"Weather All Around Us"- Spring

Let me start this post by saying it is a pj day at our house today. It is raining outside, we have no plans of leaving the house, I have done tons of laundry lately....therefore it is a pj day. Today we started the second week of Mother Goose Time's "Weather All Around Us" preschool curriculum. In week two we will look at the seasons of the year. Today we specifically looked at spring. 

Before we got into the theme lessons for the day we did a lesson from Mother Goose Time's "Experience God" curriculum. This is an add on curriculum that you can purchase along with Mother Goose Time's monthly curriculum. This month in Experience God we are learning about how God asks us to be brave. We are specifically looking at the story of Esther. I love the Experience God curriculum for many reasons one is that they provide you with these large, colorful story cards that aid you in telling different Bible stories to your kids. Today's story card was about King Xerxes and his quest to find a queen.

 After reading the story card to the kids we talked about what King Xerxes was wearing on his head. We also talked about why we would want to be a king or queen. Mason said so you can wear a crown. Of course!

I then set out the supplies provided by Mother Goose Time. We started by measuring their heads and seeing how many of the crown pieces we would need to tape together. Then I helped them to glue some jewels and cotton balls to their crown. 

 Aren't they the cutest kings and queen!

Our first lesson from "Weather All Around Us"was Spring Flowers. I feel like lately I have had a hard time getting Mason interested in doing any kind of preschool work. I decided I am just going to set the activities out and if he sees them and asks what it is maybe it will be his choice to do the activity. So I set out all the supplies they would need for the Spring Flowers activity. 

 While I was setting everything up Hailey was right under my feet wanting to know what I was doing. So I went ahead and set her up at the table. Once Mason saw her over there he wanted to know what was going on too. (Ha! Got yah!) I put one of the flower photos provided by Mother Goose Time in front of each of the kids. While they were coloring their cup and flower I pointed out some of the parts of the flower. We then decided which of our craft pieces were which parts of the flower. Mason liked the straw as the stem the best. Hailey still likes to eat the markers. : (

 Once they were finished coloring their flowers and cups. I helped the little ones glue the festoon to the cup and tape the flower to the straw. (We found it was much better to tape the flower on than glue it.) I then punched a hole in the bottom of the cup and they got to make their flower grow and then go back into the "ground". I then talked Mason through the steps of finishing his projects. I am really trying to get him to do more for himself. I feel like there are lots of things that we do for him that he can do on his own. He gets a little frustrated when it is hard but I think he is so much happier when he sees he can do it on his own.

 When everyone was finished we played a fun game of hiding our flowers and then making them grow out of the cup.

The last activity we did for the day was DIY Seasons Puzzle. We started by getting out some of our own puzzles and putting them together. 

Once we were finished playing puzzles I pointed out our Theme Poster that we have hung in our toy room. I showed them how there are four parts to the poster. We then named each of the seasons on the poster. We also talked about what we saw in each of the sections of the poster. Then I explained to them that each of the seasons are a piece of the puzzle to make a whole year. We have to have each season to have a year. 

In the Mother Goose Time lesson they then ask you to fold a piece of paper so that there are four sections. In each section your child was to draw a different season. I didn't think my kids would understand that. So instead I printed a coloring page for each of them that had each season on it. You can find it here.

They then colored their pages. While they were coloring we talked about which section represented which season. 

When they were finished coloring I laminated their sheet with my laminating machine and then cut their picture into puzzle pieces. For the younger two I just cut the circle into fourths. For Mason I made his puzzle a little more challenging. 

We then worked together to put our new puzzles together. 

We are so blessed to have Mother Goose Time on days like these when it is raining outside and we are cooped up. I think we have many more pj days ahead of us with winter right around the corner.