| Being flexible is very important when it comes to providing quality child care. My children come different times and days through the week. This week is a holiday break week so my numbers are a little down. I love that Mother Goose Time allows me to adapt to these kind of days. If I don't have children that day that can do the activities I hold them for a day when my older children are there so they can do them. This allows the children to still get all the goodness from Mother Goose Time but at our pace based on our week. Sometimes we may not have time to complete all the activities in the lesson plan for that day. I then pull them out during free time so the children that want to do them can do them. Fridays are our makeup days if we miss anything during the week. Before using Mother Goose Time, it was a little more challenging to break from days in my curriculum. I felt like if they missed they would miss out on our lessons. That is why I started doing makeup Friday. I recap all we did through the week and if we missed anything we do it then. I'm able to do this because I also provide care on the weekend so it works out perfectly. Friday, we capped on lotus flowers and our ants. I allow the children to use the materials freely to create their own art. I feel that children need to explore the materials and express themselves. We talk about how we are using the materials to create our art and why they use certain times. I feel by giving the children the materials freely it helps me build upon what they have learned. I do this with all coloring sheets as well. I set one out to show children what starts with that letter. Then, provide them with materials and ask them what starts with that letter and then allow them to draw what they say. I feel the children get more from the activity that way. Thanks to Mother Goose Time for all our materials to make the best of our learning experiences. I receive Mother Goose Time box in-exchange for my opinion about their products and how we use them in my program. Since using this and showing it to other FCC providers now there are 4 of us here at Irwin that are now using Mother Goose Time. www.mothergoosetime.com |
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Family Engagement is very important to me and my program and the success of the child in their development. I use many resources from Mother Goose Time as well as my Facebook Daycare page to keep parents involved and invite them in for activities. I start by giving the newsletter out at the end of the month. That way the families have time to look over it before we begin that theme in my program. On my facebook page for my parents I do an entry each month breaking down what we are talking about(I take this from my web from MGT). Then, I touch on what we will learn about each with a little detail for the families. Next, each day throughout the day I will take photos of the children using the curriculum. I do this due to many of my parents not being able to come into the classroom so this way they can ask the child about what they did that day. These observations are also the ones that I use to record and put in their portfolios. Mother Goose Time has "My Creative Mind" notes that I put on the back of the art so the families can ask the child these questions. We ask them in class after doing our art. I love these it is a great way to get the parents involved. All of this is due to my kits I get from Mother Goose Time. I get them in exchange for my honest feedback. www.mothergoosetime.com Change can be scary when it comes to changing anything in your program. I just recently lost two children in my program due to their parents PCS move. Prior to this my home was for children ages 2-11. Then, I added two new children but they are younger age 15 month and 3 months. My biggest worry was how am I going to make my lesson plans so that they target all the children in my program. Well, thanks to Mother Goose Time I did not have to worry about this. I use Little Goose for any of my children under the age of 3. It has been a great tool to help me simplify activities for the younger children and yet keep them on the same theme as the older children. I love the way I am able to use and easily follow it. It still gives me all the same areas of development to focus on but on a younger level. The activities are great. A lot are fine motor and that is a lot of what children under 3 are using to develop. I love how each activity has different areas in one activity. For example, they may be doing circles on a paper. If the child makes a circle they are learning pre writing skills, listening skills, cognitive skills. and if they count the circles math. Thanks to Mother Goose Time for this great tool. I receive all materials in exchange for my honest opinion about the curriculum. www.mothergoosetime.com
This week, gave me lots of opportunity to observe the children. I use observations to track development, goal plan and also to put in the children's portfolios. I take lots of photos of the children doing their activities. Then, I use video to record their communication or words that are used during that activity. Using these helps us to foster the child in areas they may need to work on as well as telling what areas are their strength.
Thanks to Mother Goose Time I am able to receive my whole box full of quality education materials for free in exchange for my honest opinion and for telling them how I am using the products. This, has helped me a great deal be able to provide a better quality of program to the children in my care. We discussed N is for the Word Night and we talked about what sound that letter makes. Then, I showed them an example of how to make the letter N using three strips of paper. Next, I put all the materials in front of the child and allowed to them make their letter N's. While, they were doing that we were talking about what all starts with the letter N. Finally, they use glue to hold their letter N together. We even had a great time putting the stars on the N. Later that night we went on a star hunt in the sky while laying on our backs on the ground. We also talked about how Bears Hibernate. We talked about if we wanted to sleep all winter or not. Then, we talked about all the animals that hibernate for winter. I was even surprised to learn a few new ones that I never knew did. Then, I showed the children my example of the bear's cave where they hibernate for winter. The older boys decided they didn't like mine and ask for scissors. They then cut apart the whole bag. They then glues those pieces to a sheet of paper. Finally, they glued their bear on the paper. The used the bag to make the cave and items they said are around caves. I was blown away by how different yet rewarding an activity can be when you leave room for them to be their own individual. We even touched on butterflies and how they migrate for winter. An older child told me only birds migrate. So we watched a clip about what animals migrate for the winter. We then made butterfly pull puppets and then they pretending that they were migrating. All of these great ideas came from Mother Goose Time and their amazing kits. When, it comes to recording a child's skill level I use two systems combined. The military requires me to use a system called Teaching Strategies (TS Gold) and I personally use Mother Goose Time as well. What is great is that both go hand in hand and follow the same guidelines and are user friendly.
I do my activities in about 4 steps. First, I read over the activity and see what skill areas that activity is geared to focus on, what goals are for that skill in the activity and what the benchmarks are for each child in my program. I get all this information from the new Mother Goose Time Teacher's guide. The skills, goals and benchmarks are located at the back of each Teacher Guide Book. Second, I make an example for the child to see a hand on example of what we are doing. I also use the Inspiration photo that Mother Goose Time provides for their activities. I feel that by using these two examples is targets all my children and their learning styles in my program. Third, we talk about how they could carry out the activity and what they want to include or how they want to go about doing the activity. This, allows for discussion and help for the children to see how to do the activity. But my main reason is this gets the children to communicate with others and really think about their problem solving skills. Fourth, I provide all materials and allow the children to freely carry out the activity. Answering any questions they have. Asking open-ended questions to better observe the children through the activity. I feel that the best way to document this is via short videos or lots of back to back photos so I can accurately record all important details. By doing these it makes it easier for me to record their skill levels by following this process. I receive all these great tools and materials free of charge in exchange for my honest feedback on how we use the curriculum and materials. I really feel since using Mother Goose Time my quality of curriculum and program has been greatly enhanced.
As many of you know, I receive all my curriculum free of charge in exchange for my honest opinion about how we are using Mother Goose Time and if there are any suggestions that I have about the box.
I am able to reinforce routines of caring during Mother Goose Time by #1 being a great role model and setting the examples. #2 providing them opportunities to show care and learn about being caring to others as well as yourself. In our art time the children showed me the best caring practices this week. They pass supplies out to each friend to put on their tray. They make sure that everyone has the same materials that are put out. We talk about our working while doing it. My older children give my younger ones advice of how to make something they don't know how to. I remind children while doing their art that no ones should look the same. That we are all amazing artist in our own way. Mother Goose Time has been a blessing to our program. www.mothergoosetime.com |