Experience God Curriculum Review 1

Hello again from the land of homeschooling! I have been really enjoying my new mother goose time curriculum, but I thought I would share this week about their add on program, "Experiencing God".

This is a Christian program that can be used either as an add-on to the mother goose time, it has a schedule for how to incorporate this directly with your daily routine. OR you could use this as a complete Sunday school program. It comes with 4 crafts in the bag, enough to do one per sunday school week as well as an interactive Bible story, and activity ideas.

The teacher resource kit for the month is $15 and then the student packs are $5/student. So if you had a sunday school class of 10 children, it would be $50 for 10 student packs and then $15 for your teacher pack. For my homeschool classroom it would be $15 for my kit and then with four kids (NO way my older kids won't want in on this, they are addicted to mother goose time) it would be $35/month.

Let's start with the story. This month it is about Adam and Eve. The story came with 7 bright story picture cards with the reading printed on the backside of the cards. What sets this program apart is that it is so hands on. While you read, you get the kids to do various actions. I have NEVER had my kids (6/7 year olds included) listen so intently to a story. It is amazing what "put your finger to your nose, crawl around like an animal, wave your right hand" etc. does for a kid. Just when they are starting to lose interest, the story throws in an action and BAM! They're glued to the page again waiting for their next clue. It is awesome. I don't know why I haven't thought of this before. I have had such a hard time with bible in the past, just holding the kids attention.

Moving along, we started with the first weeks craft, which was making Herb the Turtle. The littles had so much fun with the craft. Then to top it all off they went outside and got some dirt and then got to plant the seeds it came with to make their own "garden". It was such a cool activity and full of questions to ask the kids and ideas of where you could take the lesson. I was so impressed. It took us about 20 minutes for the story and the craft.

On to the picture portion of the review. My favorite part. Here is a closeup of my teachers guide for the craft:

 

Please note that this is only the craft portion of my teacher guide, in the lesson portion there are a ton of activities and questions that I could do with the kids as well.

 

And just so you can see our botched attempt (we did it upside down ;)



 

 

Both the littles were so into this craft. They were so excited. They got to paint! I never bring out the paint because it is just a mess, but honestly they did so well and had so much fun. And all I had to provide was the glue!

Have I mentioned I love this program? ;)

You can find more information at: http://www.mothergoosetime.com/christian-program/

 

 

Mother Goose Time: Review 1

Hi everyone, I am so excited to share with you this amazing new curriculum that I (how is this even possible?!?!?!) had never heard of. It is a preschool curriculam, but it is easily comprehensive enough to use for kindergarten if you supplement with writing and math. Consequently, I have dropped all curriculum I was previously doing with Malakai (kindergarten) and am doing this program with both him and Aliyah (and Caleb and Selah are doing it to because it is so fun they don't want to be left out ;)

Mother Goose Time pretty much accomplishes these main goals for me:

• It is a super fun program! Think songs, dance, activities, crafts, games, posters, centres, etc.
• It is relatively inexpensive (about $60 each theme month pack you purchase- including all your teacher supplies, CD's, planning books, as well as the daily bagged activities for your child)
• It is so so so easy to teach (think teacher planner books with everything laid out, and student bags for each day that you just open up and go)
• It has the possibility to be a NO PREP PROGRAM! Somewhere a heavenly chorus is singing "Hallelujah!"

So enough of the writing… if you're anything like me, you want to see some examples! 

To start with, this is what I got in the mail:

What a cute box! See that welcome kit on top? That comes for free for first time subscribers, it includes your teacher guide, your CD's your student scrapbook (two pages they fill from each month's theme, great for reporting!) how to use the program, etc. It also contains different centre posters if you want to set up centres in your schoolroom, colour birds, a calendar with daily cutouts, EVERYTHING you need to set up a bulletin board, a poster to put up, a map of the world. Etc. Heres a close up of some of what is in the teachers kit

Then I moved down and found my curriculum! It goes down in order, so I put it all back afterwards to save the mess and will just pull them out one by one each day. Here is a sneak peak at what the weekly bags look like: 

The month of November's theme is rainforest. It talks about different animals, different colours, etc. To be honest, I don't know yet because we have only done one day, but I can't wait to get further into this box. Malakai (5) and Aliyah (2), who are usually playing while I talk, were GLUED to this! They LOVED the songs, loved doing the craft, were so excited to open the bag up. The older kids were so disappointed they didn't get to do more. The best part is, you could do as much or as little as you wanted with this program. The lesson plan tells you what you can do all day long. Including when to take breaks for snack and lunch. You could follow it to a T. Go out on nature walks and build your building centre with sticks, do a craft, play a game, etc. Its all there laid out for you in the teachers lesson book. 

This program would be AMAZING for daycares, preschools, homeschool families, etc. It keeps the kids highly entertained and you don't have to stress about having everything you need and preparing for your lesson. Just open up your bag and you have everything you need except the scissors and glue. 

Here is Malakai's craft from the bag of day one, they made a collage. It came with confetti, glitter, paper, animals to cut out, tissue paper, and they went wild. 

What else can I say? Except, go to the website! Check out the different monthly themes, the extras that are available! You can find them at www.mothergoosetime.com 

I will be posting weekly pictures and reviews of what the kids think of it as well as myself. Stay tuned and let me know if you have any questions!