Themes

A new month, a new year, a new theme to start with Mother Goose Time! It’s always exciting to start a theme and begin learning once again. Mother Goose Time always offers a unique learning experience with themes that are comprehensive and exciting for kids (and adults!) See our passport to safari activities below.

See What’s in the Box? Going on Safari

What do we need to go on safari? First, we need a passport, then pack up our suitcases, get a hat, find some binoculars for the game reserve and get in our safari vehicle! So let’s start with passports!

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A fresh new calendar for the brand new year! At circle time we covered the calendar and weather. By the third day of the month we began to see a pattern forming!

Then we started talking about passports. What’s a passport? It’s a travel document that contains your picture, date of birth and where you are from. Without it, you could not enter into another country. I explained it in a little simplier way but that’s the idea.

Let’s Go On Safari Stamping

The Community Challenges are becoming one of my favorite activities of the day.

“Stamp the Passport” allowed each child to make their own stamp design with ink and their fingers. We also used shape stamps to include a little shape and color.

It’s a nice activity to have children come and go from, doing what they wish.

Some spent just a minute and some were there longer, stamping each stamp.

This exercise builds relationship skills by participating in a group activity and noticing what others have made.

I always display our community work after it is complete.

Signing In to See the Animals

When we enter a different country, we have to sign in. I phrased this as “signing in to see the animals”.

First I printed their names and glued them on their Nametags. There was still room for the children to practice writing their names next to it.

Using the Nametags, we signed in to see the animals at different stations around the room.

Even though name writing is a little advanced for this nearly 3 year old, she WANTS to do it so I helped her.

This 4 year old is taking right off with writing her name! It’s amazing to see.

Signing the page is such a big, grown up thing to do. It’s fun!

I made four sign in pages – lion, zebra, elephant and giraffe.

An older child put the matching animals at each station.

I encouraged this 3 year old to just try the first letter of his name. He’s getting there!

Signing in was such a worthwhile exercise! A fun way to practice name writing.

Look at our sign in pages!

Continent Toss

Using the pocket cube and the world map and just a few squares of colored construction paper, we explored the map.

First we tossed the pocket cube and identified the continent’s color. We talked about the continent’s name and something they may recognize from that country, like an animal.

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They looked for the coordinating continent on the map and put that color of scrap of paper on it.

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A simple and fun way to explore the world!

Passports

Finally, a passport for everyone! Some in my group were very interested in knowing the names of each continent and coloring it the color as shown on the world map.

After coloring the pages, they could stamp their passports.

Maybe they won’t remember what the names of all the continents are yet, or understand how really big our world is, but they are beginning to recognize landmarks and symbols as well as animals that belong in certain areas.

We’ll soon be going on safari! Check back and see all the fun!

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Now that we have our passport to safari, let’s get packing our suitcase!