I've felt like such an awful mom this week..being so sick has really taken all of my energy from me. I did this amazing lesson two weeks ago that I want to share with you. Oh, how I wish I had the energy to narrate the lesson in a way that shows just how awesome it was, but it will just have to be bare bones. Sometimes life is just like that, right?
Anyway, Mother Goose Time's theme of the month is nursery rhymes and I'm loving it because there is so much in there that I can put into Tiny B's kinder lessons; by teaching both kiddos at the same time, I get more bang for my buck. And it's just a lot of fun for them both :)
This was our end product. Isn't it adorable?!
We began with reading This Little Piggy nursery rhyme.
Then as per the MGT teacher guide, we put together our piggy puppets.
Tiny B's hands are becoming so much stronger. I pulled her out of OT this year due to the fact that I was exhausted, and I'm so happy that I still have these beautiful fine motor activities to do with MGT. You should see her progress in writing.
Strong B is in a phase where he doesn't like to be pushed to do things. Therefore I'm allowing him to come in and out of lessons as he wishes. It's working beautifully for him. I can't believe how much he is learning from simply being in the same room as Tiny B as her lessons take place.
I then let them play for a while with their finger puppets. I believe that the "play" part of a lesson such as this can be so useful. In college, we read this about this learning model in which the teacher would have the students play with the materials first. Then everyone would come together and "debrief," or talk about what they learned. Then they would "re-play" with the materials, using all of the new knowledge they had. I often remember this when doing MGT.
We then began to write our story. Her kindergarten curriculum wanted me to do this with other subject matter but because I have the flexibility, I used the pigs instead. It felt like it was truly interest based at this point because she really connected with her puppets!
She gave me the ideas for the story frame and I wrote them.
She then wrote her story! She did a few sentences by herself and then I took over the writing as she dictated (as is what kindergarteners do).
We kept everything in her writing journal, including the pigs.
After we were done, Strong B went to play outside while Tiny B took out her MGT pig manipulatives. She just wasn't ready to end it yet.
I've been playing the nursery rhymes CD while they do their projects. I find that hearing the rhymes over and over again helps them to understand them and memorize them, which is an important skill.
We are extending our nursery rhymes theme a bit longer. We are truly enjoying it and there is so much rich subject matter to learn with these simple and silly rhymes.
*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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