Using Mother Goose Time Curriculum: Getting Organized

It’s always exciting to find a Mother Goose Time box on the front step! It feels like a fresh start with new materials and exciting kits to open each day.  For a while I struggled to find a good way to organize it, that would work for me. Then I came up with this system: Organizing Curriculum and it’s how I still do it. This 10-drawer cart holds all my daily kits and any extra materials I want to include for that day. Larger items can be put in the basket on top.

Using Mother Goose Time Curriculum: Getting Organized

The drawers hold a month’s worth of curriculum kits. We started this month’s theme on Monday, November 3rd, so I put the Day 1 kit in the top Monday drawer. Then every kit follows in order unless I’m closed a certain day, then they shift. The 3rd & 4th weeks kit bags are put underneath weeks 1 & 2.  Hope that makes sense!  Then I can open a drawer and prep a bag for the next day or week.

First thing I do is print the daily activity calendar. I print two pages/1 sheet so it looks like this (below). Then I put it back through the printer again and print my logo, title, and important dates along the side. (An editable/printable version would be ideal!) This is what I provide to my families in the child care so they know what we will be doing. We don’t do all the activities listed every day or we may do them in a different order, but this offers a scope and sequence for the month. The parents love this. I used to create my own calendar every month but I love that this is offered in the member resources now so it’s one less time consuming task for me!

I’ve also started creating a weekly lesson plan sheet. I have a licensed family child care that participates in YoungStar, our state’s quality improvement program for regulated child care centers.  I was pleased to see the Planning Journal included in the kits this year!

Other Tips for preparing to use Mother Goose Time curriculum:

• Put the CD in the CD player. I have one for the children to use. I put red tape on the on/off button so they can turn it on & off themselves. This works very well! We get to know the CD word for word!  The Mother Goose Time CDs are high quality – with a different style of music each month. Very enjoyable!
• Hang the theme poster and put out the “magnifying glasses”.
• Put up the calendar and punch out the date cards. They are rubber-banded and put in the pocket by the calendar.
• Laminate the shape piece and clip it up.
• Hang the flag.
• Hang the rhyme poster.
• Assemble the letter/sight word flowers and put them in the pot on the wall.
• Put out manipulatives – like the math pieces in the math center baskets.
• Put the book on our library shelf.
• Laminate the puzzle and put magnets on the back for our magnet board.
• Put out toys from Mother Goose Time toy bins or rotate toys on shelves.
• Rotate library books.

By putting these materials out right away, it draws the children’s interest and gives us the maximum amount of time to explore and actually use the materials.

This is a lot of work so I won’t claim to do this all before the 1st of each month! That is my goal, but I’m not there yet…I’m just thankful for those days when I’m so behind that I can just grab a kit and get going on the activities included!  I do feel that I’m more prepared and that we get more out of the curriculum if I’m more organized. I tend to have a lot of ideas that crop up but don’t have time for if I’m not organized. Because I have a full day child care program and have children in my home from 7:00 am-5:30 pm, I usually add my ideas to the Mother Goose Time theme. Really, there’s enough to do without adding more, but this is what I like to do and what works for me. Yes, I usually over-plan! Sometimes we do more, sometimes we do less. Our first week of the Rainforest Adventure has been very successful! I will share pictures in my next post about Mother Goose Time.