Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Mother Goose Time's Daily Topic Posters

One of the things that I love about Mother Goose Time is that they always want to learn and grow and get better.  Last year Mother Goose Time used drawn images, like coloring book pages, as the Topic Poster for each day.  This year they used real photos.

At first I was super bummed because I like the coloring pages.  I let the kids use them for, coloring.  But I have really grown to love the real images even more and here is the kicker, you can still get the coloring pages as part of the online resources.  So if your kids still want to color, they can!

Over the year I have taken pointers from a few of the Blog Ambassadors on different ways to use the Topic Posters.  At first I just set it on the table as we learned and then put it in our scrap pile to use the back to draw on.  Then I saw Svetlana at Buzz On In post her topic posters up for the children to see everyday.  That way, the knew exactly what they were learning about.
I took her idea and ran with it.  I put two clothes pins up on the wall.  I hang today's topic poster on the left and on the right I hang tomorrows topic poster.  Posting them for my boys to see was an instant hit.  Peter loves to tell us all what we are learning today and squeal with excitement about what is coming up tomorrow. 

Yet, I would still take them down and put them in our scrap pile.

Again, I was reading the Blog Ambassador's blogs and read a post from Brenda at Sweet Smiles Daycare and I saw a picture of the children in her care flipping through a binder with all the topic posters in it.  Another light bulb moment.
I decided to do same thing.  I made a binder with 20 sheet protectors in it.  There are 20 topics in each Mother Goose Time kit.  When we are done with the day I slide the topic poster in the sheet protector.  Behind the Topic Poster I try to put something that we did that day.  Anything flat that will fit.
Here on the back of Day 3 where we learned about Sun & Water I put the "I Can Eat a Whole Plant!" grid.
You can see that on the back of Day 4 where the topic was roots, I put the yam photo card and the orange diamond. 
I made a little video to try to better show you what I mean.  I hope it helps.


At the end of the month I hope to pull it out and reminisce.  I can't wait to hear what knowledge they retain and the memories they bring up.  Honestly, I don't know if I can or even if I need to wait until the end of the month.  We could look back and reminisce at the end of each week.

When we are all done with this month I will probably pull it all to recycle it or put in our scrap pile.  But just writing that makes me sad.  I might just have to create two of these binders.  When we get done filling up the Growing Garden binder we can keep it intact for a while before taking it apart.

I have to say another big thank you to all the Blog Ambassadors who inspire me.  It's so fun to read about their experiences using Mother Goose Time and put their ideas to use in my own home.  

5 comments:

  1. YOU inspire us! I love the binder idea! I stayed up late last night taping all the MGT Spanish cards to one wall in our school room... I'll send you a picture later.

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  2. Thank you, you are so sweet. It makes me so happy if I can inspire even just one person. I can't wait to see your Spanish wall! I just recently dug out a pocket chart we had buried in a drawer and hung it up. I put all the months in it and made a bright orange star to mark the current month with. I used the top row pocket for the Spanish cards just from last month. But I have so many more from the year it might be fun to post more!

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  3. I love this! I never thought to add the project that we did that day! What a better way to reminisce! It is so great that we can share our ideas and get inspired from one another! :)

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  4. The binder idea is fantastic! I will be utilizing that for sure!

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