B is for Bird

As a Mother Goose Time blog ambassador, I receive the Mother Goose Time Preschool curriculum in exchange for my honest and authentic stories resulting from our personal experiences. As always, my opinions on awesome stuff for little kids are 100% my own. Keep in mind that all toddlers do things in their own time and on their own terms. What one is ready for, another might not be. Please use your best mama judgement when planning activities for your little kids.

Hello friends! It’s Mother Goose Time!

If you missed our A is for Alligator post, definitely check it out here. We shared all kinds of awesome stuff last weekend including a zoo baby scavenger hunt sensory bin.

We’re a few days further with our A to Zoo Animals box from Mother Goose Time and of course still lovin’ it! The topic for Day 2 was B is for Bird and included lots of feathery fun.

The little guy and I started the morning with our calendar and weather as usual and put the letter B on our alphabet tree. He loves “having a job,” which is what prompted me to create our morning routine. It gives him a sense of accomplishment to help out and by adding the numbers to our calendar and the letters to our alphabet tree each morning, he’s not only taking responsibility, but he’s also developing early math and literacy skills.

Here’s a peek at our “Tot School” space. You can see our alphabet tree on the shelf in the corner between the two windows. We recently brought the rocking chair downstairs too. We of course read a lot more when we have somewhere comfy to sit together.

The little guy colored each Bird Puppet and I laminated/cut them out for him so they’d withstand some abuse. He definitely knows his body parts and he’s even starting to learn pronouns. These days, he’s saying things like “mama’s toes.” I love hearing him learn to use his words. One of the things the Little Goose Teacher Guide suggests with this activity is to name a body part and encourage the child to land a bird on that part of his body. Such a fun way to build a toddler’s vocabulary.

We used my Tiny Attacher for the feathers and a tape runner for the craft sticks. Both of which he could do with just a little help from me. There’s no doubt that we spend lots of time in the studio together. Lol… The little guy also started saying “scissors” today, which means it might be about time to start letting him try cutting things out on his own.

The next thing on our list was the Bird Food activity. One thing I’ve definitely noticed is that anytime there’s a sensory-type activity, he gets out tools of some sort. Last weekend, he grabbed a spatula. And this weekend, it was his shape cutters, which I’m of course totally fine with. Just a fun little observation…

Like the Little Goose Teacher Guide mentioned, I bent a long play dough worm into the shape of a W and used it as an opportunity to point out that W is the first letter in the word worm, which also happens to be what our bird friends eat.

We set up the “tray play” for today, Feed the Bird. I seriously love these! So awesome for problem-solving and fine motor skills. We didn’t have a milk carton here, so I used a small Gatorade bottle and turned it into a craft project in and of itself. Lol…

I used color cardstock, feathers, and googly eyes to make the bird and cut up some straws we had for the worms.

Love it! And E seemed to love it as well. He spent quite a while with this. First, he tried using the tweezers.

After a while, he got frustrated and decided to switch tweezers. Not long after that, he gave up altogether and just started using his hands. Too funny!

He was obviously quite proud of himself for figuring out an alternative.

Yep, that’s definitely one way of looking at it. Not exactly what I had in mind, but hey…

He also decided to surprise me with this. Silly little guy! Apparently, feeding time at the zoo requires safety glasses.

And when he was finished, he took a break to play. You know, because it’s a rough life being a zookeeper and all.

After we finished all of our activities for today, we had a zookeeper meeting and added the bird card to our A to Zoo book. We listened to “B is for Bird” on our A to Zoo Animals CD and danced for a while too. Lol…

And that’s a wrap on another awesome day of A to Zoo Animals!

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If you missed our “Tot School” space post a few weeks ago, you can check it out here.

Looking for more insight & inspiration? Here are the top 10 most popular posts from The Keeper of the Memories. You’re definitely not going to want to miss these!

Thanks so much for visiting. See ya next week!