Mother Goose Time - Art Studio Week One

Last week we began our Art Studio Mother Goose Time curriculum. Perfect timing, too! Wes is really into making art!

As with all of their monthly curriculum boxes, this box included a lesson plan book, calendar and some other items for the month. I decided to hang our calendar and "art easel" in the living room where we spend most of our time. Wes and Brady really enjoy talking about what day it is and we start our day with the calendar!

Our art easel with our shapes of the day

Each day's piece for the calendar is a piece of art work, like the Mona Lisa for example. When we attach the calendar piece, we also look at the included art print so we can talk about it. Wes said Mona Lisa looked mad! (If you look closely, you'll see Wes' journal from last month's curriculum! He loves looking at it!)

New calendar location!

Falco the Featherless Falcon
I *heart* the Falco the Featherless Falcon activities for this month. Falco is a falcon that lost all of his wings looking for coins. Rather than being content with what Falco had, he become slightly obsessed with finding as many as he could get and with that he lost all of his feathers and his ability to fly. There's a story book that went along with the activities.

We made a nest for Falco, which we visit each day. I included a colored picture of Falco in the nest. I colored Falco and let me tell you, it is so therapeutic to color like a child for me! I haven't done that in ages, but man, it's still as cool as it was when I was a little kiddo! The nest is filled with his feathers, each of which talk about things like discipline, contentment and integrity to name a few. The feathers also contain little stories which we talk about. The lesson plan book contains some catchy saying to get the kids to remember the word and meaning. For example, "D, D, Discpline - Don't give up!"

Wes finding the "Discipline" feather - that's not it!

Finding the feathers also works on letter and color recognition in disguise!

Wes pretending to read the scenarios

Self Portrait
Wes made a self portrait one day. We proudly displayed his portrait and dated it, because you bet I'm saving that for his memory book!

Drawing his self portrait

Pretty good! I only helped with the eyes!

And, as a carry over from last month, Wes had to draw the letter "H" on the back. He's pretty much mastered writing "H"! It's so amazing since he's really able to write it legible now!

Hard to see but his letter "H"

Framed and ready for display

Italy
This week we also talked about the country Italy. We found Italy on our included globe beach ball. Once Wes was able to identify it independently, I would toss the ball and when I caught it we would try to find it together. I'm quite amazed, actually. Wes has pretty much been able to find Italy any time I've asked him.

Finding Italy 

One of the week's activities included making an Italian flag. I reminded Wes that we spoke about Egypt's flag a while ago and how every country has their very own flag. This activity was fairly easy, but I love how it gave him some practice on copying for an example (which I pulled up from Google). He was so proud of his flag we had to FaceTime with Grandpa to show it off!

Italian Flag

Printmaking
We also worked on printmaking. We started off by separating our foam rectangles.  We then decided to make some triangles from the rectangles to make our stamps more fun. With the included materials, this activity was fairly easy! We glued our shapes to our cardboard stampers and brushed the paint on and stamped gift tags and paper bags.

Making stamps for print making

Arranging our patterns

Our stampers

Painting on the "ink"

Our first print

Printing on a gift tag

Don't Get the Wolf
If you've been following our journey with Mother Goose Time, you know that I love using some of the activities on the go. I simply put them in a ziploc bag and slip them in my purse to keep the boys busy when we are required to wait. This is one of those activities. We adapted this game slightly since it was just the two of us. We made it sort of like a matching/memory type game, except whenever we drew the Italian Wolf, we had to run around and howl like a wolf! Then when he tired of that, we used them as flash cards. The cards were of Italian icons like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Italian flag and the map of Italy, to name a few.

Matching

He loved the Italian Wolf

Upside Mural

We also did a mural by taping paper under the coffee table and using our rolled and frayed foam "brushes", just like Michelangelo. It was super fun, but I didn't snap and photos because I was painting right alongside my little artist.

Girl with a Pearl

We also made Girl with a Pearl with the included materials. We used black construction paper, brown paper bag, a blue napkin and a white bean for the earring. We crumpled the paper bag for texture and folded the napkin to make it a head scarf. We used the actual art print as reference and tried to "copy" from the original. I have the admit, his "copy" was pretty good for a 2 year old! Well, he'll be 3 in a few weeks, but still - pretty impressive!

Crumpling for texture

Drawing on her facial features

Showing off his art

Finished artwork!

Book of the Month

The included book for this month is Bear in Sunshine. Wes really enjoys reading it each day.

End of Day Pay

Now, explaining financial responsibility is something I have wanted to begin young with the boys. I truly do believe that you can't do it young enough. With both boys, we have been very good about letting them know that you have to exchange money for the things you need, but financial responsibility goes far beyond just the exchange of money. I love that this month's curriculum also talks about this daily for the month. 

We have spent each day talking about how to earn money. We talk about that you have to do tasks and jobs to earn money you need. Wes earns $5 dollars each day if he completes all of our activities. At the end of the day, he earns his money and he places $1 in his Give and Save envelopes, and $2 in his Spend envelope. He gets to decide where the other $1 goes. He has to pay $2 each day for his art supplies.

We spend the end of each school session talking about topics like why we save, why we give and how we earn and spend on things we need like food and art supplies. We explain giving, saving and spending through play. For example, we will have him go through a bunch of gross motor drills like jump up and touch your toes. Each time he does something we give him a shape. Then we talk about earning and how daddy works to earn money so we can buy the things we need. Then we do the activity again, and instead of shapes, we earn money. There are similar activities each day to go over a variety of financial topics. The lessons are completely simplified - but we ARE dealing with a 3 year old! So, it can't be too complex!

I feel that while it is only introducing the topic of financial responsibility, it is definitely laying the foundation to continue our lessons about it. And, Wes LOVES to EARN his moola!

"Earning" a triangle

Our money envelopes

We are really enjoying the activities in the Art Studio box! It's spurred all sorts of extended activities for us!

For more information on Mother Goose Time, please visit their website mothergoosetime.com.

***And, in case you are wondering - we are still working on being solid with our potty training. That is why in most photos, you'll see Wes has his undies and no pants on! Trust me! We do not live in a nudist colony! I promise!