Christmas Time with Mother Goose Time

Mother Goose Time is so flexible that December's curriculum kit Sights & Sounds of Winter can really be used for any month.  The calendars are blank, there are no holidays worked in.  Even though that is the case, the theme is also absolutely perfect for December. 

Day 11 of this month was all about cookies and it had a brilliant craft idea.  We made paper cookies that we decorated with real sprinkles.  We had a little friend of ours join us for the cookie day which made the craft that much more exciting.  The sprinkles ended up being a huge hit so I got our sprinkle shaker (sprinkles in a Parmesan shaker) out. 

Mother Goose Time provided us with these cookie shapes already cut out.  But if you would like to do this same thing at home it would be quite simple, just have the kids trace your real cookie cutters and then cut the shapes out. 

Adam did not want to give up the sprinkle shaker for others to take their turn.  That was the only down side of this craft.

Bennie asked if we had colored glue which has been her favorite art medium lately.  Her mother dyes regular kids craft glue with liquid water color.  That would have been a brilliant addition to this craft and would have made the cookies look like they were really frosted.  But alas, I did not have some on hand and not really even enough glue to dye properly. 

Mother Goose Time did provide us with these black foam dot stickers to look like chocolate chips.  I thought that was quite clever.  When our cookies were done we glued them to a paper plate to look like those, oh so delicious, plates of holiday cookies our friends and neighbors deliver this time of year.

The next day we were joining our Cub scout troop at the local senior community to sing Christmas carols.  All the different age groups of scouts were in competition for the "most Christmas spirit".  So we were supposed to dress Christmasy.  We have a couple of Santa hats and that is about it.  So I pulled out our reindeer headband we made with MGT and used one of our MGT manipulatives for a new nose, the old one had fallen off.  Lachlan played the part of Rudolf. 

I used some more of the jingle bells to tie to the back of their boots and then wrapped their boots in wrapping paper.  Of course it was pouring down rain and I had to make them be careful walking in so the paper didn't just fall apart. 

Although clever, it was quite noisy, so I might not add the bells to the boots again next year. . . lesson learned.

With Christmas break at hand a lot more of our friends were available to come over.  Grant and Cody came on one day and we broke out some of the fun from our Santa's Workshop celebration kit.  In the past MGT provided "bonus days", now they provide celebration kits.  These kits are a full day or more of activities which also include invitations.  The invitations can be used to invite friends of family.  Or you can just enjoy the day with the students in your care.  We only did one of the activities while eating lunch, mac and cheese on paper plates.  Hey, it's Christmas break for me too! 

Mother Goose Time provided us with the classic poem Twas the Night Before Christmas and storytelling pieces.  As I told the story we laid out the pieces.  We had to stop and make sure we had the reindeer in order.  I have to say, this poem is a favorite of mine.  At one point I had most of it memorized.  So it was a big treat for me to share it with my boys and Grant and Cody too.  I will be saving the story and the storytelling pieces and packing them away with our Christmas things to come out each year. 

If you were not using the Sights & Sounds of Winter in December you could of course just leave off the Santa's Workshop Celebration kit and all the other topics would still be fitting for any winter month.

So far this month we have studied: Drums, Woodwinds, Horns, Stringed Instruments, Piano, Animal Tracks, Ice, Owl, Bells, Winter Birds and now Cookies.  Coming soon are the topics: Teapot (yes really, and it was fun!), House Guests, Mouse and Fireplace.

Although these topics are perfect for December, they really can be studied any time of year!