Preschool: the second week, unplugged

Sunday morning we lost power – thanks to Hurricane Irene. Since we have well-water, our faucets were dry too. What a way to kick off the second week of preschool! Thank goodness I prepare my lessons the previous week, otherwise I would have been floundering. Well, as much as one can flounder when teaching a 3-year-old the alphabet.

I started off Sunday on an artistic note… letting the kids paint, with no running water for washing up. Good call!  I had been saving our cardboard toilet paper tubes, figuring they would come in handy for a project, and dug up Look What You Can Make With Tubes to look for something relatively painless to make.  Yes, it was fun, and yes, it was messy – the picture of Josiah doesn’t do justice to the fact that he was covered in paint, sucking on his hand that he had smeared with paint. 

Gwen noticed the animal cage pages - handmade paper bars behind which were put cut-out animals that begin with each letter of the alphabet (these are ancient resources my mother-in-law used in her teaching days).  I had meant to take out the letter A cage the previous week, but we didn’t get around to it.  No matter, we had all the time in the world on Sunday, so we did letters A and B.  Gwen took her task very seriously.  

While the kids were napping in the afternoon, I excitedly put together a bird sensory bin for the week… 

What’s inside:
sunflower seeds
wooden bead “berries”
twigs from the yard
glass dish with blue fabric for bird bath
Scrabble tiles that spell bird and beak
real bird feathers
three pretend birds
a pile of pretend eggs…
…inside a real nest where we watched baby birds hatch

The second week of preschool has been brought to you by the letter B, the number 1, and the color brown.  The theme for the week was birds, and our word for the week was beak.  We continued with the creation story in the Bible, working on Genesis 1:1, the memory verse for weeks one and two.  My fingers were tightly crossed that we would get power by Monday… but no such luck.

Bible
Since we we stayed on the creation story, it gave Gwen a chance to memorize her verse: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  She can’t remember the days of creation, but she has since memorized her verse and our poem from the first week, “Seven Days.”  The latter is a great way to reinforce the week of creation, as well as to teach the days of the week – I use it all the time now when I ask her what day it is.  ABCJLM recommends it in their selection of nursery rhymes and poems, and it’s one of the ones I didn’t switch for something else.  It goes like this (put it to the tune of “Are You Sleeping?”):

“Seven Days, seven days
In a week, in a week
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Saturday, that’s a week.”

To help reinforce the days of creation, I got the idea to make a creation block using one of the small wooden blocks that my hubby made me from scrap wood.  I had her paint the sides, and mod podged scaled-down numbers for the days of creation that have pictures of what was made on that day.  When it was dry, we practiced rolling it, saying the day, and the appropriate creation.

In lieu of music CDs and DVDs, we sang “This is the Day” - which I sometimes sing instead of a prayer – and “Do You Know Who Made the World?” 

Theme
Luckily, it was sunny, so the house was relatively bright during the day. I was excited about using the craft feathers I bought to decorate ”B for birds.”  Josiah offered moral support, and then wanted to glue feathers to his coloring page.  With no “B”s or birds on it. 

I made a quick bird lapbook using some of the elements in the bird theme preschool packs at 1+1+1=1, Homeschool Creation, and KidSparkz.  In the past Gwen hasn’t had much patience for coloring, but she colored each bird the appropriate color and colored the birdhouses in warm and cool shades.     

She seems to be a fan of sticky stuff, so I velcro-d the matching pieces and included some birdies to cut-and-paste onto a tree.  Oh, and the sensory bin was a big hit – Gwen threaded beads onto the twigs, Josiah scooped seeds and transferred eggs to different containers, and the kids were especially delighted when I clipped the birds to their shoulders. 

When I put together their styrofoam bird plains, they were giddy with excitement that I was Allowing Them To Throw Something.  It’s a shame the birdies weren’t more durable, because they had loads of fun while they lasted. 

Letter
We traced the uppercase B while saying ABCJLM’s letter chant, “line, bubble, bubble,” traced the lowercase B and said “bat and ball.”  I have Gwen trace with her finger before using a pencil, crayon, whatever.  These letter chants seem to help reinforce the correct way to write the letters.  Oh, and a fun little tidbit – she’s a leftie, and it’s been fun trying to help her hold the pencil correctly.  My mom got me a few different pencil grips for her, and I think I’ll get a bunch of the Stetro grips.  Does anyone use pencil grips – speficially for a leftie – and have any recommendations?    

We’ve been using the dry erase center almost daily, and Confessions of a Homeschooler’s letter hunt pages from have been a big hit.  I’ve been carrying the idea over to other pages, like the “Little Bird” story/song that was initially part of the lapbook.  I had Gwen circle all the uppercase and lowercase ”B”s. 

She attacked the Letter B Do-A-Dot page from Homeschool Creations with gusto, and proudly showed off her work. I’m definitely printing these off every week!

We took advantage of the nice weather to hunt for B words outside and compiled a long list; I added this to an index card holder along with the A words from the previous week.

I’ve continued using the trays I got for the kiddos and have been trying to utilize them in organizing specific projects and activities for the week.  I tend to change one or two of the trays, depending on what we’re going to cover the next day.  On a whim, I picked out a few of the spell-a-puzzles from their box and laid them out, and Gwen went to town, doing them over and over again. 

By the end of the week, Gwen just wanted to go outside – especially since Daddy came home from work – but I did get her and Josiah to do a Buttons & Blue Paper craft.  Such a cute project (see bulletin board photo at the end), and Josiah placed all the button on the glue himself, practicing that pincer grasp.  Afterwards Daddy helped her build a birdhouse; I found little kits for $1 at A. C. Moore (come to think of it, she still needs to decorate it).

Number
“Straight down and then you’re done. That’s the way to make a one!” goes ABCJLM’s number rhyme for this week.  Gwen’s pretty good at counting to one, so we didn’t have any issues this week.  Along with the letter index cards, I got the idea from ABCJLM to create a number matching activity, making a separate index card for each number and putting the appropriate amount of stickers on another card (I’m putting both on one card and will cut them in half later).  Since zero would have been pretty boring, I saved both zero and one for this week.  This took all of two seconds, easy-peasy, and will come in handy when we review later.  To reinforce the number one, I asked questions like, “How old is Josiah?”, “How many brothers do you have?”  etc.  

Color
Ah, good intentions… once again I had planned a snack to incorporate part of the week’s lesson, but with the fridge not working I didn’t go to the store till later in the week.  I have a recipe for bird’s nest cookies that are made with chow mein noodles, chocolate chips, peanut butter… but they aren’t the healthiest.  I saw this recipe for Birds’ Nests using healthier ingredients and was so looking forward to making them, but it didn’t happen.  I did incorporate the color by making chocolate pudding, with which the kids were thrilled.  I got out the file folder games, and Josiah did a great job matching the dinosaurs.

Etc.
Gwen continues doing her chore chart every day – she’s gotten pretty good at making her bed and cleaning her room without asking.  We’ve been doing the Calendar Activity at Starfall most mornings, and we usually remember to do her weather watching jars in the evening.

Bulletin Board
By the end of the week this is what our bulletin board looked like:

Book Basket 
Bible
100 Bible Stories, 100 Bible Songs
Theme/Vocab
In The Nest
The Best Beak in Boonaroo Bay
Unbeatable Beaks
My Beak, Your Beak
Letter/Alphabet
Big Red Barn
The Berenstains’ B Book
The Booklets’ Baking Boo-Boo
Burger Boy
Blueberries for Sal
My “b” Book
The Bears Upstairs
Angelina Ballerina
The Fairies’ Alphabet Book
Number
Only One You
One
One Red Dot
My Number Book
Color
Be Brown
Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?
Big Brown Bear’s Up and Down Day
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
DVDs
Beauty & the Beast  

Linking up…

Gwen is 3 years old (44 months) and Josiah is 1 (20 months).

Preschool: off to a great start!

It feels like forever since WordPress and I had a date. Too bad Hurricane Irene had to come between us; we were without power and running water for five days, and I have to admit, I was a tad grumpy.  A tree came crashing down in our yard, but luckily it fell away from the house.  It’s amazing how much we rely on technology – the simple flick of a light switch, turning on the faucet to wash your hands, watching a movie to escape a long day with the kiddos…

We had just wrapped up our first week of preschool, and it went really well!  I have combined ideas and concepts from two curriculums: ABC Jesus Loves Me (ABCJLM) and Brightly Beaming Resource’s Letter of the Week Prep program.  I played around with the content so it would fit into a flexible 36-week, 3-day-a-week schedule.  Here’s my basic outline for the week, in case you’re interested; I’ve been using some of Homeschool Creation’s preschool planning forms to outline the specifics for each week.

The first week has been brought to you by the letter A, the number 0, and the circle shape.  The theme for the week was on the four seasons, and our word for the week was Autumn.  This went along nicely with the Bible story of creation as we were able to discuss the wonderful things God gives us – like the vegetables that grow in the garden in the Summer.

On Monday morning we had breakfast, and I had intended to serve apples (because, duh, the letter A) but I forgot to get them at the store.  No matter – we could have apple butter on our pancakes.  I enthusiastically opened the jar… to find green fuzz growing inside.  Off to a great start!  Fine – applesauce it is.  I formed an ”A” using chocolate chips on the pancakes, but Gwen was unimpressed.    

Bible
We have been using 100 Bible Stories, 100 Bible Songs for the story of creation, and I love the fact that there are songs to go along with each story.  The creation sensory bin was a huge hit… as well as a huge mess.  Big Mistake.  The kiddos were more interested in throwing the rice around than finding the elements of creation.  At least it kept them occupied for a while, and no doubt stimulated their senses (especially when I admonished them for the mess).

For lunch, I used muffin tins to create creation-themed edibles.  Day one: raisins and yogurt-covered cherries (night and day); day two: whipped cream and edible snowflakes (sky); day three: blue jello with graham cracker crumbs, a carrot, and a strawberry (water, earth, plants); day four: cut out sandwiches in the shape of moon and star, pepperoni slices (sun, moon, and stars); day five: goldfish crackers (birds and fish); day six: animal crackers (animals and man).

Theme
My Mom had given me the Baby Einstein Seasons Discovery Cards back when Gwen was first born, and I dug these out, spreading them over the table so she could sort them into seasons.  We also played with the matching and sorting cards from the seasons lapbook, but she got impatient with the activity, no doubt wanting to get out and enjoy the current season.

It was a beautiful day, and I spread out a roll of paper for our Autumn craft – a fingerprint tree with Fall colors.  I was really excited about this one… but my acrylic paints were all dried up and it took forever to mix some paint for the kiddos.  I also totally forgot that the kiddos were supposed to use the sides of their hands for the tree trunk, but it was still fun. 

Here’s a similar idea using a handprint as the tree trunk.

I found mini water color paints at a party store, and we painted a seasons page with four different trees. 

I had printed a leaf page at Twisty Noodle, and customized it to read “Autumn Leaf,” so we traced the lines with glue and sprinkled red and yellow glitter all over it. 

Letters
Twisty Noodle is great for coloring/tracing pages, and you can edit the text and layout to customize the finish product.  I printed out their capital letter A as a tracing page, and so began our foray into learning the alphabet.  I love that ABCJLM has a chant for each letter; for example, “pull down, pull down, across” is for the capital A, ”curve and down” for the lowercase.  After tracing, we formed playdough letters on the lines.

  

I had printed out a whole bunch of letter A pages.  Josiah colored some, and I was able to spread them out for the whole week.  We glued cotton ball “smoke” to an A-train smokestack, and Gwen decorated some letter “A”s with fruit and animal stickers. 

We visited friends on the second day of school, and I ambitiously brought along some school stuff.  Gwen’s 2-year-old friend had more fun making the Alligator A than she did.  At least it looked cute on the fridge.

When the kiddos got sick of the sitting down stuff, I played some letter A songs from our Cedarmont Kids DVDs (“Father Abraham,” “I’m in the Lord’s Army,” etc.), gave the kids some instruments, and we boogeyed for a bit.

A fun indoor/outdoor activity is going on a letter hunt, just finding all the things that start with a specific letter.  I made up an index card for “outside,” and one for “inside,” using some alphabet stickers on each one.  I had Gwen help me find items beginning with the letter A, and wrote them down on the appropriate cards.  If we had a sticker with a corresponding picture, that went on the card as well.  I tried having her shine a flashlight on the items because I knew she would get a kick out of it, but it was too hard to see the beam. 

So far, Gwen’s favorites have to be dry-erase activities and computer time.  The letter hunt worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler were a hit, and I was surprised how quickly she caught on.  I slid the sheets in a page protector to use with a dry erase maker and she searched for the uppercase and lowercase “A”s a few times. 

I was thrilled when I snagged a Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center for 50% off at A.C. Moore and started putting some of her worksheets in there; it makes even the simplest piece of paper seem like an important project.  I have oodles of pre-K workbooks that my mom has given me, so many of the pages and activities come from these sources.  The ones pictured are the A-Z Uppercase/Lowercase Matching Cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler; I just kept them altogether instead of cutting them out. 

She loves working in the computer, and asked for it almost every day. After putting Josiah down for his nap, we would do some more work, read some books, then go to one of the interactive websites I’ve bookmarked.  Starfall’s letter activity is a favorite; she caught onto the songs and was doing it by herself in no time.  We also read some of the interactive stories on Peekuboo and took a peek at the Cheateau Meddybemp’s Fun With Letters.

Numbers
The Dilly Dot Markers were a hit with both kiddos, and they came in handy for decorating the number zero.  I like them, although the orange looks the same as the yellow, and I thought the tip would be larger.  I wonder how these compare with the Do-A-Dot markers – anyone?

Just as with the letters, ABCJLM has number rhymes.  Zero goes like this: “Around, around, around you go. That’s the way to make zero!”

Shape
I didn’t have a lot of activities about the circle, both because it was such a simple concept Gwen already grasps and because it can be worked in on the other areas – the earth God created, the moon (we did a sun, moon, and stars craft), etc.  We talked about round food we were eating, did some cut and paste with round shapes, a dry-erase book about shapes, and made paper ice cream cones with round scoops of ice cream.

ABCJLM’s gross motor skill activity for the week was a game called Put Out the Fire!, which the kids thoroughly enjoyed.  Play with water?  Heck yeah!  Of course, they improvised the rules and ended up pouring buckets of water rather than wringing a sponge.

At the end of the week, this is what our bulletin board looked like:

Our Book Basket
Bible
100 Bible Stories 100 Bible Songs
Baby’s First Bible
The World God Made – The Story of Creation
Theme/Vocab
What Makes the Seasons?
Fall is Here!
Names for Snow
Wake Up, It’s Spring!
Listen, Listen!
Four Seasons Make a Year
The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree
The Little House
Letter/Alphabet
Angelina Ballerina
Llama Llama Misses Mama
My “a” Book
Berenstain’s A Book
Alpha Tales – The Adventures of Abby Alligator
Imogene’s Antlers
The Fairies’ Alphabet Book
Number
Zero, Zilch, Nada: Counting to None
Zero
My Number Book
Shape
My Shape Book
The Shape of Things
Round Is a Pancake
DVDs
Cedarmont Kids Platinum Bible Collection
Veggie Tales God Made You Special

Linking up…

Gwen is 3 years old (44 months) and Josiah is 1 (20 months).

Muffin Tin Meals & More

I love using the kiddos’ divided plates for mealtimes, making sure I find something to fill each spot.  Whenever I leave one “blank,” Gwen has to point out that it’s empty.  Sorry, some days I’m more creative than others! 

I got this nifty idea from Counting Coconuts to make muffin tin meals.  It’s amazing how the kids get excited when you mix things up a bit, do things somewhat differently.  They were excited with the presentation, and had fun eating from each compartment.

Next week we start preschool (!!!), and since we begin with the story of creation, I think it would be a neat idea to have a creation-themed lunch using the tins.  All the ideas I got from googling call for sugary treats (like Oreo cookies for separating the light from the dark), so I’m trying to come up with a healthy version.  The goldfish crackers will most likely pop up again in that meal!

I’m a little nervous assuming the role as “teacher” for Gwen; I know it’s something I do all the time anyway, but setting aside specific time for “school” puts me in a bit of a spotlight.  This is what I see happening:

“So… this is the letter ’A'… which is for apple… moving on!”

I’m afraid all this planning will be for naught, and I’ll have wasted my time on busy nothings.  But if nothing else, we’ll have a bit of fun along the way…

A peek inside the creation-themed sensory bin I’ve put together:

What’s inside:
Day 1: white rice for light/day & black beans for dark/night    
Day 2: blue tissue paper & cotton balls for the sky
Day 3: brown cup & earth ball for land/earth; blue streamers for water; Easter grass, Lego trees, foam fruit and flowers stickers, flower pin & a plastic flowers for trees & flowers.
Day 4: medium yellow pom-pom for sun, marble for moon, small yellow sparkly pom-poms for stars.
Day 5: plastic fish toys, fish puppet & wooden birds for fish & birds.
Day 6: plastic animals & two toy people for animals & man.
Day 7: dollhouse bed for day of rest.
*I also added some small shiny star stickers to find, a plastic star tray/scoop,  and letter magnets to spell out “creation.”

Gwen has been getting excited about starting school with Mommy, and though I’ve gotten quite a few resources already, I thought it would be a neat idea to get her a special school gift – like a backpack (she could take her school stuff when we run errands or go camping), a pencil case, whatever.  I love turning an event into a special occasion!  Nothing has really caught my eye, though… except for a brand new copy of Angelina Ballerina that I nabbed for sixty-nine cents at a thrift store!  She’s a favorite character and I’ve had that book on Gwen’s wish list for a while.  AND Angelina begins with the letter “A,” so it all goes together quite nicely.

Since we have a limited book collection at home, I’ve been requesting all sorts of library books for our first week on the letter A, the number zero, and the four seasons.  Gosh, I’m starting to sound like Sesame Street.  Here are a few of the titles that will be in our book basket.  W ish me luck! 

Curriculum Craziness

I bet you’ve never gotten sidetracked googling something, have you?  One simple little search, and you’re in front of the computer way past your bedtime, clicking on way too many results, eyes aching from staring at the screen.  

Despite the fact that I’ve been adding to the ever-expanding list of favorite links for homeschool ideas and activities, I’ve been able to decide on a basic preschool curriculum outline for Gwen.  It feels weird to be doing this, since I never really wanted to do anything official for the kiddos, but it’s kind of exciting at the same time.  My organizing, list-making genes are going haywire!

One of the things that I keep telling Phil and my mom (who homeschooled me and my sibs for a number of years), is that I can’t believe how much work and preparation is going into a simple preschool plan - which isn’t even official school!  How will I survive the coming years, when the content gets meatier?  Someone please tell me it gets easier!  Maybe this is the practice round, getting my feet wet.

Since incorporating Biblical concepts is important to me, I decided to go with the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-year-curriculum, using the supporting concepts that appeal to me.  I’m scrapping their outline, but I got the idea for having a theme and vocab word for each week from Brightly Beaming Resources’ Letter of the Week program.  I love that I was able to find these resources and tweak them to fit my preferences. 

Each of the two curriculums has different outlines and covers different materials for a different amount of time; it took a bit of time to put it into a schedule that seems doable for us.  And who knows – I may change it as I go!  I decided to put the material into a 3-days-a-week framework so we don’t get overwhelmed, but if Gwen wants to do some school activities on “off” days that’s just gravy.  It’s not like I have a shortage of resources!    

Basically, each week will have a Bible story and verse, theme, vocabulary word, letter, number, and shape or color.  Any supporting materials – crafts, activities, stories or songs – will revolve around these elements.

Thank goodness for free resources on the internet – I’ve found a host of wonderful offerings!  Here and there I’ve been plugging in activities and ideas for each week as I come across them.  I absolutely love the idea for Montessori-inspired Tot Trays and my Mom picked up some trays at Lakeshore Learning.  The kiddos took to them right away, and I love having their projects contained.  I think they would be content to sit at them for most of the day as long as I rotate their activities and provide snacks every now and then. :)

Totally Tots and its sister site 1+1+1=1, the inspiration for Tot Trays, has proved to be an excellent stomping ground for all sorts of ideas.  I’ve linked them to the right under some of my favorite homeschooling resources.  In addition to the excellent content, I love that it was designed for and by Christian moms who choose to homeschool.  Some of my favorite ideas: Tools 4 Tots (I like the Hide n Seek Bowls, Mix & Match game – which I already made! – Ocean Waves Bottle, and Paper Clip Colors, to name a few), sensory bins, Tot Books, and alphabet memory verse cards.

Here are some of my favorite resources (so far, and in no particular order) for coloring pages, worksheets, and other printables:
Homeschool Creations
Christian Preschool Printables
Preschool Coloring Book
Twisty Noodle (customizable pages)
First-School Preschool Activities & Crafts
Coloring Castle
Activity Village
Nature Detectives
Making Learning Fun
Crayola
DLTK Kids

My mom teaches Sunday School, buys loads of things for the grandkids, and sponsors children with Compassion International, so even though she no longer has littles of her own she still gets all sorts of kid-related stuff and puts together arts and crafts.  She started putting together lapbooks for her Compassion kids, and it got me interested in the concept.  I decided to try my hand at simple file folder games first, and created a few for the kiddos.

File Folder Fun has some cute ideas, and I made a few of their games, laminating the playing pieces and glueing envelopes on the back to hold them: Beautiful Bees color matching (a 2-color combination), Dinos color matching (a simple 1-color match for Josiah), and Cupcake Counting.  I haven’t used any yet, but Bible Story Printables also has some file folder games.

I finally decided to make a couple lapbooks to go along with our first preschool lesson, starting the end of August.  You can customize them any way you want, make them as simple or as complicated as you want.  There’s the basic lapbook, pocketbook, tot book, double lapbook… arrrgh, pick one!  The theme for the week will be the four seasons, and the Bible story is about Creation.  I did a seasons lapbook first. 

 

 

Most of the materials were printed from the season unit study at Lawteedah, and I also found some mini books for each season from DLTK’s database.  I had fun putting it together with all sorts of activity pages, a puzzle, matching and sorting games, and stickers.  I decided to do one on creation as well. 

At first I just printed out a couple activity pages that I found on Lapbook Lessons, but I ended up using some of their other creation printables to fill the lapbook. 

I find them labor-intensive since I’m putting them together myself, but as Gwen gets older she’ll be able to do more of it herself.  And I hope when she does the coloring and activities that it will have the stamp of her personality on it.  It might be neat to do a lapbook on the letters we learn each week, too.

Trying not to get too far ahead of myself, especially if Gwen doesn’t take to the idea – I don’t want to push it.  I tend to get ambitious then get disappointed when my ideas don’t go over well. *sigh*  At least I can be sure that the creation snack (a healthier version, anyway) will be a bit hit.