E is for Eggs

I am trying really hard to challenge Adam with more Mother Goose Time each week.  I am the first to admit that my focus usually falls on the big boys.  But Adam is a smart little guy and it's not fair to him when I don't give him his own learning opportunities.

I often don't get Mother Goose Time out because I don't think I can complete a full day.  But even if I just get out one or two lessons from the day, he can learn so much.

On egg day we played an awesome game called E is for Egg.  Mother Goose Time gave us a sheet of paper, covered in eggs, and each egg had a letter or number in it.  They gave us cube cards to go in our pocket cube that matched these letters and numbers and the idea was to roll the cube and then search for and color in an egg with the matching letter or number.

The first letter he rolled was the lower case e.

He found one on his paper and colored the whole egg in perfectly.

 Also included in the pocket cube was a picture of an elephant and an egg which both start with an E.  If he rolled the elephant he had to stomp like an elephant and if he rolled an egg he had to roll into a ball and pretend to be an egg and then he popped open to hatch.  I would have pictures to show you, but we are wearing big boy underwear these days with no pants as we learn to go in the potty.

What's great about this big movement and dramatic play that is mixed in with this writing and letter recognition learning is that it actually helps him stay focused.  Little kids aren't meant to stay in one place for too long.  The mixture of getting up and moving and sitting down and writing kept him focused on this game for a long time.

Not only that, but mixing movement and learning brings the mind and body together and creates a powerful link.  I know from previous experience that it helps the knowledge to "stick" (that's a technical Early Childhood Education term) and makes it easier for them to recall when it's needed at another time.

Then Adam lead the way and took this activity into a new direction.  Instead of coloring in the eggs he chose to trace the letter or number inside the egg.

 Following his lead I got out our Muscle Mover Cards by Fundanoodle.

Now, if he rolled the capital E, he could find it on the egg sheet and write it on the Muscle Mover card.  Funny enough, the move on the other side of the Muscle Mover card was "stomp like an elephant".

The last activity from Day 2 was simply called Egg.  They gave us a paper egg, an egg carton to put a variety of colors in, clothes pins, large pom poms and an inspiration photo of speckled eggs.

Thankfully I had just purchased a set of 18 different colors of tempura paint from Amazon.  The ones I poured for him were the pearl colors, they are so pretty.

Look how well painting with pom poms works for this.  His paper egg, looks a lot like the inspiration photo.

 Another Invitation to Create that is Adam approved.