The Joyful Mommy: G Week

My little giggler

We had a Great G Week filled with lots of Giggles! Our poem for the week was called “The Giggles,” and I enjoyed watching Brooklyn giggle along every time I read it. Our verse was “Give freely” Deuteronomy 15:10. It was a very easy one to learn but is much harder to obey. We practiced giving to others this week by sharing our toys with our friends (and baby sister) and baking bread to give to a neighbor. As the Thanksgiving and Christmas season draws near, I hope to review this verse with Brooklyn and practice giving more to others just like God gives freely to us.

Monday was guitar day. We talked about the sound that the G makes and glued together our G guitar. I had planned a guitar craft using an empty tissue box, rubber bands, and an empty paper towel roll, but instead, we just played Daddy’s guitar for a while and talked about the sounds that it made. For snack, we shared some yummy green grapes.

Tuesday we talked about giraffes. A few weeks ago, we got a cool book about giraffes in a Chick-fil-a kids meal, and I had been holding it hostage for G week ever since. We started our school time by reading the book and learning all kinds of interesting facts about giraffes. Afterwards, I traced Brooklyn’s hand and arm onto a piece of yellow paper and cut it out. I then gave her a paint brush (a sponge would have probably worked better if I had planned ahead and bought one) and some brown paint and let her make brown spots on her giraffe. Once it dried, she added an eye sticker, and I drew on some hair and a mouth. We planted flower bulbs last weekend so we talked more about the things they need to help them grow.

Wednesday was so much fun! Before our school time started, I gathered 10 food items from Brooklyn’s play kitchen. I labeled each food with a number (I used numbers 1-6 and repeated some of the numbers) and set them together to make a grocery store. I filled one of Brooklyn’s purses with 28 coins – which was the total amount that she needed to purchase all of the items (we used play money – I used all different types of coins since it didn’t matter for this activity). I then told her she got to go grocery shopping. She was so excited and quickly grabbed her shopping cart, purse, a couple of baby dolls, and started shopping! She chose the items one by one, read the number on the food, and counted out that amount of coins to give me to buy the food. She was able to read each number correctly and count out the correct number of coins every single time all by herself. She was so proud of herself and had the best time! After we finished our grocery store game, I gave Brooklyn a picture of a grocery cart and some expired coupons (I had planned to use a magazine but forgot to ask to borrow one) and let her choose which items she wanted to put in it. I let her cut out the grocery items and then glue them into her cart.

Brooklyn and her babies ready to grocery shop

Counting out her money

On Thursday, we went to a pumpkin patch in the morning. Even though we missed our school time, we had a fun time going on a hay ride, picking out a pumpkin, bouncing in the bounce house, looking at the animals, and sliding down the big slide. I was also able to incorporate a little teaching in our day; while we were there, we watched some little pigs, ducks, and some of the cutest little goats race. We also got to see some other goats when looking at the animals. On the way home, we talked about how goat starts with G. After singing our “Climb Climb Little Goat” song all week, I think it was cool for Brooklyn to be able to see what a goat loots like in real life. I had planned to do ghost crafts and activities on Thursday (since it was a week before Halloween) so later in the afternoon, we did our math game with hidden ghosts which was lots of fun! We made our ghost banana snacks on Friday which were super cute!

Finding the hidden ghosts

ghost bananas

On Friday we talked about brave little David and the giant Goliath. We talked about how David was not afraid of Goliath because he knew God was with him. I asked Brooklyn what things make her scared, then we talked about how God is with her and can help her to not be afraid. I printed out a David and Goliath craft which Brooklyn colored. I then rolled and glued them together to make a short David and tall Goliath.

For details and instructions of these crafts and activities, please click to see my lesson plans. If you have more ideas for the letter G, please comment and share - I would love to hear them!!

Just for fun...here are a couple of pictures from our pumpkin patch adventure.