Preschool- Learning is Not Just for the Student

Some things I've learned (re-learned) about accomplishing things with a preschooler:

• Plan ahead...if I don't prep things (usually the night before) ahead of time, we don't do them!

• Make it doable!  Don't try to do too much.  I show a week's worth of activities at a time on this blog.  The rest of time my little man is playing with legos, blocks, being Larryboy, loving on the dog, watching Veggie Tales...you get the idea.  

• Go with the flow.  My preschooler is almost always ready to do his "activities".  On days when we've been running a lot or have a number of outside activities...we don't do a lot of "activities".

• Pinterest...I really like pinterest.  It's a great tool to get tons of ideas for preschoolers.  I actually do accomplish a great deal of the things I pin. (There is a lot that I don't get around to, as well)  It's easy to look on my preschool board to get some great ideas for the week ahead. 

• At this age, make it fun...don't push it!  I had one child that didn't want to do anything pre-school related. So we waited until kindergarten to start anything...anything intentional, that is. Michael loves doing school related things, so I just follow his lead. 

• Don't compare yourself to other people or their blogs.  When we look around and see others' doing so much more than we are...it can lead to a very defeated attitude. I saw a quote this week talking about "comparing myself to myself".  If you do one more thing today/this week/this month, than you did in the past...that's what you focus on.  Not that your "neighbor" did 25 more things than you did. 

• Get other people involved. My two older kids help out a lot with Michael.  On their assignment sheets, they have a daily activity as well as reading him one book.  If I just can't get around to doing my "list", then I feel good that he's gotten some extra attention from his sister and brother.  

 

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This post is also linked up with The Hip Homeschool Hop. 

"N" Week

A sweet boy with his dog... 

"N" Week

 Noodles, Nativity, Necklace

    Science experiment showing convection  

    Positional practice... Put any figure above, on top of, inside, behind, in between...etc.      

You know, it's been a good week. We were home Monday and Friday with appts./lessons in between. The week seemed to fly by. I was thinking today, it's time to do a new assignment sheet, already. The kids really adapted back to our regular schedule easily. Michael got more hands-on attention this week. Everything feels more normal. Trying not to get bogged down with our de-clutter project...I've got a few more "spots" that I need to clean out, organize and purge. I'm looking forward to a great weekend!!!

"D" is for Daisy, Dog, Dragon, Duck.....

We had a pretty full week when it came to pre-school.  As you can see, we did a whole lot and my little one wanted MORE!!!  It's great that he's so eager to do "projects", but I've found I need to do some preparation ahead of time.  Cutting things out, putting things in one location, but even then sometimes it's just hectic with a little one.  It's just something we deal with the best we can.  Today, I've been playing catch up with myself all day, slept in too long and didn't get my shower until the kids were eating breakfast.  I constantly feel like I'm running behind, had 5 chips for breakfast and lost my patience a couple of times.  I guess that's all just a part of life.  You do your best and move on! 

Hands-on Dd

Color sorting...

Color mixing using finger paint and a recycled creme puff lid

Cool video on mixing primary colors

Matching uppercase and lowercase letters

Lots of "D" crafts---most of these I found on pinterest

No Time for Flashcards is a great website for letter of the week ideas. 

Daisy, Dragon

Awesome alphabet Bible coloring sheets

Duck, Dog

Recycled magazine letter collage

      Counting with dominoes, flashcards, and putting buttons in labelled yogurt cups (kinda like the egg carton counting idea)  

I'm using Lesson Pathways as a springboard for our activities this year. 

"A told B"

"A" activities-
                                                                
Count stuffed animals.
Ant Parade- Masking tape on floor and crawl like an ant.
Foam apple craft- Totally Tots website inspiration
Letter A coloring sheet.
Starfall
Applesauce- write A's with finger (didn't get around to this one).







Find A word pictures and make a collage.
Make thumbprint ants. 

"B" activities-

Make a color filter butterfly (color with markers and spray with water), name all the colors.
Find all the blue cars and count them.

Make "B's" and other letters out of pipe cleaners.













Write "b's" in lotion or shaving cream.

Find 10 blue things in the house.
Using masking tape, draw a "b" on the floor and bounce a ball in it.
Fill in the letter B with buttons.


"B" coloring sheet.
Starfall website
No time for flashcards website- letter of the week ideas

I got tons of ideas from Lesson Pathways--they have  great pre-kindgergarten Language Arts letter of the week units.  Check them out here!

Our letter of the week activities are going awesome!  Tera and Daniel are doing great with Michael and the learning activities.  He is learning so much.   I'm finding when they need a brain break, they ask to go do their "stuff" with Michael.  It's a real win-win situation for all of us.