Every once in a while I like to give a brief glimpse into what a day filled with our preschool program, Mother Goose Time can look like for our family.
Recently, we completed a day focused on wind and had a great time with several different activities.
Wind – A Day with Mother Goose Time
Circle Time
- Greeting Song – Getting the morning started with a song gets everyone together doing the same thing and focused on the theme for the day.
- Weather – We observe and record the weather for the day using graphics from Mother Goose Time.
- Calendar – Mother Goose Time provides a thematic poster each month; this month is weather themed.
- Discussion Topic Poster – Each day contains a daily topic poster to guide discussion. The day’s theme was wind and we discussed the topic and daily topic poster over breakfast using the following questions and activity.
Ask: How do you know it’s windy outside?
What happens when the wind blows?
Do: Turn on a fan and explore the feeling of wind.
Community Challenge – Making Wind
Invite children to demonstrate how to create wind with their breathe, hands or another way.
Stand paper tubes straight upright in the middle of the circle.
Encourage children to work together and blow over all the tubes.
Discuss what they discovered as the best way to blow over all the tubes.
Mother Goose Time has started including community challenges for each day that encourage team behavior and are wonderful tools for character development and sibling cooperation. We love them!
Creative Art – Wind (Invitation to Create)
Supplies
- straw
- paper
- sequins
- paint
- nature items (flower petals, grass)
Set Up
Set out the inspirational photo and additional supplies.
Prompts
What do you think will happen if you blow on different materials?
What colors would you like to paint?
What do you think will happen if you squeeze paint (watered down, if necessary) onto your paper and then blow items across it?
What do you think of when you look at your art?
Creative Art with Mother Goose Time has two main types. Make and Play activities provide the kids something to create and then use as a toy, whereas Invitation to Create activities give the kids process driven art opportunities with a variety of unique mediums. My Creative Mind is a wonderful, new program that also provides questions to help the kids have discussions about the art they create.
Small Group Math – Ordering Kites
The kids enjoyed and benefited from this activity, so much that I created an entire post about it; Ordering Kites – Small Group Math with Mother Goose Time!
Table Top Literacy – Windy Letter
Supplies
- letter Card: C
- cotton balls
- straws
Set Up
Make a masking tape letter C on the table.
Put the letter C Card at the bottom of the masking tape C.
Set out straws and cotton balls.
Independent Play
Invite a child to blow a cotton ball along the masking tape letter C and into the letter card.
Continue to play and try to move the cotton ball along the path without touching it.
Mother Goose Time provides letter cards showcasing certain letters every month that also include pictures of words that begin with that letter. This month the letter was “C” and the card included pictures of a cloud and a cat. Literacy activities are offered throughout the month to reinforce letter recognition, phonics development, and emergent literacy.
Closing Time
Reflection
Discuss what wind is and how we can create it.
Give each child a piece of paper to fold into a fan. Explore fanning different things, including each other.
More
In addition to these wonderful activities, Mother Goose Time also includes a suggested story with discussion questions, music and movement suggestions to get kids moving, and a STEAM activity focused on learning more about the day’s topic, in this case the power of wind.
For more examples of what it’s like to play and learn with Mother Goose Time, join us on Facebook and Instagram!
Happy Learning!
