I have had countless people ask me questions about how I do preschool, when I start doing preschool activities with my kids, where I get the stuff I use, etc. I thought I could just touch over some of these things in a blog post and maybe some people can benefit from it!
When I start doing preschool
I started doing "structured" (that's very much in quotation marks) lessons with Avery just after she turned 2 and with Mary when she was about 2 1/2. I do worksheets with them focusing on letters, numbers and counting, patterns, colors, and shapes. Before this age though there is plenty to do with your kids that will teach them great things! It's never too early to start teaching your child. I'll go over that later.
Avery
Mary
Where to get preschool supplies
Education.com is a great website, I highly recommend it! It is easy to navigate and they have a lot of great things on there. I have made a lot of my own worksheets as well! I use Microsoft word or even paint! Here is an example of one that I have made:
You can find some great things at the dollar store. Check them out! At our local Dollar Tree they have an entire aisle of school/education supplies. They have workbooks, signs, stamps, posters for a classroom area, window stickers, etc.
What I suggest doing for worksheets, even if you're buying a workbook from the dollar store or elsewhere, laminate your worksheets! This way your child can use a dry erase marker and when they're done you just wipe it off and they can do it over and over! I love my laminator, it was a great purchase. This is the laminator I have and I have been very happy with it, used it earlier today!
For the activities I do, I find a lot of cute ideas on Pinterest and some I think up on my own. There are a bunch of great printables and ideas out there! Definitely use the internet as a resource. The library is also a great place! I think it's always a great idea to pick up some books that go along with whatever theme you may be doing.
How I do preschool
What I have done is start with the letter A and go on down the alphabet! On good weeks this is what happens, because remember my structured is in quotation marks!
Preschool Schedule
Monday-Introduce the letter of the week. I usually have a coloring or painting page of the letter for the kids to color. We talk about what that letter says and what starts with that letter. If we're doing a theme like seasons, a holiday, food, etc I introduce the topic.
Tuesday-Head to the library and get some books that are on topic. If I'm not doing a topic other than just the letter of the week we look for books that start with the letter we're on. F-Fancy Nancy, B-Brown Bear, Brown Bear, G-Goldilocks and the Three Bears, etc. Read your books today and all throughout the week!
Wednesday-Worksheets
Thursday-Craft or activity to go along with theme or letter.
Friday-A whole lot of nothing! It's good to have a break, young kids don't need structured lessons each day in my opinion.
This schedule so does not happen every week, but when it does it is lots of fun for both me and the kids!
Fun activities
These are things I've done with my kids and we have really enjoyed!
First up, play dough and cookie cutters! We have a ton of cookie cutters we got for our wedding and we use them more for play dough than for cookies! We use our letter and number cookie cutters often. Kids can spend a lot of time with play dough and cookie cutters.
Here is a great one is shape matching! I only did this once, but Avery had so much fun with it a few years ago! I made shapes out of tape on our door then cut shapes out of construction paper. Avery got to match up the outline with the shapes. We also got to talk about how many sides different shapes had.
Another play dough one! We have done this one a lot and the girls always have fun! Play dough rolled into a ball, spaghetti noodles or pipe cleaners stuck into it, and some beads. That's all! It's great for fine motor skills and in this picture if you can tell, I gave Avery green beads and orange beads so she was matching the color of the play dough. You could also have them do a pattern with the beads on the spaghetti noodles.
A great way to use up your old Easter eggs! Uppercase and lower case matching. Just get 26 Easter eggs and use a sharpie to write a uppercase letter on the top of the egg and a lowercase letter on the bottom of the egg, then you child matches them up. Great learning tool and fun! It will help with colors too.
We love memory games! I have made a lot of memory games! This is a fun color matching one that I made out of baby food jar lids! I've also made one for ABC's, another one when we did an underwater theme with different sea animals, plus several others.
This next one is another color matching one as well as a sight word game. I got brown lunch bags and wrote the name of a color on each bag, then gathered a bunch of stuff from around the house and Avery and Mary put each object in the corresponding bag. This is one that they can now set up all by themselves too!
A super fun experiment! Baking soda and vinegar! Put baking soda into a pan, vinegar into a bowl, and have the child use a dropper to transfer some vinegar into the baking soda. Watch the fun bubbles appear! I like to put food coloring into the vinegar then we mix up the mixture when we're done and see what new color it makes.
Goop! This is so fun to do with little ones! All you need is cornstarch and water mixed together, (basically half and half) so it's safe even for the littlest ones. In the picture below Mary was only 10 months old and had a blast playing with goop. It's liquid and solid at the same time move it around quickly and it starts to turn solid, move it slowly and it's liquid! I got some bowls, measuring cups, and a strainer from the D.I. and we had fun experimenting with this. It makes a mess, but is super easy to clean up and washes off of clothes easily. I also bought an old sheet from the D.I. to throw on the ground while we played and I'm glad I did!
Seasons! Seasons are so fun! We love talking about seasons! There are plenty of books you can check out from the library on this topic. There is also a cute and easy poem I found for seasons.
"Winter, spring, summer, and fall, they are seasons. Four in all." A great simple poem that little ones can learn!
This is a fun craft we did with some paper plates, markers, construction paper, and some cotton balls.
Here is another one we did that had Avery matching the different object to the correct season.
A fun one for shapes, potato stamps! Cut up some potatoes and form a shape out of it, get some paint and go to town! Potatoes are cheap and this is a really fun activity.
Preschool themes
Here is a list of a few fun theme ideas.
Shapes
Seasons
Colors
Holidays
Jungle, rain forest, desert, etc.
Frog life cycle
Butterfly life cycle-make sure you read the very hungry caterpillar!
Food pyramid
Animals
Opposites
Rainbows
Space
Dinosaurs (I love this theme! There's so much to do)
Nature-go on a nature walk and collect things along the way
Senses
Parts of the body
Feelings
Germs-hand washing
Community helpers
Safety-kitchen safety, stranger safety, road safety
Recycling
Cultures
Cowboys
Plants
Nursery Rhymes
Fairy tales
Artists
I should stop here! I could keep going, we've been able to have some fun together throughout the years. I hope this gives you guys some ideas on how to teach and have fun with your kids. Feel free to ask questions.
