Learning with the littles

You just can't beat that home preschool means that you can "go to class" in your pajamas!

Letter practice/sensory experience.  A new slate every time with no erasing or new paper...

I totally got this idea from my bloggy buddy Annie.  My kiddos LOVED it and couldn't wait for their turn with the cookie sheet and rice.  (Though I will admit that Caleb tried to eat a handful.  Thankfully just once.)

Name practice/fine motor skills.  It is amazing how difficult it can be for little fingers to get the paper backing off of those foam stickers.  Each kid also can now spell their name and recognizes their own letters thanks to the little song that my dad used to sing to me.

Kylie of course had to add decoration to hers.

Spatial relations/problem solving.  After a day to experiment with the pattern blocks, it was time to figure out some puzzles.  Each child was frustrated with the first one, but begged to keep going after they figured out how to do it.

This little set is fun.  It has the puzzle on one side and a key to tell you which pieces you need to complete it.  There is an answer key on the back, but no one needed to use it.

Cutting.  Is there a three year old boy on the planet that couldn't use some practice with scissors?

He's getting better...

This exercise came from the curriculum that I'm using, but all three kiddos really enjoyed it.  We had a great discussion on the ten commandments and I've heard the kids reminding each other about them throughout the week.  I liked how the girls both decided to match up their numbers in order,

but Caleb stuck them on there in the order he picked up the numbers.

Hand strength/fine motor skills/letter recognition.  We use playdoh frequently.  Some days I encourage them to roll out snakes, or make "meatballs" before they use the letter cutters to build hand strength.  But this day was extra special because we got a  fresh supply in the mail thanks to my bloggy buddy Laurie!  Thanks so much ~ we actually got to use a solid color that matches our color of the week!

And these new containers are in a place well out of reach of people shorter than four feet tall!  I'll let them mix up the "play time" playdoh, but the "preschool" playdoh is going to stay ONE color per container!

Kylie has decided that forming just one letter is so "three year oldish" and has now moved on to writing her sight words as she plays.  Our word that week was the.

Comparing/ordering.  I found these cute dinosaurs, printed them out, colored them various shades of green, and cut them.  It was fun practice to arrange them from smallest to largest and then largest to smallest. 

 And of course anything dinosaur got Caleb's attention!

Letter building.  Here's the magnet board again ~ just because this is my place on the web and I can be proud of my kiddos.  Kylie has decided that she no longer needs the lines and curves to make her letters.  She's moved on to creating her own letters using the magnet pen.  Here she is making an R which uses a curve and a diagonal line (the hardest letters developmentally to create).  She's carrying a mini-notebook around almost 24/7 these days writing letters and trying to sound out words.  It's been fun to watch her catch on!

Lines and curves.  The younger two continue to really enjoy creating letters out of lines and curves.  Proof that it is spell binding?  That's a bowl of noodles ~ Caleb's favorite food behind oven roasted cauliflower ~ getting cold beside him.  He just didn't want to stop making letters...

 

Free exploration of new manipulatives.  I got these locking bears from my college roomie.  Kylie and I will be using them for simple number sentences in the next few days, but for the first day I simply let them explore.  Darcy sorted them out by color, Caleb lined them up on the little mat they came with, and Kylie locked them into AB patterns.

Number recognition.  Same dollar spot number flash cards.  Same printed numbers.  This time they had to line up the flash cards.  When they were done they had to trace each number with their finger and say it out loud.

Coloring/bible verse practice.  Came with the curriculum.  Have to say I'm loving discussing this verse!

And yes, Darcy is not sporting her glasses in two days worth of pictures.  I'm not sure what the first time was about, but in the purple dress pictures she had gotten miffed at me and hit her glasses out of spite.  And then when she wanted them, we couldn't find them because she forgot where they were.  Needless to say we spent some time discussing what it means to honor your mother...

Highlights from preschool

I'm thinking that preschool happenings will be a regular weekly feature.

Three main reasons for that.

1 ~ These posts are a place for me to shamelessly brag on my darling kiddos  ~ who of course make taking random items and turning them into a learning center (I consider myself the "Mama MacGyver" of the 2000's") worth the effort.

2 ~ The most important thing I learned in my ten years of public education teaching experience is that sharing ideas is critical to finding new ones.  Hopefully any other readers doing some school readiness activities will share their ideas and we can spur one another on!

3 ~ Knowing that I'm going to share ideas will keep me coming up with new ideas instead of just doing the same, "play dough, Handwriting Without Tears, and pony beads on pipe cleaner" kind of centers.

So if it's gonna be a regular feature, it's gotta have a fun name.  I can't keep calling it "More from M Preschool."  Cause that's boring!  Help a sister out here, please?

Okay, on to the fun stuff.  All three kids still remember Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven." and now they all know Exodus 20:15, "Thou shall not steal."  This one has sparked some great conversation and has led into discussing some of the other commandments.

Some of the biggest hits in center time over the past two weeks. 

Shape sorting/fine motor skills.  Cheater chopsticks were used to sort foam shape beads onto a worksheet with the appropriate shape outlines. (I just used google images to find shape outlines that matched my foam shapes and copied them into a word document).

Letter recognition/name recognition/fine motor skills.  Kiddos used their name sheets from the other day to help them find the letters to make their name.  Then they strung their first and last names onto a shoe lace.

Coloring green.  Again used their HWT workbooks.  Not their favorite activity, but coloring skills continue to improve.  And we discussed how there are various shades of green.  Ky had already finished and was flipping through the L and T word flashcards while she waited.  (In case you were wondering, I had two princess and one "Larry Boy" at preschool that day.  I have GOT to find a pattern for a super hero cape for him!)

Letter building.  Princess Darcy is really proud of how neatly she made "yeh-ter T!"

Pattern blocks.  Back in the "buying lots of fun stuff from Scholastic days" I purchased this neat magnetic pattern block/tangram set.  The first day with them we simply explored the new manipulatives.  Ky figured out on her own that you could make the hexagons using smaller blocks.

Green hunt.  Just cause my little guy is so cute...

Wedgits.  Sorta "spendy."  But they are my favorite educational toy I've ever purchased.  You should make them work in your budget if you have some budding civil engineers! 

Egg carton game.  Fine motor skills/number recognition/color recognition.  We go through at least one dozen eggs a week.  Had to find a way to use them educationally...  Simply wrote the numbers 1 and 2 in the bottom of each spot and provided pom poms and pickle tongs.  Two of the kiddos said it was their favorite center that day.

Hand strength/letter recognition.  Mashing play dough really does help get those little hands ready for the long days of holding pencils that will be coming in the school days ahead.  This center appears at least once a week.  I just need to get out and buy some new play dough or take the time to make my own.  Most of ours is currently slightly dried out or is really mixed up.

Puzzles.  Loved this entire series from the dollar spot at Target.  We have lots of puzzle time around this house ~ it also is a good calming activity between bath and bed times!

And, one MAJOR advantage of having preschool at home?  You don't even have to get dressed.  Which helps when you paint.  No stained clothes to wash...

Free painting.  Give 'em brushes of various types and let 'em go with the color of the week.

Counting/number recognition.  Picked up these flashcards from the dollar spot.  I like that they have the number dots at the top.  They traced the number with their finger, counted the dots, picked out the correct number of pony beads, and counted them out on the card.  (Note the green paint on Caleb's chest ~ so glad that wasn't on a shirt!)

Oh, and I almost forgot the personality test. 

Top to bottom they were:  Caleb, Kylie, Darcy.  Caleb's I could have picked in a minute, but even Ian guessed backwards on the girls.  I would have too if I didn't have pictures of them working on their own to prove whose was whose.

More from M Preschool

Pshaw!  It was one heck of a weekend.  We had absolutely nothing beyond church scheduled, but we managed to pack in a lot of fun family time.  Much to be said about that in the coming days.

First I want to answer some questions about our little preschool.  I had no idea that posting about what we've been up to at home would generate so much interest.  So to answer the BIG question, the curriculum outline I'm using is the Raising Rock Stars Preschool.  I don't have space or resources right now to have the whole bulletin board thing, but I'm running with an organized attack on a bible verse, letter, number, color, and sight word.  All three kids know Matthew 5:16 now, so we'll likely be moving on to the next unit, letter T, in the next day or so.

My "center" areas are not as well organized as her work boxes, but they pretty much cover the same idea.  One center that stays the same every day is the reading center.  Each of my darlings loves spending time curled up with a good book or two, and for the past several days I've had to run them out of that center to let the next child have a turn.  The first several days I set a timer for five minutes and rotated the kids from center to center in a circular motion.  But that started to bring about frustration as some things took one child longer than the others so for the past two days we have experimented with free movement.  The rules are that you can't go to a center where anyone else is sitting, and that you have to finish them all before you get to go to the free play centers.  We still have a few kinks to work out, but overall it is going very well.  Right now I'm loving planning for it and the kids ask for it every day (and we are not doing preschool every day, I'm aiming for three days a week).  We'll see how I feel by the end of September...

And now for some of our favorite centers from the past week.  (Taken over the course of our past three preschool days ~ you'll notice that Kylie is wearing a gymnastics leotard two of the days.  One advantage to not having to leave the house for preschool.  Oh, the day I didn't take pictures we had preschool in our pajamas with bed head!)

Letter building.  I "heart" Handwriting Without Tears.  We used it at Elite Preschool where I used to teach.  I saw amazing things come from kids using it before they started writing letters.  This magnetic board totally amazes my kids.

Handwriting Without Tears shows how to create all letters using four shapes.  Big line, little line, big curve and little curve.  A few snips of paper creates big and little lines to use for gluing letters.

Color focus.  Easiest center of all.  They match the color samples like a puzzle. (Thank you Home Depot!)

Coloring with one color.  I ordered these workbooks from Handwriting Without Tears.  The workbook is the only part that I perhaps would not order again.  But the "focus on one color with simple pictures" coloring has made a big difference in coloring for my kids.  So maybe I would order it again.

Coloring sheet.  Anyone that knows my kids should be particularly amazed with Caleb's concentration on the number 1.  This is HUGE!  And this was our wrap up the day we did the workbook page above.  

 

Letter L coloring page (from this site).  Even Kylie's coloring has drastically improved over the course of the past week.  She is now quite careful to stay in the lines.

Fine motor skills and letter practice.  Each kid had fun using a Q-tip to apply glue to the lights on this letter L page  (found here) and sticking on a sequin.  After they were done we counted the number of lights together.

Puzzles.  We have a variety of puzzles.  All my gang loves them, especially Darcy.

Number recognition and sequencing.

Sorting.  Again, you'd be amazed of the ideas you can come up with using craft supplies and recycled plastic containers.  And I have to give credit for the chopsticks (even though they are "cheater chopsticks") to my darling husband.  Even he is getting into the fun of M_______ preschool!

Sorting/patterns/fine motor skills.  Before center time we discussed AB patterns.  I had yellow beads in a small bowl and told them they had to use yellow as their A color.  Then they had to select a second color, pick it out of the big bead bowl, and string them onto a pipe cleaner.  We then twisted them and made them into bracelets.

Name/letter recognition.  I printed their names on paper and cut one into individual letters.  We used yellow construction paper as our background and they glued their names down.  Soon I'll introduce the lowercase letters that are in their names as well.

Beginning  math skills.  I bought this little set last year when all those Scholastic fliers came home with Kylie and Caleb from their preschool.  Lots of skills can be covered with these.  Right now Darcy and Caleb mostly were focused on matching up the exact dinosaur on the page and then counting.  Kylie is starting to understand the number sentences that are at the bottom.

One thing that is interesting is starting to see their personalities come though as the same three kids do the same activities.  I didn't get a shot of Kylie with the dinos today (I think Caleb was painting while she was working with them), but differences in Caleb and Darcy's styles show in the pictures I took of them.

Darcy left the dinos in a heap and had to search carefully for each one.

Caleb preferred to sort the dinos by color at the beginning and found it easier to locate the correct dino that way.

We also did several free yellow painting (I gave them various shaped sponges and brushes to use), continued the reading center, and used the beads and pipe cleaners with numbers to practice numeral recognition and those important fine motor skills.

And last, a little personality test.  I have pictures of all three kids concentrating while pulling off the plastic backing from these foam stickers (bought a HUGE bucket of shapes for less than $5 at a craft store ~ oh the possibilities), but showing you that practice in fine motor skills would give away whose is whose.  Before center time started I told them they could either use one color for each number, or one shape for each number, or do any type of mix that they wanted.  Any guesses as to whose number sheet is whose?

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.