Building in Creative Arts Time for Preschool at Home

Disclosure: I am a Mother Goose Time blog ambassador. I receive the Mother Goose Time curriculum free of charge in exchange for sharing my experiences with you. All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own. You can see more about Mother Goose Time here: https://www.mothergoosetime.com/

To say my little Mudpie loves the creative arts is an understatement. Crayons, paint, chalk, glue (oh, yes, ESPECIALLY glue)… she loves being able to create something new. It’s one of the only activities that will hold her preschooler attention for more than a few minutes at a time. She also loves creating her own dances and shows to perform for us.  

I also can see how much she’s learning during her creative arts times as well. Her fine motor skills are developing and growing. She’s growing her creativity and problem solving skills. I love seeing how fun this type of learning is for her (and me too)! 

Despite our daily creative arts habit, I must admit that it didn’t occur to me to regularly  incorporate the creative arts into our planned learning time until we started going through the Mother Goose Time curriculum. I love how so many of the learning activities are built around the creative arts. The ideas and concepts that we are learning are lasting with her so much longer since they are built around these arts activities. 

If you aren’t already incorporating the creative arts into your preschool at home time, it’s definitely a great addition to learning time for preschoolers. It’s a way of learning that is especially fun for kiddos and parents! 

Mother Goose Time Unboxing – Blast Off to Space!

Disclosure: I am a Mother Goose Time blog ambassador. I receive the Mother Goose Time curriculum free of charge in exchange for sharing my experiences with you. All of the thoughts and opinions expressed in this post are my own. You can see more about Mother Goose Time here: https://www.mothergoosetime.com/

After a recent search of preschool curriculums available, I settled on Mother Goose Time for our homeschool time. Recently, we received our first month’s box of supplies for the program and I am so excited to bring you along with me as I unbox everything we need as we “Blast Off to Space” this month! 

You can watch the video above to see the entire unboxing. Here are some of my favorite things that I discovered as I unboxed our supplies for this month: 

  • The supplies and materials needed for each day are separated into different bags. No sorting through a big box of supplies each month! 
  • Everything that is needed for each activity (other than basic supplies that you will likely have on hand) is provided! I love that I don’t have to spend hours tracking down supplies that I will only use a fraction of for learning activities. I’d much rather spend time that time playing with my little gal. 
  • This curriculum is in-depth and covers so many areas of learning, while pulling it all together under a central and fun theme. 
  • The illustrations on all of the supplies are so adorable! 
  • There are awesome activities and supplies, like board puzzles and a book, that will used over and over in our home. 

I am so excited for us to jump into the curriculum this month and, of course, share our experiences with you! 

 

How I Plan Our Homeschool Time In OneNote and Our First Day Preschool at Home DITL

I just recently realized that I no longer have a toddler. Now that Little Gal is three, she is considered a preschooler. How in the world did that happen?! 

We’ve been doing relaxed, organized learning in some form for a year a half. Now that Little Gal is older, I’m working to create more routine and structure in our learning day. Nothing too intense since I do believe that the majority of learning at this age comes from play interaction, but just some anchor points to give us a little more structure in those sometimes unpredictable at home days. 

My first focus is to build up our circle time, or morning time as I call it. Our routine for this currently includes: 

  • Singing “This Is The Day”
  • Adding the date to our wall calendar
  • Singing our days of the week song
  • Talking about what day of the week it is
  • Singing our months of the year song
  • Talking about today’s date
  • Listening to the Bounce Patrol counting song
  • Talking about our number of the week
  • Listening to the Preschool Prep phonics song
  • Talking about our letter of the week
  • Singing a Bible verse song (currently coming from ABC Jesus Loves Me)
  • Saying a prayer 
  • Talking about what we are going to do for the day

I’ve also started planning for our homeschool time in a new way this year – using OneNote. I’m really finding OneNote to be a great fit for my prep and planning time due to the flexibility of being able to use it on my phone, tablet, and laptop. I love that I can embed YouTube videos for our learning time right into my plan for that homeschool day. 

I’m definitely not a homeschool pro, but little gal and I are learning together.  We are both really loving this morning time and our homeschool activities so far this year!