Sensory, Space and Rocket Launches

We've had the best time blasting off to space with Mother Goose Time this month. The kids have been so excited everyday to see where this adventure will take us. Yesterday we watched video of the Delta IV | Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF-9 rocket launch from the Kennedy Space Center. 

My friend, Stacy was there with her family and she is allowing me to share some of her awesome pictures. 

                         How cool! The kids didn't realize you could actually go see Space Rockets. 
 

We transformed pictures of ourselves into our very own Astronaut puppets.

We've been pretending to be astronauts all week. We've been using our imaginations to transform into astronauts returning from an outer-space adventure.   

In conjunction with our Space theme we created an outer-space themed Sensory tub. 

We gathered our supplies:

Kinetic Sand  or you can make your own  for a fraction of the cost Make your own Kinetic Sand
Safari LTD Space TOOB
University Games 3D Planets
Rocks
Balls of tin foil

We've shoveled, raked, explored with magnifying glasses... This Sensory tub was a huge hit!

Don't forget to Enter the Book Hop Giveaway!!  

Mother Goose Time Book Giveaway Hop!

This is so exciting! I'm participating in my first Giveaway!  Some of the blog ambassadors for Mother Goose Time and I are doing a Giveaway Hop.  We are each reviewing a few books and then giving them away!  We are doing all of this to celebrate the addition of these amazing books to Amazon.  Previously these books were only available in Mother Goose Time curriculum kits.

At the end of this post I will link up to the other blogs so you can hop on over and enter all the giveaways.  That should better your odds of a win.  Yay!

The best way to teach your child to read is to read to them. There is no App that can do what a parent reading to a child can. Children's brains grow to 90% of their adult weight by the time they are three years old. Parents are their child's first and most important teacher. Singing songs, reciting nursery rhymes and reading books help your child develop their literacy skills long before they are able to read.

The first book I'm giving away is Ocean Animals A to Z by Leslie Falconer. This is my sons absolute favorite alphabet book. The pictures are vivid and beautifully engaging.

Tracing letters is an excellent way for children to learn the  alphabet. We use so many pre-writing skills to strengthen the muscles needed to begin writing. We love tracing letters in books, salt, or sand. Making letters out of dough, or shaving cream is an excellent way to develop fine motor skills while creating a memory of how the letter is formed.

This book is so much fun. You trace letters with your nose, toes, and fingers too. We learned about many new ocean animals like, Volcano sponges and  Fugu.

Next is There Are Bugs Words and Pictures by Chris Lensch. This book came as part of our Bugs and Crawly things curriculum set.

The images jump off the page. The pictures in this book are a vibrant mix of eye catching illustrations and pictures of actual bugs. The illustrations lead to a dialogue about what we see in the pictures and what we already know about the various bugs.

At the end of the book there is a glossary of the bugs. All of my preschool kiddos are nature lovers. They love to get to the end of the book to quiz each other on the names of the various bugs and what they know about them.

Next is  At the Pond by Kelly Nogoski. My little nature lovers are so excited about this book.

The pictures are fantastic. They love taking nature walks to look for the animals in the book. My son swears he has seen an alligator in the pond near our house (he hasn't).  I love books that are interactive.   Nearly every page asks a question or has them act like an animal.

How slow can you go?

The last page of the book is a Did you know? page with facts about the various animals. Did you know, "Dragonflies need warmth to fly and will ofter land when the sun goes behind a cloud."

Now it's time for the Raffle.  Thank you for reading. I hope you win!! Entrants must be 18 years or older. Mother Goose Time is responsible for fulfilling the giveaway. Residents of the USA and Canada only. Void where prohibited by law. After the giveaway is over, I will be asking the winner privately for information to get the books sent to you so be sure to leave your email when it is asked for.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hop Along to other Mother Goose Time Blogs for more chances to win!!!  

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Check out all of these great books on Amazon!

The Luck of the Irish

St. Patrick's Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. The only day growing up I was proud rather than self-conscious about being a red head. My Grandfather came here from Ireland when he was 4 years old. I come from a proud (aka semi-crazy) Irish family. This past weekend we got together to celebrate my Uncle's 70th birthday. We had a great time.

Sunday we took the kids to the local Parade. My little guy was hoping to catch a leprechaun. My youngest daughter just wanted to catch as much candy as humanly possible.

 My 13 yr old son is obviously too cool to even be here or acknowledge our existence. He wouldn't sit with us. I guess I'm embarrassing or something.

We tried to make our rainbows with glue, salt & watercolors. We could not figure it out.

We painted our very best rainbow colors onto our headbands to make a St. Patrick's day hat. 

Imaginary Friends

I've read that the concept for, Stephan Spielberg's E.T. The Extra Terrestrial came from an imaginary friend he created after is parents divorced. E.T. was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I still remember our Aunt taking my sister and I to the theater to see it. We cried our eyes out when we thought E.T was dying, we cheered when he went home. I wanted to be Elliot. My sister was mischievous like, Gertie. How cool would it be to have a real life Alien as a friend? That movie fueled my love for Outer Space,  Reeses Pieces and my Speak and Spell.

My sister and I

My little sister had an imaginary friend named Sarah. Sarah scared the crap out of me.  My sister was pretty adamant that Sarah was with us all the time. She had things to say, which honestly was the stuff of my nightmares. Our parents divorced when we were very little. Maybe the imaginary lands we created and imaginary friends we had were a product of that to an extent. Maybe it was because it was a simpler time when there wasn't 24/7 T.V. , IPads, internet, smart phones, etc...

When I was growing up we had one TV, so you watched whatever your parents watched. Cartoons were only on Saturday mornings and if you really wanted to watch something exciting on Sundays you flipped on PBS to watch that guy with the big hair paint trees. You had to use your imagination. Imagination is something I thing kids lack today. They don't know how to make up a story, play pretend, or talk to an imaginary friend who (hopefully) isn't really there. Too often today we pull out the tablet so our kids can make a picture instead of the watercolors or crayons.

That is what I love about having Mother Goose Time. We use our imaginations everyday. They are so happy when they are creating. It's a lot messier than the pulling out the Ipad, but it's also so much more rewarding.

We had a heated discussion about whether or not we like Aliens. We decided we like, Power Rangers and Aliens. Aliens are a little scarier than Power Rangers.  Most likely an Alien would have at least 3 eyes and green skin they would say," bop, bop, bop, I am an Alien". They would fly here on their space ship.

We painted 2 paper plates and a small cup with silver/grey paint. We decorated our space ships with jewels and other shiny objects. We glued the cup to the top of one plate and attached the plated together to make our space ship. We loved flying them around pretending to be from outer space.

We learned that Earth is special because it is the only known planet that has life. The Earth has its own path called an orbit, around the sun. The planets spin in their orbit so they don't hit each other.

We made Alien Headbands so we could pretend to be Aliens.

Did you know the temperature on Mercury ranges from 875F in the daytime to -300F at night. I go crazy when one day it's 70F and the next it's 45F. Could you imagine living on Mercury. No wonder why there is no known life there. What could survive in such extreme temperatures?

We painted Mercury Red and Blue to illustrate the extreme temperatures. We pretended to be on Mercury when it was very hot and when it was very cold. We played a game with our planets, when someone held up the red side it was very hot, the blue side very cold. We enjoyed pretending to melt more than anything.

I think I'm going to go call my sister and watch E.T. on my Ipad.

To the Moon....

Last week with our www.mothergoosetime.com curriculum we learned that there is no place quite like space. What is up in the Sky? We learned that a group of stars is called a constellation. We learned that Astronomers study the sky with special equipment called a telescope.

We had a blast making Space Paper. We looked through our books and the computer for pictures of space. The children chose what colors they would like in their space design. The children then took a piece of plain white paper and colored in completely with different color crayons making sure to not leave any white spaces. Then we mixed a couple of drops of dish liquid with black tempera paint. We coated the whole paper with our paint mixture and let it dry. After it was dry we applied a second coat of our paint mixture.

When it was dry we used toothpicks to scratch our space design through the paint revealing our crayon colors.

  

Throughout our day we use math in many ways. During Circle time we sing about the days of the week. We count out the days on our calendar. We talk about the pattern our Calender pieces make.  This month our pattern is Star, Astronaut, Moon, Space Ship, repeat....

We learn geometry with Shapes. We need to use our knowledge of geometry along our reasoning and logic skills  to fit pieces together on a puzzle, train tracks, or building with blocks.

 On Wednesday we worked together to stack pieces on the moon. We needed to think logically to figure out the best way to balance our pieces on the moon. We took turns rolling the die and putting the matching pieces on the moon.

After a bit of trial and error, they did it! Did you know the Moon is only 1/4 the size of the Earth? 

B & K sorted the different star shaped manipulative's to count out 17 while E decided he would like to fit smaller stars on the number 7. We took turns counting out the stars together and sorting them according to size and color.  We are learning that numbers correlate to actual items.

What would we bring home from the moon? Moon rocks of course. We set out various rocks to explore the texture and look. We learned that 12 astronauts have walked on the moon where they were able to collect rocks and soil samples to study. 

We pretended to be astronauts returning from space, but we needed our very own moon rocks. Each child mixed 2 tbs of dough mixture with 1 tsp of water. It's important to use our math skills to measure the correct amounts. We observed how our dough changed as we mixed it with the water. We had a hard time rolling the dough into a ball without squishing it into our fingers. We had to figure out how to roll the dough into a ball without squeezing it too hard.  We set our finished rocks onto a baking sheet. We baked them at 275 for about 10 minutes. After they were cooled we observed how our dough had changed. We counted out our "Moon Rocks" and placed them in our bags.   We told stories of how we found our rocks on the moon. K said he had to wrestle his from an Alien who wasn't very nice.

At snack time we made our own "Eat the Moon" snack.  This snack was lots of fun. Added bonus it was gluten free so we didn't have to make any substitutions. 

 I let the children choose to use plain or chocolate cream cheese.

We are super excited to start this weeks theme: Rock Planets.

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Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

A love of learning is a trait most parents wish to instill in their children. How do we do that? How do we create a foundation that they can build on as they grow? Personally, I think it’s sharing just a little bit with your child everyday. All of the little moments spent reading a favorite story, dancing, singing, taking a walk around the neighborhood to listen the birds chirping, add up to a solid foundation for a lifetime of learning. To help us on our journey to be lifetime learners, we are using a pre-packaged monthly curriculum from http://www.mothergoosetime.com

Each month the children go an adventure exploring a new theme while learning, shapes, colors, numbers, letters, sight words, etc….

This month our theme is, “BLAST OFF TO SPACE”. ” Children will pretend to be astronauts and fly off in a homemade rocket ship. They will count the stars, create constellations and explore rock and gaseous planets. Children will make their own stargazersas they play with light and look up into the sky during this incredible space adventure". – See more at: http://www.mothergoosetime.com/monthly-themes/blast-off-to-space/#sthash.LG2fpcTm.dpuf&#8221;


Today we started our adventure into space. I asked the children what are stars made of? Their answers – Rocks, sharp pokey things, the sun, light bulbs…. I explained stars are balls of gas which led to fits of giggles. Don’t say the word gas in a preschool classroom of mostly boys. We explored our "sky" with flashlights, went on a hunt for stars, and counted down from 5 with a star themed finger play.

 We will also be getting fit and working our muscles with the Dance 'n Beats add-on. The children learn 21 movements set to music that expands on our Blast off to Space theme. 

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