Mother Goose Time, Jonah and the Whale, Obeying God and Chore Charts

Jonah and the Whale Crafts and Dramatic Play

The girls loved making this whale, from the Bible story, Jonah and the Whale. This is a supplement that comes with Mother Goose Time, Experience God. It even came with a coloring book.

Every month, you can choose to add on the Experience God activities, which go along with the theme. I chose to order this supplement, because it's been a fun and helpful way to help the kids feel close to God.


 
They loved acting out the Bible story with  Jonah, his little boat and the whale. This was great for dramatic play.

The girls learned an important lesson from the Jonah and the whale Bible lesson... It's important to obey God when He calls you to do something.

Mother Goose Time sends posters for each part of the Bible story, so they children can visually see what happens as the teacher or parent explains the story. While they were busy creating the crafts, I read the story. So, when they were done creating their Jonah, boat and whale, they were all ready to act out the story themselves.


The children learn that Jonah learns to obey God, as he finally faces his fear and goes back to the city to share God's word with the people. How can we learn from Jonah's experiences?

Deciding to Obey God

Here's a little "O" banner for "Obey" with a Bible verse.

"This is love for God: to obey His commands."
1 John 5:3

...And at that moment I remembered what God has called me (and all the homeschooling parents reading this) to do... Homeschool our children. Sometimes, it's not easy to obey God, but when you do, you finally feel at peace with God.

Then, I feel a prayer of thanks well up in my heart, as I look into their appreciative, loving eyes.

The best example we can give our children is to do it ourselves. That's what they will really remember. Yeah, they'll remember all the times we messed up, too. So, we better keep ourselves in check. ;) But lets face it, we'll never be perfect. That's why we have God's grace. We also need to remember to share God's grace with our little ones in the way we parent them.

Chores Craft and Activity

Chores and tracking chores is a great way to teach children consistency and responsibility. It's nice to have the children do age appropriate chores, like picking up toys, brushing teeth and brushing hair.

For little ones, it seems that the number of chores corresponds with the age of the child. So, a 3-year-old child can maybe do the three age appropriate and developmentally appropriate chores mentioned, and an 8-year old child can possibly handle eight age appropriate and developmentally appropriate chores.

The Mother Goose Time chore tracking craft and activity is ideal for preschoolers. You can make this chore activity at home by simply taping pictures symbolizing the chore onto empty yogurt cups or tin cans (be sure to get rid of any sharp edges.) As the preschool child finishes each chore, he/she puts the popsicle in the corresponding cup or can. I think this chore activity is best for preschoolers.

As for the older kids... Here's a chore chart (rocket or rose), I created on my other blog. You can print it for free for your older children.

 

 Carol Brooke Books Chore Chart
https://carolbrookebooks.wordpress.com/category/household-organization/chores-charts/

Mother Goose Time, Oyster Pearls Craft and the Letter "O"

Oyster Pearls Craft and Lesson

Mother Goose Time shared a wonderful oyster pearls lesson plan with us this month, as part of the Ocean Commotion theme for April.

The girls loved making their own oyster shells with pearl bracelets inside!

Ages: Pre-K and up

Supplies:

• Beads (real pearls can be white, pink, yellow, green, blue, brown or black)
• Paper plate
• Pipe cleaner
• Paint

Holding up the paper plate, we discussed how the paper plate is shaped like an "o", as in oyster.

We looked at pictures of oysters and oyster pearls. I showed them a real pearl necklace, too.

I decided to show my daughters a video on youtube explaining why oysters have pearls. It's pretty

gross, but it's nice that something pretty can be made out of something so gross. The video explains that either a parasite or a grain of sand gets stuck inside the oyster. The oyster protects itself from the foreign matter by covering the grain of sand or parasite with lacquer, which is hexagonal aragonite crystals of calcium carbonate. (Of course, they don't know exactly what those words mean, but they get the general idea when they see the video show the process.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=T18E58vOTus

Then, the girls got to paint their oyster shells. First, they painted the inside. They decided on yellow, even though it's usually pink. (Mother Goose Time included most of the needed supplies.)

As one side of the paper plate dried, they worked on their bracelets.

They strung several white beads onto the pipe cleaners.













"Look, a pearl bracelet!"

After they finished making their bracelets, they painted the outside shell (other side of the paper plate).

We folded the wet, painted plates and let it dry that way, so they would look like a oyster shells.

Field Trip to See Real Oysters and Pearls

One thing we love to do is go on field trips to see exactly what we are learning about in the real world. So, we went to Downtown Disney and visited one of the oyster shell
jewelers.

We were tempted to buy a pearl, but we just looked at them. :) The jewelers have the oysters in the shell, and if you decide to buy one, they will open the shell for you and you can pick out jewelry to have the jewelers set the pearl in.



You can see the oysters with pearls inside here.








After you choose and oyster and take out the pearl, you can get jewelry for your pearl.






It was fun for the girls to see a real oyster shell, create their own oyster shells and pearl bracelets, while really having an understanding of where real pearls come from... The ocean, not a bucket.

Mother Goose Time, Discovering the Ocean Floor

Exploring the Ocean Floor Fun

Mother Goose Time included this "Ocean Commotion" preschool curriculum web in the April box!

It's great to hang this up for the kids to see. Each day, they explore the next activity on the web.

I enjoy using this web to explain writing to my 2nd grader, too. You can use the same type of web for any type of writing (story, report, biography, etc...)

Seashell Discovery, Music, Counting, Dancing and Acting

When my 3-year-old daughter discovered the seashells inside her Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum box, she was thrilled!

The seashells are beautiful. Wow!

She used the seashells to make music.

"Look Mom, the seashells are instruments!"

"Wow, it looks like animals live inside. Do animals live inside, Mom?"

We talked about the types of animals that live inside seashells. Which she found fascinating.

She even noticed that they were supposed to fit together on her own, and she opened and closed the shells.

She counted the seashells.
"1-2-3..." (up to twenty)

She counted in Spanish, too!

She sorted the seashells, and then counting the types of shells.

My daughters danced around the seashells on a blue ocean blanket, while we listened to the Mother Goose Time Ocean Commotion CD.

"I'm a fish!"
"I'm a dolphin!"
"I'm a sea turtle!"

They also loved exploring the ocean floor using their play magnifying glasses on this colorful poster.
They found a green plant, seashell, and octopus...

"Look Mom, this green plant looks different than the other one."

They turned the play magnifying glasses over and did more exploring, acting out discovery.

Then, over the weekend, we took a trip to downtown Disney to see the beautiful aquarium at the Rainforest Café.

We even made our own aquarium. We talked about the habitat, temperature of the water, and how we have a fresh water tank, rather than salt water (like the salt water tank at Rainforest Café).

The girls love to relax and watch the neon tetras swim in their new fish tank.

They can't wait to learn about large sea creatures next, such as the whale, octopus, dolphin, shark and sea turtle.

We'd love to share our adventures with you as we have fun learning. You can subscribe above, and you'll get an email next time we post our adventures.

What's your favorite ocean lesson? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below.