Week 9 Winter

Objective: Name the four seasons, and identify attributes of winter

Welcome to winter.  What a great week to teach about winter, the weather cooperated and we had our first snow.

To introduce winter we read Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root and One Winter's Day by M. Christina Butler.  We discussed the four seasons and that winter comes after fall.  We discussed that winter is the cold season and all the animals and plants go to sleep during winter.

We practiced using scissors to make snowflakes.  My daughter found it challenging to cut through four layers of paper, although she does well with just one layer. We might try this activity again in a year or so.
Here are some other fun winter ideas:
Roll a snowman printable game
Painting snowflakes with pine tree branches

While my sister-in-law was here for Thanksgiving she helped me make a felt Christmas tree, which I found here.  I would recommend using hot glue, my kiddos pulled it right apart with the felt glue.

Week 8 Thanksgiving - Making Finger Puppets

This week we did not do formal preschool.  We spent the week baking pies, visiting family, and being grateful for our blessings.  We did color some printables from First-School. We did the letter S and Thanksgiving turkeys.  Since Christmas is just around the corner I spent some time finishing some Brown Bear, Brown Bear finger puppets.  I'm really proud of how they turned out!

The bear was my first.  I made a pattern by tracing my finger and then giving about a quarter inch allowance on both sides.  They fit my finger and my husband's fingers too.  I started putting them together with hot glue, but I couldn't get my sewing needle through it, so I switched to using felt glue (which looked and smelled the same as Elmers glue).

 I glued the ears to the back piece and embroidered the face to the front piece.  After doing those things I sewed around the edges.  Lastly, I hot glued the eyes on -- who doesn't love googly eyes?  Finished.

 I used slightly changed shapes for the sheep, fish, and horse.  After getting past the learning curve they were really easy to throw together.  I hope my toddler enjoys them this Christmas.

Week 7 Opposites

Objective: Be able to identify the opposite of a word

 If I said tall I wanted her to be able to name short as its opposite. We then read several books. I have since returned all the books to the library and lost the list (it was a huge list).  But we found our books in the Juvenile section 428.1. She wanted fancy and plain to be the opposites on our poster board.

We did read Exactly the Opposite, I liked it a lot because it doesn't have the opposites listed.  We read the other books first, and then when we read Exactly the Opposite. We would look at the pictures and I let my daughter choose which opposites matched the pictures.

Later we worked on counting and writing numbers.  I wrote equations that had the sum of 16 and allowed her to make pipe cleaner and star bead bracelets to represent the equations.  She wore them around all day.  After she added up the stars I had her write 16 in the blank space.

For Thanksgiving we made some turkeys. I wrote numbers on some circles for how many feathers we should glue onto that circle. 

We glued on feathers.  16 feathers was kinda a lot, I would recommend using smaller numbers.  11 worked nicely.

Feathers are fun.  My baby crawled over my leg to try and get some.

Here they are drying.

We finished the turkey by adding a beak and a gobble (not its official name). Then I had my daughter add some eyes.  Lastly, we glued another brown circle to the back (to keep the toddler from tearing off the feathers) and added a magnet. Here's the finished product.  Some super cute turkeys for the fridge. 

Week 6 Rhyming

I think I've said before that my preschool schedule is more like an outline.  This week was another week where I mixed things up.  Monday morning we were having a breakfast conversation about rhyming.  My sweet daughter was pretty adamant that rhyming is alliteration.  That words that start with the same sound rhyme.  So I knew we needed to talk about rhyming this week.

We started with the nursery rhyme "To Market, To Market" and identified the words that rhymed.  We wrote them down.  I then had my daughter underline the part of the words that were the same.  I thought this would help solidify the concept that rhyming words end in the same way.

 

I made a rhyming matching game.  On the back I wrote the word and on the front I put a picture of the word.  She was having a hard time with hearing the rhyme, but when she'd flip them over and see the matching words she could pair them easily.

In addition to the rhyming game, I had her listen to some nursery rhymes on The Talking Mother Goose app.  This app reads the nursery rhymes aloud.  We got a couple stuck in our heads and went around repeating them all week. Another fun extension would have been to speak in rhyme.  I didn't do that, but you certainly can.

Lastly, we read some word family books.  We found them at a garage sale, and I've been using them to help her learn reading. While we read them I pointed out that all the words in the word family rhymed because they ended the same way.

Here we are after we talked about the upcoming holiday Thanksgiving.  We're decorating our windows with turkeys and pilgrims.

Remember that letter that we sent Grandma?  Well she sent back a whole bag of leaves, acorns, and some tree seeds.  Grandma's sure are wonderful.

Week 5 Where I Live/We All Live in Homes

The topic for this week morphed in the planning. At the library I found one nearly age appropriate book for a 4 year-old, it was the Read-About Geography Series Idaho by Pam Zollman. Much of the vocabulary was lost on my daughter, but some things were nice, like being able to identify Idaho out of the whole United States. Another book we read was A is for Art: Boise's Public Art Alphabet Book, we were able to talk about our city, the ABCs, and art all at the same time. Awesome! We also visited our state capitol last week. It turned out to be excellent timing for Preschool, it was our first field trip.

 We also got to visit Dad while at the capitol, because he works next door.  We are lucky.

We found a book about animal homes, Animal Homes by Brian Wildsmith.  It highlighted different animals and the homes they live in.  We read the book, and then for further exploration, we looked up videos of some of the animals in their homes.  We looked up the beaver and learned about how they build their lodges and dams. We looked up eagles and watched how they catch their food.  It was really fun.

 I also started her on a small sewing project.  She was pretty excited, that's excitement and cheesy posing in the picture above.  I drew a lion on the fabric and she started stitching.  She was tired of small stitches pretty quickly.  But we worked on it a couple times during the week.  It was a simple quiet activity.  I saw this on Pinterest - I LOVE Pinterest! Here is a link to the website where I got the sewing idea.

We also talked about the types of stores you find in a town through the book Around Town by George Haber.  I didn't challenge her to memorize her address, but I think by the end of Preschool she will be ready to learn it.

We had a busy week, so the rest of school was done on my phone.  I had her do letter tracing on the Preschool Fun app.  And we worked on counting up to 15 on the Preschool and Kindergarden app which allows you to set the number of items to be counted and you repeatedly count to that number.  It helped her learn that 15 (not 18) comes after 14.

 We raked leaves in the backyard. And then we chose some special leaves to send to Grandma. Grandma loved her letter!

 Lastly, we made applesauce to can. She is my big helper.  Pretty soon she'll be making the applesauce all on her own.  I wish we'd done a little more direct instruction about where we live.  I'll just have to try harder next week.

Week 4 My Body

This week we were talking about our bodies.  Some simple objectives:

1. Identify body parts 
2. Name body parts 
3. Identify good and bad touches

I started off our week by having my daughter put together a paper doll.  I used this activity to encourage discussion about getting dressed and naming body parts, it was also a nice small motor activity for her. 

 She was pretty excited that the doll looked like her and was a ballerina.

 

How can you talk about your body without a few rounds of Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes? We sang it slow, we sang it fast, and we sang it normal.  We had a good laugh each time.

Then we went a little book crazy! We read I Can Do It Myself by Diane Adams, Horns and Toes and In Between by Sandra Boynton, Two Hands, Two Feet by Rick Walton, Crazy Clothes by Niki Yektai, and Head to Toe by Eric Carle.  Maybe we didn't go too crazy.

Lastly, we discussed good touches and bad touches.  My daughter is at an appropriate age to discern between good and bad touches.  I had her brainstorm a list of good touches

• kisses, hugs, gentle touches

Then a list of bad touches

• pinching, biting, hitting, kicking

My husband and I felt it was important to include talking about inappropriate touches.  While talking about bad touches I stated that we shouldn't let people touch our privates. And that if someone asks to touch our privates, we should tell them No and then tell our mom or dad.

We now have four sight words - the, and, you, it - I took the sight words and laid them out.  I then read I Can Do It Myself  and Crazy Clothes,  I would pause for every sight word, touch the word, and have my daughter read the word for the story to continue.  It took a couple pages for us to get the gist, but she knows her four words really well now.  I will do this activity again.

Week 3 Autumn

We started our lesson by reviewing our sight words -- the, and, you.  Then I quizzed her a little. After considering the topic of  pirates for this week, I decided to change the topic and teach about Autumn. First we talked about the four seasons.  Then I brought the focus to Autumn and the changes that take place in Autumn, leaves, rain, temperature.  We followed by reading The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll.

 Later we read Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and worked on identifying the letters as they climbed our tree.  I threw this tree together and cut out the letters on my Cricut.  My preschooler enjoyed this, we laid out all the letters and she placed them at the top while I read.

On  Wednesday we did googly eye math. (Found this idea here). I wrote an equation on each paper and she created a picture to represent it with googly eyes.  She wanted to lay out all the googly eyes first, then she placed them (very meticulously at first) on the pictures.

 

My goal with the math was counting to and writing 12. Each of the equations had a sum of 12.  After she added the eyes and counted them, I had her write the number 12 on the blank space.

Shortly after our math activity we did another letter activity.  We used our imaginations and role-played that we were a hungry bear who wanted to eat some letter fish. (Found this here). We took turns calling out a letter and then feeding that letter to the bear.  Even my 18 month old got involved in the game.

We wanted to play with the fall leaves, sticks, and acorns so I threw together some sensory stuff.  I took a cookie sheet and glued magnets onto the backs of paper leaves, sticks, and acorns and allowed them to play with the magnets on the cookie sheet. (Found this idea here). Later I glued on a ribbon so I could hang the cookie sheet up.  My 18 month old used the sticks as a telephone.

 My oldest grouped all the items and then played make believe like in the movie Epic (we really enjoyed this movie, I would totally recommend it!).

Week 2 Gratitude

This week we talked about gratitude. We talked about being thankful to our Heavenly Father for his blessings.  I started by reading the book Thankful Together by Holly Davis.  This book talks about blessings in our day and how we should pray in gratitude for each of them.

After reading about gratitude, we put together some simple gratitude books. We took a walk outside and collected things we are grateful for (leaves, mint, grass, even a rock).  And then we taped them inside our books.  Two days later we did art with stickers, choosing pictures of things for which we are grateful.

What really brought the lesson home for my daughter was singing "I Am Glad For Many Things", song #151 in the Children's Songbook.  After we learned the song she seemed to really understand that we should say Thank You for our blessings.

A couple follow-up activities: at bedtime we list three things we're grateful for.  Putting up a large sheet of paper and making a collage of things we're grateful for.

Later we focused on math, and did number matching for 10 to 15.

Week 1 Emotions

I want my daughter to have an aptitude for emotions.  So what can I teach her about emotions that would allow her to identify how she is feeling and some appropriate responses.  Here are things I asked myself:
1. What emotions should I identify?
2. What causes these emotions?
3. What are good ways to express our emotions?

I decided to identify sad, embarrassed, happy, mad/angry, scared, surprised, and bored (I hear that she's bored way too often).

I cut out some circles and drew on faces, I'm no artist.  However, this was simple and effective.  I cut out some extra circles for my toddler to play with while I was teaching.

First, we identified the emotions on the faces.  Second, I gave examples of what might cause us to feel each of the emotions.  Last, we talked about appropriate behavior.  When we are mad it's not okay to hurt others.  When we are bored we should be patient.  When we are scared we can ask for help.  When we are sad it is okay to cry. Then we read My Many Colored Days, by Dr. Seuss.  I really wanted to read The Way I Feel, by Jana Cain (great book!), but the library didn't have it in.

My princess is really into stories right now.  So to wrap up the lesson I told a story about a trip to the park.  All along the way things happened that caused an emotion and I let her choose which emotion it would cause.

• We were riding our bikes to the park. How did that make you feel? Happy
• But we had to wait for our neighbors to catch up to us. How did that make you feel? Bored
• While we were riding, you fell off your bike and scratched your knee. How did that make you feel? Sad
• When we got to the park your friend Isaac was there.  How did that make you feel? Surprised 

Afterwards we made a bar graph for the numbers 1-10.  I needed to step away in the middle and she got a little bored, hence 10 was never finished.

This is the special space we put together for school.  She already loves school.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a story about a Turkey that learns to deal with his temper -- The Turkey with the Terrible Temper.

Preschool

This summer I realized my oldest starts kindergarten next year, What?!  Time to get on the preschool train, pronto.  I considered the options: paying for school, co-op preschool, home preschool.  Putting together a co-op was quickly the top of my list, but with time and transportation constraints, not to mention finding other moms looking for a co-op, it didn't work out.  In the end we are starting our own home preschool.

First things first, I put together a teaching schedule.  I looked through the curriculum standards for kindergarten and first grade and put together a basic outline of things my princess needed to learn for success moving forward. Our school started the first week of October, so you may need to realign the topics -- if you want Christmas to fall on the week of Christmas. My princess is already familiar with the numbers 1-10, I want her to learn to count higher.  This schedule is geared towards her in that respect, you can modify the schedule to fit the needs of your student.

Preschool Outline
Week #	Letter		Number	Topics	Shapes
Week 1	Jj	1-10		Emotions		Heart
Week 2	Cc	11		Gratitude		Triangle
Week 3	Ww	12		Autumn		Square
Week 4	Hh	13		My Body		Diamond
Week 5	Dd	14		Where I Live - Town		Circle
Week 6	Aa	15		Where I Live - State/USA		Oval
Week 7	Ss	16		Opposites		Rectangle
Week 8	Ee	17		Manners		Octagon
Week 9	Ff	18		Winter		Hexagon
Week 10	Nn	19		5 Senses		Cube
Week 11	Bb	20		5 Senses continued		Sphere
Week 12	Gg	20s		Jesus, Christmas
Week 13	Tt	30s		Sharing
Week 14	Kk	40s		Instruments
Week 15	Mm	50s		Animals - Farm
Week 16	Ii	60s		Animals - Jungle		Repeat Shapes
Week 17	Xx, Zz	70s		Rainbows
Week 18	Qq	80s		Color Mixing
Week 19	Uu	90s		Valentines
Week 20	Rr	100		Families
Week 21	Oo	Review		Spring
Week 22	Vv	Discuss # Patterns		Gardening
Week 23	Pp			Flowers
Week 24	Yy			Helping Others
Week 25	Ll			Kindergarten

To help facilitate learning I put together a simple learning poster. Things I wanted to focus on included shape, color, number, sight reading words (here's a list), letters, main topic, and then maybe simple rhyming.  So I glued some colored paper onto a posterboard and laminated it (helps it last longer). Here's what I ended up with:

 Simple, yet effective!

Another idea, which I'm unable to implement, is making a daily schedule.  A daily schedule allows for expectation and routine, both of which help children flourish.

Let the teaching begin.