How I Do it: Preschool

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!

link

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.

Growing Up

Today Avery went to her first day of preschool outside of our home.  I don't know if I can explain just how excited she was!  Since we found out she got in to this preschool she has been asking about it all of the time.  Yesterday she kept saying "I get to go to preschool tomorrow!"  "Mary, do you know I'm going to preschool?" "I'm so excited for preschool!"  The first thing she said this morning was "Do I get to go to preschool today?"

I walked her into school this morning and watched her hang up her backpack on her hook then find her name tag and clip it onto her shirt.  Then she was off!  I handed my sweet 4 year old into the hands of her teachers.  Putting my trust in them to care for her while she was there.

She was bursting with so much excitement that I couldn't even cry that I was leaving her.
When class was over she came out with a smile on her face and BIG hug for me!

I hope that through out this year she will continue to love school!

Back to School Feast 2015

If you read the Nie Nie Dialogues blog then you may have seen that she  does a back to school feast each year for her kids.  They have a theme for the next year, she gives her kids a present, her decorations are amazing!  When I first read about it, I loved the idea!  Now that Avery is starting preschool we decided to have a back to school feast for Family Home Evening this week.
I started by thinking about what I wanted our theme to be for the year.  A few saying and scriptures came to mind and I ultimately decided on "Have courage, and be kind"  It is from the new Cinderella movie.  I thought it fitting for our family this year.  

Once I had the theme for the year I started on decorations, I'm not one for super fancy decorations so we decked our house out in streamers and called it good!

We started the night out with dinner, I had asked Avery what her perfect dinner would be and she said marshmallows, graham crackers, and rice!  We had chicken, rice, and marshmallows for her! 

After dinner I talked about school starting and how Louis and I had come up with a theme for the next year.  I read the theme and then had the girls each read a scripture, one on courage, and one on kindness.

Once that was done Louis gave Avery her first back to school father's blessing and it was wonderful.  When I was growing up we always had a father' blessing before school as well as get a few new school clothes so after the blessing Avery got to open up a new outfit.  We also gave her a new I am a child of God necklace because her old one had broken and got lost.  

It was a good night together, I am excited and nervous for Avery to be leaving the house for school.  She's going to have a blast and I'm sure she'll do great!

Preschool

We finished up our first year of preschool last week.  It was a great year of learning!  Avery has progressed so much and we've had a lot of fun.

These pictures are from our first month of preschool 

Her first worksheet!

These are from the second month, I had started adding in more worksheet to work on things other than just letters.  We ended up doing counting, patterns, and shapes this year.

These last pictures are from our very last week of preschool for the year!  Our A-Z review.

We will be starting up again probably the second week of January.  We'll see how well I can keep up with things with a newborn in the house.  I plan on adding in addition/subtraction and sequencing this year.  I'll possibly continue adding things in, but that's what I have planned for now.  

I am grateful that I can do this with Avery (and Mary soon) and that she loves learning!

Thanksgiving Craft Round-Up

We have had such a fun month learning about Thanksgiving!

I wasn't super great at taking pictures of everything we did.

Here are a few of the things I did remember to take pictures of!

This was a fun game!  Avery loves the game Cooties, so I knew she'd enjoy this.

I love her finished turkey!

This was a on-going activity.  

We first talked about the Pilgrims and put them at our Thanksgiving table.

The next week we talked about the Indians and added them to our table.

The week of Thanksgiving we talked about Thanksgiving food and added some food to our table!

What we're thankful for.  Starting at the top left corner and going clockwise:

Avery, is thankful for a tent for camping.  She drew a picture of us camping on the beach.

Louis is thankful for me, our baby boy, Avery, and Mary.

Mary is thankful for books to read.  I drew it for her. (in case you couldn't tell)

Becca, I'm thankful for Louis and everything he does for us!

Our toilet paper rolls people

Here is a picture of Avery with all of the crafts we did together during the month.

At the end of the month, Avery can now tell the story of the first Thanksgiving.

She loves to learn!  I hope that sticks with her throughout her life.

November Craft Kick-off

I have some fun Thanksgiving themed crafts planned for this month.  Each week we're going to have a different Thanksgiving theme.  This week is turkeys!  We started out yesterday by making some fun and easy paper plate turkeys.  All of these pictures were taken on my phone so sorry for the quality of them.  I really need to get my actual camera out more.

This was our turkey making station!  Avery and I were a turkey making team and Louis and Mary were supposed to be a turkey making team.  Mary didn't seem to want to participate though and instead spent the whole time doing this:  

Dip apple into apple dip.  Lick apple dip off.  Repeat.

So Louis had to make his turkey all by himself.

Avery had lots of fun making a turkey and coming up with a "patterin" for the tail feathers.

She even did pretty well folding the legs like an accordion.  

Here is Louis' finished turkey.  He named him The Yummy Turkey.

Avery named her turkey Heart.  

She is very good at naming things.  Example:  Her brother "Hammer."

We had a lot of fun as a family doing this!  Today Avery did a color by number turkey and tomorrow we're going to be playing a make-a-turkey game.  It's played like Cooties.  I think it's going to be lots of fun.  I'm grateful for this fun time of year!