Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Into The Orchard with Mother Goose!

The arrival of the Mother Goose Time box is cause for jumping, screaming with joy, and total excitement in this house.

I was especially excited because the subject matter this month revolves around Fall things, such as trees, seeds, fruits, nuts, etc! There is nothing better than loving the subject matter that you are teaching.

I always frantically open my box to see all of the magical manipulatives, art, pictures, and songs that I will use to teach my kiddos this month. Every day's lesson comes in a closed bag, so that all that I have to do is open the bag, open up my teacher guide, and begin teaching. I used to spend HOURS prepping and planning when I was a classroom teacher, particularly when I taught 6th grade. This is a welcome change! 









Before we even started our unit, we went to my mom's home to do our anticipatory set. 

*Side note: I earned my teaching credential in the year 2000 and begin teaching that year as well, and the anticipatory set is what we called the beginning of the lesson, before we actually started. I always chose something to get the students especially excited...There is nothing better than seeing kids actually looking forward to learning!

We walked around her property and looked for all the things that we would be studying--trees, seeds, roots, branches, fruits, flowers, animals, etc. The kids begged to bring their pumpkins to collect seeds and other special goodies such as flowers and branches.














A few days later we went back to my mom's house and started our first day, in which we were studying seeds. We observed, counted, and classified seeds. 






*There was a wee bit of fighting over the magnifying glass. Thank goodness we were able to reference our lesson in sharing from the prior month's Friends and Feelings unit!

We dissected an apple and counted the seeds. (Why was it that my apple from the grocery store had seeds approximately as big as sand??)



We used finger paint to paint an apple craft. Tiny B does not like to get her hands dirty. I chalk this up to being a former micropreemie and having some sensory issues. I think if I was born at a pound and lived in a glass box with bright lights and loud beeps, I'd have sensory issues too! Anyway, using her fingers to touch slimy things is one of the best things that she can do.





We ended our week by taking a family field trip to an apple orchard and picked Golden Delicious and Empire apples! It was a lovely day and a fabulous way to reinforce the concepts that we had learned.



One of the reasons that I chose to homeschool was to simply spend time with my children. They are only this young for a blink of an eye...The time that I spend sitting a few inches away from my kids, teaching them while they put their bare feet on mine, watching their little fingers try to grasp seeds and pencils, is something that I will cherish forever. 


*I receive Mother Goose Time curriculum in exchange for my honest sharing of experiences, resulting from our personal use. All opinions/thoughts are my own and are in no way influenced by others.


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