2019 has so far been the year of sick days and snow days.

Luckily most of Mi Families (and my-own-family’s) schedules are flexible.

If it takes us a couple weeks to get through Valentine activities – it’s ok!

It’s never to early or too late to celebrate those you love!

Tots to teens in our programs enjoyed doing lovely activities throughout last week and this week.

Some of the materials we utilized were a part of our Mother Goose Time curriculum.

Mother Goose Time prepackages theme based kits for preschoolers.

This month the theme is “Health and Fitness.”

We’ve been learning about healthy foods and activities…

and the importance of having healthy / happy hearts!

We’ve been learning ways to keep our bodies and brains healthy and strong.

We build up our brains by incorporating all subjects throughout our themes.

From learning basic skills such as shapes and colors…

To learning more about the arts and language arts…

We integrate reading, writing, math, science, social studies, etc throughout our themes!

Many of the pictures in this article showcase materials supplied by MGT.

Visit www.MotherGooseTime for more information about their materials.

Visit www.MiFamilies.com for more information about Mi Families programs.

Mi Families facilitates programs for families and those who work with families,

such as provider trainings, parent workshops, family events and youth services.

Our youth services include infant through preschool playgroups, tutoring sessions, and k-12 homeschool classes.

One of the places my husband and I provide homeschool classes is through the TCAPS homeschool partnership in Northern Michigan.  For more information on the Partnership or Mi Families programs please email Christi@MiFamilies.com

Snowdays and sickdays continue to make scheduling things like this blog tricky.  Last weekend I was planning to write up an article while on vacation with my family – but snowstorms complicated our vacation schedule.  Also, a sick kiddo made our vacation less enjoyable – but he says he was still happy we went up for his grandmothers birthday.

Last fall his grandmother had a stroke.  This birthday was quite an emotional one as we  were reminded of the fragility of life and counted our blessings for family memories.  I pray my children live long lives and make many wonderful memories.  We talked about making memories with family and friends, caring for our family and friends, and caring for ourselves.

We can care for ourselves by loving who we are and taking care of our bodies.  We can take care of our bodies by learning how to have happy and healthy hearts.  As Valentines day approaches my own kids and the kids I work with are all about heart-shapes right now, so it’s a great time to learn about the hearts that keep us alive.

It’s a great time to learn about how our hearts, brains, lungs, and bodies work and how to help them work a long time.  We talked about the importance of eating healthy and doing healthy activities.  Healthy activities mean getting outside and playing – even in the winter! Too often kids I work with tell me no one will take them outside to play.

Happy health heart lesson #1 – take your kids outside! It’s important for all ages to have fresh air and run around.  It’s important for your body and brain.  It’ll help you feel physically and mentally better.  I’m writing this as a winter storm is blowing in my yard and wish I could bundle up and sled and enjoy the weather some never experience.

This storm is not good weather to play in, especially while my son needs to rest up, but rest assured we’ll be outside again soon.  Until then we are going to plan adventures and pack for tomorrow’s adventure at our homeschool partnership.  My husband and I teach and our kids attend with over 200 other students each Wednesday.

Email Christi@MiFamilies.com for information about  THE partnership, or homeschooling, or information about Mi Families tutoring sessions, family events, parent workshops, or provider trainings! Visit www.MiFamilies.com to learn more about our programs and visit www.MotherGooseTime to learn more about a fun theme based curriculum for little learners!

This month MGT has packaged a Health and Fitness curriculum that I’m using in a Playschool and ART SMART class, as well as with individual tots to tweens I tutor.  As we transitioned from winter wonderland activities – we enjoyed learning about animals that live in winter wonderlands and animals that live on sunny safaris.

As we learn more about health and fitness we’ll play lots of active games moving like animals and other things “that go.”  We’ll focus on moving indoors and outside.  We’ll focus on healthy lifestyles – including eating health foods.  We’ll talk about how healthy and safe lifestyles help prevent accidents and help keep us from getting sick.

Sometimes we can’t avoid getting sick or dealing with emergencies.  Life is fragile, but learning  how to have happy-healthy-hearts is a great lesson for all ages.  Many started this new year writing out resolutions to get healthy … For Valentines day give yourself and your family the gift of knowledge as you commit to learning more about health and fitness, and sticking to your goals.

Some differences are easy to spot – like black or white.

Black or white, zebra or giraffe … Some things are are easy to teach.

Some things in life aren’t easy, making the lessons hard.

Some hard lessons are very important, like learning how to ask for help when things get hard.

Sometimes we need to ask for help and find resources to learn new things or handle new situations.

Sometimes we need to find new resources and new things to do when we’re stressed or bored.

Many people were stressed and bored this week, because it was too cold to even go to school.

Schools, businesses, government buildings, … even the mail was stopped because of the winter weather!

Up in Northern Michigan we’re use to weather changing plans, so we’ve made lists of new ideas and resources.

Sometimes I need to send my students ideas and resources to keep them busy until we can meet up.

I facilitate large group programs, small group classes, and one-on-on tutoring sessions.

I also facilitate family events, parent workshops and provider resources.

This week many asked for resources to continue learning at home – until the weather warnings stopped.

This week many asked for information about programs starting next week…

You can learn more about our programs at www.MiFamilies.com.

You can learn more about programs and network with our members/team on LinkedIN, Facebook, etc…

You can ask questions about our programs and curriculums by emailing Christi@MiFamilies.com.

One of the curriculums we utilize with our littlest learners is Mother Goose Time.

Mother Goose Time delivers a package to your home or office each month filled with resources to keep busy!

As we finish up our Sunny Safari curriculum it’s time to prepare for our Health and Fitness activities.

Since we don’t live anywhere near a sunny safari it gets tough during the winter to keeps families active.

As February starts it’s my goal to share health and fitness resources with families.

Even if it’s cold outside we can move and grove indoors

or bundle up and play outdoors.

Learning to keep active and eat healthy foods will help keep Mi Families – families – healthy!

We can’t wait to get back to our regular schedule, but if your family caught germs over break (as I heard some have) PLEASE stay home until you’re ready to join in the activities! I’m happy to send resources and ideas to keep you busy until we can meet again! One resource is to look up www.MotherGooseTime.com and check out their Healthy kids kit for this month! We’ll be doing healthy and happy heart activities all month long! Feel free to check out next weeks article to see what we’re up to , or contact us to join in the fun!

Mi Families (“my families”) facilitates programs for families and those who work with families – through provider trainings, parent workshops, family events, and youth services.

Our youth services include large / small group classes, and individual tutoring sessions.  Our youth services start the winter semester next week.

This week has sure been wintery! With temps at neg17 the other day and 9 more inches of snow falling today…

With our littlest learners we talked a lot about animals that like living in the cold this week.  We also talked about animals that like living where it’s hot.

We talked about places that experience different seasons and weather patterns, and places where it stays dark sometimes for long periods or the sun hardly sets.

The kids had fun packing imaginary suitcases to travel to different destinations.  Our favorite destination was the “sunny safari.”

During the winter semester we’ll continue learning about places around the world – as we make believe, make a mess, make friends, and make memories.

This winter we’ll make memories with new friends in our new programs. Mi Families director, Christi, and her husband, Jeff, will be teaching new classes through a homeschool partnership.

There are also new classes being arranged for playgroups, tutoring groups, and adult ed.  Some classes are full, but some still have room! Visit www.MiFamilies.com for more info.

If you’d like more info about about some of the cool materials pictured for our Safari curriculum visit www.MotherGooseTime.com.

Mother Goose Time is one of the curriculums we use for our students.  We have access to top rated curriculums for classes and tutoring sessions!

Feel free to email Christi@MiFamilies.com or network with our team/members on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc to be a part our education through recreation adventures!

This week was spent playing catch-up after holidays, sickdays, and snowdays put us behind on to-do’s… and kept us from finishing our winter-wonderland theme.

“Transitional-theme-based-learning” is student led, so you don’t change units until the children are ready to move on!

Sometimes they are ready to move on faster than you plan, sometimes they want to spend more time and dive deeper into lessons.

One of the curriculums we utilize with our littlest learners is Mother Goose Time.  MGT provides a different theme each month, BUT lessons are flexible on how/when they’re used.

Last months theme was winter, and now we’re in the process of transitioning to this months Safari theme, using “Worldly Weather” as our transition.

As we finished learning about Michigan looking like a mitten – for a reason – we talked about weather and seasons around the world.

We used our imaginations to leave the snow and have fun in the sun! We discussed what we would need to pack for such adventures and traded in snowpants for shorts.

We discussed places we could visit and what lessons we’ll learn about next week as we travel across “imagination station” to go on a Safari.

From tots to teens, many of our youth services use transition learning where we’re entering unit studies that will warm us up!

Our youth services, family events, parent workshops, and provider trainings are transiting into our 2019 schedule.

For more information about our programs feel free to email Christi@MiFamilies.com or look through our website www.MiFamilies.com.

You can also network with our members/team on LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook etc … Mother Goose Time also has a facebook page and site to learn more about them / their product – CLICK HERE. 

Families ended up with an extra long Christmas vacation, because of winter storms in Northern Michigan.  We tried catching up on lessons, but ended up stuck in transitions, due to the shortened week.  That’s ok – there’s always next week! Unless there’s more snowdays!

We used calendars and countdowns for transitional winter lessons from past holiday activities.  Next week we’ll continue learning about winter weather here and weather across the globe – including what it’s like in the sunny-safari.

The Safari theme is part of Mother Goose Time’s curriculum.  MGT is a preschool based curriculum that can be simplified for little learners and expanded on for older students.  Tots will learn about animals that adapt to our winter weather vs African animals, while tweens research global weather and wildlife.

Mother Goose Time makes lesson planning easy with materials that teach across all subject matters.  In our youth services we encourage learning across all subjects using daily materials such as calendars and clocks for math.

Since we didn’t see many friends since “last year” we counted down to 2019 activities and wrote “bucket lists” of things we’d like to do this year.  Many of our youth, parents, and providers are excited about things Mi Families will be doing this year…

From provider trainings, to parents workshops, family events, and youth services – we’re keeping some favorites and adding new programs.  Our large group classes, small group lessons, and one on one tutoring is one growing area – visit www.MiFamilies.com to learn about more growing programs.

Email Christi@MiFamilies.com with questions or network with our members/team on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest… We’re growing our social media content this year as well so let us know where we should be and what we should be posting about!

CLICK HERE For link to MOTHER GOOSE TIME

The 12 days of Christmas end today, which means this holiday season ends, and tomorrow we start preparing for our 2019 schedule.

Thank you to all who gave us gifts and cards during holiday celebrations!

creating “cookie” decorations (from past MGT left over supplies)

Our holiday schedule kept my family busy with celebrations (and sicknesses), so Mi Families wasn’t busy facilitating programs.

…ways to bring in New Years…

Some team members did host some festive activities and “family” members reported enjoying their Christmas vacation.

To network with our members or team you can find us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube…

For information about upcoming programs visit www.MiFamilies.com or email Christi@MiFamilies.com.

We have many new and exciting programs planned for 2019.  But don’t worry, we will continue offering provider trainings, parent workshops, family events, and youth services.

Youth services include 1on1 and small group tutoring, as well as community classes for programs such as College for Kids. We are currently preparing for next semesters homeschool classes!

My husband will be teaching computer programming, film and drama, robotics, illustration, and self defense. I’ll be teaching “My Media,” healthcare/childcare, games/teambuilding, “Art Smart” …

All classes utilize top rated materials and curriculums.  In my “Art Smart” classes and playgroups children will be be using “Mother Goose Time.”

Mother Goose Time is a monthly themed-based-kit designed for preschoolers, but I’ve used it to introduced the littlest learners to new concepts and help older students expand on units.

From tots to tweens MGT makes lesson planning easy. When we head back to classes next week we’ll transition from New Years to winter to “fun in the sun” themes – such as “Sunny Safari.

MGT’s January kit is “Going on Safari,” but since materials are not dated it provides you the flexibility to use whenever (and however) you decide.

CLICK Winter’19 AND  realWorldWednesdays to view EXAMPLE SCHEDULES… To see how I’ll adapt themes to multi-subjects, with multi-ages follow future posts!

Happy Holidays!

The holiday schedule sure has been a crazy one around here! Between our crazy Christmas activities and me having a crazy allergic reaction our family routines and Mi Families programs have been a bit unpredictable.

I can’t wait until the new year starts and our new schedule begins! First we have to finish 2018 and reschedule holiday celebrations and catch up on holiday homework.

Even during Christmas vacation Mi Families keeps busy with with our programs, including Tutor Time.  As the new year begins we will have new programs starting and new tutor sessions opening.

I’ll be updating www.MiFamilies.com soon with 2019 plans.  Feel free to email Christi@MiFamilies.com with questions or to enroll as we start scheduling new youth, parent, and provider services.

Services will continue to offer “education through recreation” using top-rated curriculums for all ages and stages.  Many of our tot to tween programs enjoy our Mother Goose Time theme-based curriculum.

Each month Mother Goose Time mails us a themed kit, such as Decembers “Sights and Sounds.”  Sights and sounds has helped us dive into a “Seasonal Senses” sub theme to help us explore the holiday season.

Over the past couple weeks we’ve used our senses of smell and taste to bake cookies, we’ve used our sense of hearing while listening and playing carols, we’ve looked at Christmas lights, touched decorations…

After the New Year we’ll transition through themes using our senses while exploring the world around us.  We’ll discover the difference between our local winter-wonder-land vs “sunny safari’s.”

Through curriculums such as MGT we use themes to learn across all subject matters and encourage learning goals for all our members and team.  Network with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, etc to learn more!

“I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand” is a quote I often use while teaching parents/providers – how to teach.  When we lecture, little is retained.  When we show how – they can recall information, but lessons are learned best through doing. Especially when students are doing SENSORY based activities!

When students can FEEL lessons – physically or emotionally – they gain confidence in being able to teach others what they have learned.  Last week my tot to teen students learned about animal’s preparing for winter.  This week we talked about how animals use their senses, just as we do.  This week we transitioned to sensory studies, with help from Mother Goose Time.

Mother Goose Time is a prepackaged curriculum where little learners can be introduced to theme’s such as “Sights and Sounds.”  Older students love teaching preschoolers such topics, while exploring such lessons themselves.  Theme based lessons can integrate ALL subject matters, and be STREAMS focused: Science, Technology, Reading (&wRiting), Engineering, Art, Math (&Music), Social Studies (&hiStory)!

Many programs today want to be STEM focused: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  From counting to computation, and all other educational skills, Mi Families offers individualized tutoring as well as small and large group courses for all ages. Feel free to email Christi@MiFamilies.com for more information on our programs or network with our team/members on LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube …

Social media is a great resource for connecting – and a tool to to teach all ages about communication and technology time-lines.  Time lines help students connect math to history and encourage discussion about the pro’s and con’s of technology. As the New Year approaches we’re developing NEW programs for students of all ages –  which will include tech-time.

…But before we countdown to 2019 we need to start setting up for next weeks learning adventures as we continue our “Sights and Sounds” of the season with holiday focused celebrations!

The calendar says winter starts in 2 weeks, but we’ve been sledding for quite some time in my yard, so we’ve transitioned to winter themes in many of  “Mi Families” programs. Mi Families facilitates programs for families and those who work with families – through provider trainings, parent workshops and youth services.

During our small and large group classes, as well as one-on-one tutoring sessions, we use top rated curriculums, such as “Mother Goose Time” to teach through fun themed activities. Before transitioning to Mother Goose Time’s “Sights and Sounds” theme, we’re finishing up their “Transportation Station” by learning about all things that go.

MGT’s themed based kits simplify new concepts for little learners, while leaving room to expand on subjects for older students. This week tots to tweens transitioned from transportation to animal movements. One thing I love about MGT is the flexible use of materials that can be used out of order or re-used many times.

During transition weeks we often modify lessons to flow easily from one unit to the next. “Transportation Station” lessons led us to technology-time-lines where we explored history and did lots of STEM activities traveling through all types of terrain. From boats and fish that swim, to birds and planes that fly, and everything in-between, we were “on the go.”

Students learned how animal movements can help us predict weather changes.  By observing animal preparations for migration, hibernation, and adaptation – we know winter has found Northern Michigan. Just as animals prepare for the season, we’ll prepare for the next theme of “Sights and Sounds” as we learn about how animals use their senses…

Over the next couple weeks we’ll be using our senses to learn about the season and prepare for holiday celebrations.  Since the upcoming holidays also mean a new year – I’ll also be preparing for next semesters programs! To learn more about our programs visit www.MiFamilies.com and network with our team/members on LinkedIN, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube…

*and CLICK the link below to learn more about MGT’s upcoming themese!

2018_19_MGT_Themes