Before I get started with the preschool fun, I wanted to tell ya how I came up with our curriculum. I am planning on homeschooling Kinley long after preschool and I don't plan on buying an all-out super serious curriculum until at least first grade. The idea is to take a late 80's approach to preschool, you know, the way WE were preschooled. No hours of tracing letter worksheets and drilling sight words. Just play, fun, art projects and more fun! Plus, there are so many awesome tried-and-true ideas from moms and preschool teachers floating around on Pinterest and in books and magazines, there is definitely no shortage of fun inpiration for teaching just about any subject you could ever possibly want to cover.
I chose some that I wanted to cover (holidays, seasons) and some that she requested (cooking/healthy foods, weather) and filled in the rest with things I knew would be a hit (fairy tales, birthday). Kinley already knows her shapes and colors and most of her numbers, but I thought it would be good to review them, so I added those, too.
Before I get all in-depth, I have to tell you about a blog that is pretty much a lifesaver when it comes to planning your own preschool curriculum. Angela is one heck of a blogger and whenever I am looking for info on anything preschool, Teaching Mama is one of the first sites I head to! This post is especially helpful in planning and she even gives ya a printable planning sheet.
Subjects: check. But, what exactly should I teach her about Language Arts or Math/Science? I used Angela's helpful post and several other books and websites to come up with a list of things that are typically covered in each subject in traditional preschool and chose what was important for me to cover this year. Rather than make a wordy paragraph or 12, I'll just leave this list right here for you to use if you decide to do what I did :) (Just in case you are wondering, I picked the ones in bold.) And, if you aren't sure what kind of activities will teach each of these subject areas, just stay tuned or get busy searching on Pinterest!
Language Arts
- listening
- reading (to her, not her reading)
- writing (she tells me stories/journal entries/descriptions, and I write her words)
- speaking
- ABCs
- listening skills
- phonics (think letter sounds, not necessarily sounding out words)
- rhyming
- handwriting
- counting
- colors
- patterns
- number recognition
- one-to-one correspondence
- shapes
- sorting
- money
- ordering
- matching
- subitizing (know how many there are without counting)
Just in case you need a little extra inspiration, I'll dive a little deeper into what we do.
Circle Time
This seems kind of strange with just one kiddo, huh? I mean obviously two people don't make much of a circle, but this is one of our favorite and most important parts of our day. We sing songs, go over the letter of the week with songs and letter hunts, practice the color, numbers and shape of the month in Spanish, put the new number on the calendar, check out the weather, do felt board stories and songs, read stories and learn poems. I'll do a more in-depth circle time post soon. I try to go with the flow with this part of our day, if she's into it we do more, if she's grouchy and whiny, we just do the basics and move on to other things.
Language Arts
I made a goal that Kin will be able to recognize all the letters of the alphabet by the end of the year. I don't care if she can write them, but it would be cool if she could pick them out! I bought an ABC curriculum last year when we gave preschool a go (she wasn't ready and rather than stress and force it, I just let it go and we picked it back up about a month ago,) and it's absolutely awesome! There are activities and worksheets and I just love the adorable artwork. I am planning on using it all through preschool, Pre-K and Kindergarten cause it's got activities for younger and older kids for every letter. It's from The Crafty Classroom and you can check it out if you want to by clicking here. I teach her one letter a week and then review the last three letters every fourth week (for example: Week 1--Letter Aa, Week 2--Letter Bb, Week 3--Letter Cc, and Week 4: Review Aa, Bb, and Cc)
So, anyway, besides the couple of worksheets and bingo included in that pack, we do a letter craft (like turning an E into an elephant, or and F into a fox), a journal entry in her little composition notebook or I ask her to tell me about her art projects and write down her words, and play a game or two that don't have anything to do with the letter, but focus on other aspects of language like rhyming or listening skills.
Math/Science
Kinley is a girl who loves math and science. The word "experiment" makes her dance and leap for joy. She counts EVERYTHING. She weighs stuff in the produce department at the grocery store until I bribe her with a free bakery cookie and she has known her colors since she was one and a half. She pretty much already knows all of the things I have chosen to cover this year, but I just wanted to go over it and make sure she wasn't blank in any area.
To keep her from being bored with all the review, I make tons of games, magical experiments of course ;), cook and bake, make patterns and sort random objects (noodles, little figures, paperclips, gems, etc.) and hoard Pinterest ideas like it's my job. What did we do before Pinterest?!
Large/Fine Motor Skills
Large motor is easy enough while it's nice outside--go for a walk, play soccer, head to the park or for a bike ride. We haven't had to worry about cool weather large motor yet, but I have a giant Pinterest board full of ideas for when that time comes--it's called Wiggle Busters in case you need some inspiration yourself!
And for fine motor, we do things like picking up beads with tweezers, tracing and placing stickers on zigzag lines, using scissors and clothespins, practicing with hole punches and, of course, holding crayons/markers/pencils with correct pincer grasp :) Once again, Pinterest has hundreds of thousands of fine motor ideas--here's my board full of favorites.
Sensory
Sensory is our ultimate favorite! We use one of those giant under-the-bed storage containers for our sensory bin. Sometimes we do super messy sensory activities like shaving cream and water beads (LOVE this one) and sometimes we do easy things, like playing Play-Doh or fingerpainting. Our old never-fail to please sensory bin fillers are unpopped popcorn kernels, dried peas, colored rice, water, cloud dough and colored noodles.
We've recently discovered the joy of small world sensory bins, too, and if you have a kiddo who loves to pretend, I'm sure you guys would love them as much as we do! They are pretty much invitations to play. One of our favorites so far was an alligator swamp I put together for Aa Week that included sand, flat clear and blue glass marbles, a paper towel tube/craft foam palm tree, plastic alligators and some craft foam grass and flat rocks. She played with those alligators for hours. She buried them in the sand, pretended one of them was a bad guy, took them swimming in the marble "water" and made up a million other hilarious/awesome 3 year old stories.
So many Pinterest ideas for this subject, too. Shocking I know! ;)
Fun
Okay, I'm definitely not gonna tell you how to have fun :) Just don't forget to plan some field trips and getting out of the house days!
If you have any questions at all, please ask! I'd love to help if I can :)
I'm so excited to share all of our fun stuff with you again! Happy Mom-ing, y'all! :)
So awesome Cara! Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Monique!! :)
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