Creating Alongside your Children

This is the time of year that we all make the effort to bake cookies, create decorations and make memories with our children. I love that. Plus, as a family that celebrates Christmas, I love the wonder, the songs the Balsam tree scented candle merriment of it all.

Throughout 2017, I have made a more conscious effort to create alongside my son, and incorporate him in the more day to day creativity of home life. I feel like we've done a pretty good job of keeping up with this resolution of sorts.

We invested in a kitchen helper stool, that brings my son to counter height. This way our on can measure, pour and mix right along with us. We have taken nature walks and collected bits for collages and encouraged our son to take some of his own photos of what he would like to learn more about later. We have also invested in Mother Goose Time. You've heard me say it before, and I will say it again, it is a great investment. This month we received the curriculum for free in exchange for sharing how we incorporate it into our lives.

With Mother Goose Time, we have explored the rain forest, our amazing bodies, community helpers and more. While we are a family who is supplementing preschool with this educational monthly subscription; it has become a core part of the the creating alongside my child resolution that I made for 2017.

Every month, we have set up science experiments (sprouting potatoes in water has been this month's bit hit,) followed recipe cards, created holiday celebrations for our family, and we have done it right along with our son. When my son created a rain forest collage, I created one right next to him. It made for an entire afternoon's worth of discussion about why we observe things differently, who prefers what attributes about the topic and how we can both make something so different using the same materials. I have memories of my school days where an art teacher might create an example for the class of a project that was going to be made that day. I remember being one of those kids that would study that example and try to remake it.

What I have tried to do over this last year with Mother Goose Time, is set up an environment where we are creating together. Yes, my son notices where I glue my sloth photo, and sometimes wants to copy, but he also is in real time asking me why I'm making my artistic choices. Everything from willingness to make mistakes, thinking outside of the box and exploring new language is being touched upon in our daily activities.

If you want to make a creative New Year's resolution, I highly encourage checking out Mother Goose Time. The program will not only provide the foundation for preschool education, but encourage collaborative creativity in your home.

How was Thanksgiving? What did you Learn on Break?

So how's school break going? What have you been up to? Cooking, eating, doing dishes, shopping online, watching the movie Frozen and wearing pajamas all day? Yep, I am right there with you.
We've done all of those things, plus we incorporated our home school curriculum into our holiday break. Mother Goose Time not only includes 20 plus days worth of activities, but a special holiday family celebration kit that represents the season.

This year we made a lovely thankfulness poster, and my son reflected on all of the family, friends and screen time that he is thankful for. Minor eye roll on my part regarding the feather that says "TEVE." We made festive, scented, homemade play dough turkeys. We read a short story about the first Thanksgiving. We made some cranberry and toothpick structures and even did a turkey dance.

The great thing about Mother Goose Time is that you can take a holiday, themed project, game or story and spread it out to fill those break times or let family in on your preschoolers learning. We also continued on with our rain forest theme. Grandma and Papa helped us make colorful parrots and play the chasing butterflies board game. Dad helped make some alphabet coconut trees read one of our favorites, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom," to the whole family.

Overall, our little holiday break was a great success, in part to Mother Goose Time. We were lucky enough to receive this month's box in exchange for our honest experience. If you are considering trying this educational subscription box, I highly recommend ordering next month's box. The theme will be winter wonderland. I guarantee that it will fill your break with art, learning and family fun.

Engaging the Whole Family in the Educative Process

When your child attends preschool, the teachers, administrators and room parents often work together as a team to keep parents informed and engaged. When you home school, this picture is painted a bit differently. As the parent and teacher, I am holding the reins and driving my son's education forward with our curriculum and day to day activities. So it may seem like family engagement wouldn't play a role in our education style, but it does.

If you've kept up with our family over the last year, you know that we use and love a prepackaged curriculum called Mother Goose Time. The program includes all of the lesson plans, adaptive strategies, manipulatives and creative work needed to educate your toddler or preschool at home, in a more traditional preschool setting or in a daycare setting. This includes newsletters, information and questions that a teacher would send home to parents to help them not only understand what their child is learning, but ask informed questions that start meaningful conversations, after school is done for the day.

As a homeschooler of an only child, I don't want these tools to go to waste, so we use them to create conversations with other family members. When Dad gets home from work he checks out the questions on the newsletter or invitation to create to start a conversation at dinner. When my son goes to his grandparents house, he is often sent with the daily topic poster, an artistic activity and a book all from Mother Goose Time.

There are also weekends where Dad takes over completely. My husband, lover of animals, has rescued turtles, snakes and more over the years. Some have been kept as pets and others donated to a local wildlife sanctuary. This week with Mother Goose Time we have been talking about the many animals that live in the rain forest. When I noticed our snake had shed (I get that that's not an every household occurrence) I asked my husband to run the show and take over home school on that Sunday afternoon. My husband and son discussed sizes, patterns, and used bubble wrap and the snake shed to create a beautiful painting. You will be surprise how the random knowledge or expertise from a spouse or grandparent will come in handy one day!

Being read to and taught by different adults helps build a child's comprehension and ability to engage in dialogue. So while my husband can't be at home for lunch to help my son with pattern puzzles, he can read my son his monthly Mother Goose Time book and ask him questions that might be different than mine.

Whether you are a homeschooler, or parent hoping to broaden your child's vocabulary, perspective and reasoning skills, I encourage you to reach out to family and friends and get them involved you your child's learning. We have been lucky to receive this month's proram in exchange for our experiences. Also, check out Mother Goose Time, their program makes an excellent, creative supplement to young learning, that will also guide you as the parent along the way.

As the Weather Cool Down, We are Warming up with Mother Goose Time

As the orange leaves crunch beneath our feet, we have been exploring the green canopied rain forest with Mother Goose Time.  It is kind of a nice escape to be discussing a warm, vibrant environment as we brave the ever cooling air in Chicago. We  spent the entire weekend in the house, so I used it as an opportunity to focus on fostering a sense of responsibility toward caring for our triangle family and our home.

I went ahead and set up our invitation to create station and math lessons at the kitchen table. Together, Mr. Personality and I loved decorating our J for Jaguar cutouts, transforming the simple letter into a tree climbing cat. After we set our creations aside to dry, my son pointed out the amount of glue and paint that now decorated our table. We took pause. My son and I had both participated in the creative, messy time. So instead of jumping down, washing his hands and taking off, I suggested that we both clean up the mess. He obviously picked using the bottle of spray cleaner and wiping the table, and I was more than fine with that.

While we were cleaning, the washing machine beeped. My son paused. I said, "Hey your laundry is finished washing." I suggested he open the machine, transfer the clothing to the dryer and start the dryer. He then suggest, " I do my share." I may have rolled my eyes, but I did. I told him to find the words power and start and press them. He looked for a P word and a St words and we were rolling.

After snack, I set up mushroom math. This Mother Goose Time concept was a hit. My son popped out the paper mushroom cap shapes and decorated then with letters, because my son is in a phase where he wants to write his name on everything. Also, its worthwhile to mention that any opportunity you get to have your child pop out shapes in paper, I recommend you take it. There might be some rips, which is partially why I order two sets of crafts from Mother Goose Time, but it is a great lesson in patience and refines fine motor skills.

We then created a rain forest floor-like surface from play dough and played a game that had us select number cards and plant each of our personally created fungi. All the while, I utilized points and facts provided in the Mother Goose Time Lesson Plan book. My son then invited daddy to come play and informed him mushrooms can grow on the rain forest floor because they don't need a lot of light. He also has been informing friends and neighbors alike to not eat mushrooms they find outside, no matter "how awesome they look."

Finally, on a chilly Sunday afternoon, I opened my son's bedroom door to reveal a Mission Impossible style maze. With a 30 cent roll of streamer paper I created a web of craziness and placed a stuffed worm, bird, snake and other animals that we pretended were indigenous to the rain forest throughout the room for him to rescue. He seriously spent an hour doing this and making new changes and ideas for the game. That was a real win for me, as you know attention is not easy to come by in this house.

Overall, it was a fun first week exploring a more tropical world than our own with Mother Goose Time. We are grateful that Mother Goose Time has share this month's curriculum box with us in exchange for our honest experiences. I recommend this company to any parent trying to supplement their child's education and fill rainy, cold weekends with indoor fun.