Winter Living

I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday break! I am having a lot of fun with my family and extended family.

Before we left on break, I finished our “Winter in the Woods” theme from Experience Early Learning (formally Mother Goose Time) with my preschool students. We had so much fun pretending to be lumberjacks, pretending to warm up by a fire, and making a variety of pretend quilts using different materials.

My favorite quilt that we made was from paper. The students used marker to draw a design on paper. Then, we took our pieces of paper and taped them together. It was so fun! I love sewing and have made quite a few quilts myself, so it was fun to bring those out and show those off to the kids. They seemed impressed. And I was equally impressed with their community quilt that they made and how much thought they took into creating their designs. It was fun working together on a project to create something beautiful. The kids were very proud of their paper quilt.

Another quilt we made was from the math cubes that came in the Experience Early Learning box this month. These math manipulatives are so fun to play and create with. The students used the cubes and connected them together into different colors and patterned squares. This was another activity where we worked together to create a finished product. They each chose a square they wanted to make that matched the Cube Quilt Mat. After they each made their designated squares, they put them together in the mat for a completed cube quilt.

Another activity we did this week was our simple addition and subtraction math story problems. The students are getting really good at counting, adding, and subtracting. And, I had a whole box of connecting cubes for the students to use to solve the problems. So they each got their own cubes and they each got to solve the problems on their own, instead of working with a partner or small group. If they did need help, we were all still there to help them or they could look at what their neighbor was doing to solve the problem and do it that same way. They did awesome! They even figured out the multiplication problem that we did at the end.

One last aOne last activity we did this past week was make shapes with craft sticks. This was another simple activity that turned out to be quite entertaining and engaging. Who knew that craft sticks could provide hours of entertainment for preschool students? The students used the sticks to make shapes. They could use the mats provided by Experience Early Learning to make their shapes or they could figure out how to do it on their own. They had a blast! When they were finished making the 4 shapes, I let them work together to build whatever they wanted with the craft sticks. My boys made a space ship. It looked amazing!

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Next month we start our new theme: Baby Animals. I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!

** I receive curriculum from Experience Preschool (formally known as Mother Goose Time) for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. This is my 5th year using Mother Goose Time, and I am pleased to promote quality educational learning experiences through play with Experience Preschool with Mother Goose Time!