Monday, May 8, 2017

Exploring and Authentic Anticipatory Sets with MGT

This past month has consisted of taking chances, lots of prayer, too many worries, and trusting God. I know that's vague...but I can tell you this: I've decided that attending to real life stuff and making sure that the kids are happy takes precedence over hitting every assignment in Tiny B's Kindergarden curriculum or in both of their Mother Goose Time curriculum. 

One of the greatest things I've found about MGT is the sense of exploration that every unit provides. Even when not doing every lesson, we have a theme to pour our attention into, and a reason to seek out books on that subject. Our conversations always include talk of what we are learning and you better bet we are YouTube'ing whatever we can about it.

It was brought to my attention that MGT used my kidsos in their poster. On the left near the word "Explore" you can see both kids at the pond, exploring. And this is my favorite part of MGT: The Exploring!. 

 

We began our Bugs and Other Crawly Things unit, and before we did any lessons, we started exploring. One of the first things we did was go to Bugs Land at Disneyland. We have season passes, and this was a must-do on my list. 

 

 


They were determined to discuss every single bug we encountered. 

 
 We went to the Bugs Life Theater the see the 3-D movie.

 

I was amazed at just how perfect this was for our theme! While waiting for the movie to start, we went around and read every fact on the bugs on display. It was so informational and adorable! 

 

 

When I first began teaching, my favorite part of the lesson was what we called the "anticipatory set." I would get the kids excited about the topic by doing some sort of fun activity or demonstration. With MGT, we begin with a huge anticipatory set (I never got to take my students to this many field trips!) and we continue exploring in ways that are authentic and not some quick thing to feign interest in the subject. We do real life exploring and it just doesn't get better than that!

I can't tell you just how much the kids have become bug-obsessed even before starting the actual lessons. This is what I love about Mother Goose Time. I've been able to attend to the real life adult things that I need to while not worrying that the kids aren't studying anything. The strides they have made this month in their own self-discovery and in their reading skills have astounded me. 

*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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