Back to school

I'm not sure just how it happened.  I've been hanging on with all my might, but summer ~ well, the relaxed summer mentality, here in NC we'll be in the 90s well into October ~ is slipping right through my fingers.

This week marks back to school for older siblings of my kids' friends, and so I figured it was as good a time as any for us to begin "M____ preschool" right here in our own house.

Yep, we're having a home preschool year.  With three kids.  That belong to me and therefore know EXACTLY how to push my buttons.  Am I crazy?  

I've joked several times that having three kids within a year of each other makes for our own preschool.  Combine that with the cost that would be tuition to send all three AND the fact that I taught three years of preschool after spending ten in middle school and it just seemed logical that we have our own school here at home.

I've been thinking about it for a while, I just needed the right program to get me kick started.  Enter one of my friends inviting us over one day last week to share a biblical based curriculum outline that she found online (FOR FREE!).  She treated my kids to a "trial day" at her house and their reactions made me realize it was time to get started.

The outline features one bible verse a week, along with a focus on one color, one letter, one number, and one sight word a week.  There are a few craft type activities that go along with the bible verse and some letter and number practice.  (Now all I've gotta do is convince Daddy that we really do need a color laser printer for some of the fun reproducibles I find online).   Then it gives some starting suggestions for centers.  That's where the fun comes in, figuring out how to use all our craft supplies in an educational way.

M Preschool opened to rave reviews yesterday.  We practiced our verse, sang a few songs, and reviewed our number (1), our letter (L), our sight word (see) and our color (yellow).  Then it was time for centers.  Yesterday's centers were:

Letter building.  They practiced our letter of the week ~ L.  And then because they all recognize "their" letter AND their siblings' letters, we threw in C, D, K, and M.  

Number recognition.  Placing the correct number of sequins on numerals 1-6.  For now they have dots on the numerals because I realized (from the assessment) that they only recognize the number 1 and the number of their age.  (Yeah, poor Caleb.  When you have two sisters your school manipulatives are bound to be flower and butterfly sequins.  He didn't seem to mind too much).

Color scavenger hunt.  They were given a basket and told to search the house for yellow items to fill it.  This exercise was mostly created for Darcy (right now she ALWAYS gets pink and purple correct, but any other color is a toss up), but Kylie and Caleb really enjoyed it too.

Reading corner.  I took advantage of the board books at our library and checked out several color, number, and ABC books to keep in the reading corner.  They also had their backpacks filled with books they selected from the library and enjoy flipping through the pages and telling the stories.

Fine motor skills.  They used my pickle tongs to transfer yellow pom poms from one container to the other.  And when they finished, they switched hands and moved them back.  I also had an empty spice jar (that I keep for them to play with in their kitchen) and a cut up yellow pipe cleaner.  They fed the pipe cleaners through the shaker holes in the jar.

Play dough.  This center serves two purposes, building hand strength and practicing letters.

And the possibilities of what to do with centers is endless!  You'd be amazed how educational you can get with a pile of random craft scraps and recycled containers!  Today we kept each child's favorite center from yesterday and I just created variations of the others to keep things familiar yet fresh. 
 
The most exciting part of our preschool is going to be the memory verse component!  This week the verse is Matthew 5:16. "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in Heaven."  Kylie already has the entire thing memorized, Caleb just needs the first word of each segment, and Darcy at least can get out the first part without help.  In addition to the memory, there is much discussion of what the verse really means. We began with a discussion of ways to let your light shine, and ways to keep your light from shining.  We've discussed both hypothetical situations and real situations as they've come up.  I actually heard Caleb tell Kylie he was sorry that he didn't let his light shine when he took a toy away from her last night.  I'm sure that when there is a new verse to add next week that they will get them a bit confused, but oh how excited I am to begin laying a foundation for them to internalize God's word.