excited when I found out how closely September’s Mother Goose Time theme, Friends and Feelings, was coordinating with a local homeschool co-op that we recently joined. One of our primary goals for joining this year was for Natalie and Peter to hvae some opportunities to be around other kids on a regular basis besides just Sunday mornings at church, now that our summer playdates have come to an end, and also to give Natalie specifically some opportunities to learn how to better acclimate to new environments. She’s very easily over-stimulated in large crowds and new places, and so it’s been very stressful for her (and us) even on Sunday mornings to drop her off in the large room for her new class, now that she has moved up to the Elementary-age ministry, Kid Motion. We knew that she needed some more opportunities to experience some change in safe ways and build up her confidence.
So needless to say, we’ve had a lot of discussions about making new friends and how she is feeling. And it’s one of those seasons, when my husband and I have been in much prayer about it, that it’s so apparent that God is responding and guiding us (as He always done, but sometimes I have a hard time recognizing it in the moment). He’s been so faithful to remind us that He is the Good Shepherd, and He will lead and guide us, providing all we need along the way. I have felt so helpless and ill-equipped to help her with these current struggles, and so it’s been a great reminder for me that I don’t have to have all the answers – He loves her so much and will take care of her. Sometimes through me and Jordan, sometimes through other things.
So moving on to our fun with this month’s curriculum. This post will be short and sweet, one of my favorite moments so far. We were doing the following activity called “Friend Puppets.”
It is pretty much how it sounds – we made these cute little puppets out of the provided materials (because Mother Goose Time is fabulous!). Before we got started on the exercise, Natalie had been playing with another little workbook, focusing on practicing with scissors and has these cute little items you can cut out and apply to background pictures. She had been working on cutting out ice cream scoops to add to a page full of ice cream cones when Peter decided to be a little creative with some of the remaining ice cream scoops that were left on the page.
I questioned him as I was helping him glue on his various accessories, asking if he wanted the ice cream on the front of the shirt instead of the back. And he quite clearly and adamantly told me that he wanted the ice cream “on the booty. Ice cream on the booty.”
I’m not quite sure what inspired this very specific action, but it was hilarious. And we felt he was pretty accurate as to where ice cream lands after you eat it.
Here are both Natalie’s (left) and Peter’s sets of puppets. Natalie chose to add pipeclearners for hair (not included in the provided materials) and a bow tie, and decided that the feathers were much better arms than hair. I love that she constantly thinks outside the box instead of just what is put in front of her to complete activities. It really challenges me and broadens my horizons, as I’m such a rule-follower and just try to recreate examples that are given to me.
And of course, we had to get a booty shot for full effect.
I just love this time with my kiddos, seeing their personalities expressed is ALL different kinds of ways.
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Friends and Feelings (September’s Theme). As I mentioned in the previous post, these workbooks can work hand-in-hand with the month’s 20 Daily Activities (each page is labeled for the corresponding Day), or you can work through them independently with no issues. So there is a lot of freedom for mamas like me that may forget about things if they’re not right in front of me and the sticky note has fallen out of my Teacher’s Guide, and we need to make up a few days on the fly. No harm, no foul!
Counting objects in the picture on the left, and then writing out the number words. On the right, adding friendship beads, and the opportunity to make our own equations at the bottom by cutting out beads and numbers. Natalie loves coming up with her own equations already, so I’m sure she is going to love this.
Color by shape on the left, and on the right, we’ll need the cube we’ll cut out of the following page (pictured below). We’ll roll the cube, and depending on the image that is face up, we’ll color in a box on that row and continue until the path blocks are filled and we reach our destination.
game cube for activity above
Fill in the different emotions and trace the shape
More addition with feelings on the left. On the right, we’ll cut out the cards and turn them over, flipping to try to find the present.
On the right, find a shape that matches the first one on each row.
Pattern practice on the left and shape play on the right. I’m looking forward to this activity! It will be fun to see what creative creatures the kiddos create. (Unintentional alliteration right there.)
On the right, we’ll fill the grocery bags with food, making sure we’re distributing them evenly. This will be a great opportunity to talk about sharing, how we have been given SO much in order to give to others, and fairness.
On the left, a great activity to practice listening skills (draw a happy face on the circles, a sad face on the squares, and a made face on the triangles). Natalie tends to jump right in without waiting to instructions, so we’ll dsicuss that a little bit during this time. On the right, a math exercise with an additional challenge at the bottom.
Pattern practice, with a space to create our own, and a measuring activity on the right.
sorting by color and shape
Counting practice and an exercise on size/proportion on the right
Matching numbers to appropriate numbers of shapes, some more math by drawing objects, and on the right, a quick review.
More pattern review, listening activities, and size assessment. On the right, the Math Skills Assessment chart.
Great resource to pinpoint what areas your child may need more reinforcement and what areas your child has a good foundational knowledge of at this point.
I love these exercises where it encourages the child to draw and write (or tell) a story.
Fun activities that allow the child to practice cutting and them using the pieces to act our a story, or sometimes there are gameboards where we play a game.
Making our own “F” book, discussing F words and feelings (drawing in faces)
Love the idea of incorporating the computer exercise, getting the child ready to start to recognize letters on a keyboard. And then a role-playing activity with the poem “A Tisket, A Tasket”, matching the stamps to the appropriate postcards and playing out what happens in the poem.
Fun cutting exercise to identify objects that start with the /f/ sound.
