The Mommy School: Week 9 - Goodnight Moon

So, I must say I was hesitant to do this book as it seemed rather baby-ish. But, I'm so glad we did row it because there were lots of fun things to pull from this simple night time classic. If you're not familiar with Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, it's about a little bunny who is getting ready to go to bed in his "great green room". He does this by looking around his room and saying goodnight to objects in his room. If you ask me, he's like any other little boy that I know trying to drag out bedtime as much as possible!

We started the week by making our own green room. I was able to find most of the items in the room thanks to Google!

Because this book has lots of bold colors, we spent some time talking about primary and secondary colors. First, I made a basic Venn Diagram for them to color:

Then we colored (red, yellow, blue) water in different cups and mixed them to make secondary colors. They thought this was amazing.

There were some additional color themed activities in the lapbook. The one below was coloring balloons the correct color. I was so proud of both of them. They didn't need me to read them the colors. They were able to sound them out!

Next, we discussed moon phases. There were several great websites out there who used cookies to demonstrate this. And since we all know that food must be a part of the weekly lesson ...I couldn't resist. We were even able to spot a gibbous moon this Thursday!

Can we eat these yet?


Lapbook activity

We talked about how it seems to get brighter outside as it gets darker in the great green room and this is due to your eyes adjusting to the dark. For the past 3 nights now, they have begged to continue this experiment in their room. We leave the light on and look out the window (very dark) and then turn off the light and see how we can actually see things in our backyard.

We also made night sky paintings. I used a white crayon to make a moon and stars before they started painting. Then I gave them watercolor's to paint with. As they painted, the moon and stars started to appear.

So, I'm not sure why anyone would have a "bowl full of mush" on their bedside table, but the bunny in this book does. The boys liked watching the mouse move from page to page and getting into the bowl of mush. It does appear that some is missing on the last couple of pages! Anyway, we made mush one morning for breakfast. They both ate it and loved it. I let them add in raisins and brown sugar:

We finished up the week with doing some various activities in our lapbook: rhyming words, matching single/pairs (for the mittens & socks in the story) and discussing nursery rhymes.

We had such a great time with this book. We also read My World by Margaret Wise Brown.

BIBLE

This week, we read about Jesus calming the storm. They learned that because Jesus takes care of us, we should help take care of others. Our bible verse this week was 1 Peter 5:7:

Give all your worries and cares to God for He cares about you. 1 Peter 5:7

We started the week by making our own sailboats (from a juice-box) and sea. Two little boys provided the storm! This was lots of fun and a ("contained") bubbly mess.

Another storm made landfall in the family room using a toy boat and pillow case. This would be even better in a larger group with a big sheet and lots of boats!

They made sailboats by tracing numbers:

Missions Mike made an appearance this week (back from his trip to Africa)! He talked to the boys about caring for others as he was off on another mission to help people in India. We talked about things they could do to be caring toward others. This was a great segue into the Operation Christmas Child project they are doing at church.

The week ended with a game called crossing the sea. Two jumpropes were placed on the ground and they had to jump over them. Each time they made a successful jump, the ropes were moved further and further apart until someone falls into the sea!


Gameface? Check!

MATH

...This is my Math-U-See man. And, as U can see, he's a little frustrated. The boys moved on from the 10's place value to the 100's place value this week. I think sometimes I forget that we are doing Kindergarten material and they have yet to turn 4.5 years old. Needless to say, I'm not 100% confident that they have really mastered this concept, so we will be repeating it next week. Hopefully, with a Mommy that is a little more patient. Prayers would be much appreciated!

Coloring in the appropriate number of 100's blocks to form the correct number of total blocks.

HANDWRITING

PHONICS

This week we added more helper words ("like" & "to") and learned about adding "s" to the end of a word to make it plural. They picked it up rather quickly. I would say over the past week+, I have seen them really take notice to words and try sounding them out. Be it at home, in the grocery, driving, etc.