I don’t do a formal curriculum for preschool. But there are many resources online that I take advantage of to work with my little ones on basic skills at their level and to encourage an interest of theirs. I don’t do a so-called preschool activity every day. We go in spurts depending on their interest level and my motivation. They usually just love to play, and I let them do a lot of that. And I talk with them a lot throughout the day, answer their questions and provide educational computer programs and DVD’s for them. They do a lot of PBS Kids online, Nick Jr. online, Webkinz Jr, and Jumpstart online.

That said, I do like to sit down with my little ones at least once a week and do some letter work or number work. I have bought the cheap books at Walmart, and we go through them together during the year. I don’t make a big deal about it, but if one of them wants to do school because they see the others doing school, we pull out the workbooks for them, too.

A lot of activities we do together as a family are based on the holiday that’s coming up, and the little ones get very excited about all of these!

Here is a wonderful website, chock-full of ideas for Homepreschooling, by a lady who has the same philosophy I have toward early learning. Her name is Susan Lemons. She gives us lots of ways to teach in a natural, fun way by using daily activities that you probably have to do anyway, just sharing them with your child. For example, you can teach children how to count by counting plates when setting the table for dinner and counting silverware, cups, etc. You can teach lots of number concepts by letting them cook with you, measuring, following steps in a recipe, etc. They learn to tell time and read the calendar when they’re anticipating something fun, and you tell them how much time or how many days are left. They start to pay lots of attention to time in these situations! Susan has written a book, too, that shares her philosophy and teaches some how-to’s and gives lots of ideas for natural learning at younger ages and stages and also moving on into older years called Homepreschool and Beyond. I found it on Amazon. I highly recommend visiting her site, too.

It’s also available for Kindle.

Favorite Preschool Sites:

1+1+1=1 Lots of printables, Montessori activities, tot school for youngers and preschool and kindergarten are all covered very well. Lots of fun ideas for sensory boxes, iPad apps, etc. She has everything covered!

Homeschool Creations Preschool Corner Click on Pre-K and K tab or visit other sites she has linked there. Lots of printables.

Confessions of a Homeschooler Lots of wonderful ideas here including workboxes, Letter of the Week, etc.

Printables

The sites I listed above have lots of free printables. You can also find lots of them at

The Crafty Classroom

Christian Preschool Printables

DLTK-Kids Lots of coloring pages, crafts, activities of all kinds and a Bible section that is very helpful.

There are lots of fun ideas and neat paper dolls that your kids can make at Making Friends.

I like to keep all of our coloring pages and printables in a notebook for each child. You can find out all about Notebooking from Cindy Rushton at CindyRushton.com.

I also have some posts about notebooking here on my blog under “Homeschooling”.

Here’s one that you pay to join:

Enchanted Learning It costs $20 for a year. I like it well enough that I have subscribed to it for years.

Lapbooks

I LOVE lapbooks. Some of my kids like them pretty well. I show some examples of lapbooks we have done under the category of Homeschooling and the subcategory of lapbooks. Here are some sites where you can find free lapbook ideas and templates:

Lapbook Lessons

Homeschool Share

And to buy some that are already pre-packaged and researched:

In the Hands of a Child

Live and Learn

Knowledge Box Central

A Journey Through Learning

Curriculum

If you would feel more comfortable using a curriculum, here are some I would recommend.

Before Five in a Row – literature-based, using books you can get from the library. You would have to look through the table of contents to see if these are at your child’s level or if perhaps you need to go up to the next set which is called

Five in a Row These manuals are under $40 apiece and give you tons of ideas to supplement your reading of the best children’s books with educational activities. Very fun for student and teacher. They have Fold & Learn packets available, too, which are similar to lapbooks.

Sonlight

This curriculum is strongly Christian, it’s History- and Literature-based. I highly recommend it for its list of books to read at each level and to cover each time period in History.

Other good reading lists are to be found in:

Teaching Children

For teaching early reading:

Leapfrog DVD’s

Letter Factory
Talking Words Factory
Code Word Caper also known as Word Caper (silent e is taught)
Math Circus

I recommend also getting:

The Talking Storybook Factory

You can find a lot of their DVD’s at Leapfrogdvds.com.

Bob Books

These are simple, funny, easy readers for beginners with very few words and line drawings that add to the comic element of the stories without being distracting or giving away the meaning so that the child doesn’t have to pay attention to the words to sound them out. They actually have to read the words instead of the pictures.

Which reminds me – In Lieu of Preschool has tons of great ideas for preschoolers and she has a special section just for Bob Books.

Which also reminds me – my kids really liked Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, Spy Fox, and Putt Putt computer CD-roms. You can find these at Amazon, too. They also liked lots of Jumpstart games. There are lots of educational CD-roms at Amazon.

Incorporating any of these ideas into your days should get your preschooler off to a very good start in their educational experience. Remember, it’s all about instilling a love for learning in your child. Don’t push or stress about it. Relax and have fun!

And treasure this time with your precious little ones. It goes way too fast.

And remember to READ and READ and READ to them!

And treasure this time with your precious little ones. It goes way too fast.

A preschooler has a different view of the world. It is fresh, new, exciting, and frustrating every single minute of the day. But their zest for life – their sponge-like ability to take it all in and “go with the flow” is amazing and something we should all try and do from time to time. As I watch my “baby” (who isn’t a baby anymore) learn something new every day, explore life, and delight in the simply things, I sometimes think I might be learning more from him than he is from me.

I learned a few things from my “baby” this week.

1 – Take time to sit and watch your favorite show with someone you love.  – My son loves Toy Story 3. He thinks it’s the greatest show right now. Now I have been through this with two other children. I know every line from Monsters, Inc. and every minute of The Little Mermaid. Now, thanks to my son, Toy Story 3 no longer makes me cry at the end because I’ve seen it so many times (ok, maybe sometimes I still well up a little). But as we watched it for the 3^rd time this week, he comes across the room, where I’m sitting and working at my computer, takes my hand and asks me to come and watch it with him. If I say “Just a minute bud” he crumbles to the floor, crying and sobbing “no.” “Come watch it with me mama,” he says. I leave my blinking cursor and head to the couch to snuggle and watch Buzz woo Jessie in Spanish and chuckle as my son watches in awe as all the toys go into the trash compactor. But what I learn from him is that sometimes, in the craziness of our busy lives, we need to take a minute and snuggle with someone we love and watch our favorite show and leave work and the dishes and laundry behind. It will be there when the movie is over. Taking advantage of some time to snuggle is more important than we remember sometimes.

2- Roar as loud as you can, race your cars as fast as you can, and have fun. – My son enjoys his dinosaur roar. He thinks he is very convincing. And when racing cars, zooming as loud as possible is also a necessity. I watch him play with his new “talking dino” (aka Switch and Go Dino – T-Rex) and his new Diego Jeep and helicopter and love the sound effects that go along with his play. The dino talks to Diego, he changes into a car and zooms along with the Jeep and then needs a tow from the helicopter. He never stops roaring and screeching and “bamming” into the each other. He gives it his all. As I watch him I think of how important it is to give something everything we have. Giving it our “all” can be difficult sometimes, especially when we are spread so thin between work, schooling, family, and extracurricular activities. I feel that sometimes all I do is multi-task. But taking the time to give one task everything is something that I need to do once in a while. Even if that one task is playing with my kids. Sometimes, I need to stop multi-tasking and concentrate on one thing and “roar” as loud as I can to get through it and do it to the best of my ability. I might just find that I enjoy myself a little more.

3- Don’t be afraid to tell someone how you feel. – My son is NOT afraid to tell me how he feels about something. “I’m mad at you” echoes through my house daily. “I’m going to run away” he said to me today. Well, who hasn’t felt like running away before. Though I get frustrated with his harsh words; it made me think that these are feelings that we all have from time to time but we rarely voice him. Obviously, as an adult, there is a time and a place and we don’t have the luxury of being a preschooler the “doesn’t know any better.” But, now and again, it doesn’t hurt to tell someone how you really feel. If you are upset with something your spouse has done, maybe telling him or her is better than just ignoring it. My son tells me he is mad and then I address what he is mad about. I validate his feelings. Tell him it’s ok to be mad and then tell him why things are the way they are. He tells me he loves me and moves on to the next thing. “You’re the best mom,” makes my heart skip a beat. “Mama, I love you” as he runs off to play – what a great feeling. I think that watching him learn to state his feelings, talk about them, and then overcome and move on is a growing experience for both of us. As adults, I think we hide our feelings more and more. Maybe having a little preschooler truth in our relationships with regard to our feelings couldn’t hurt.

My son is amazing! Watching him grow and learn each day is a blessing. I love that I have the opportunity to watch him each day and learn from him just as he learns from me. Don’t get me wrong, I learn from my older kids too. But there is something about the honesty and openness of a preschooler than can have you second guessing how you handle things and feeling that you are learning something from them just as they are learning from you.

What do you feel you learn from your preschooler?

Visit me at my blog at www.adventuresinhomeschooling.com

Materials:
Poster board or large paper
Tissue paper
Brown paper bag
Glue
Scissors 
Marker, pen
 

 What do the tree & leaves look like.
Colors.
What's the weather like outside.
What are the animals doing.  (Hibernating, having babies)
Holidays during that season.
What kinds of things do we do during this time of year.


+I cut out a bunch of squares with the tissue paper and used a brown paper bag to cut out the tree trunks.
+We placed the tree trunks where we wanted them on the paper and Kiley glued them down.

We had a good assembly going.  Kiley started singing, "What's going to work? TEAMWORK!"  It's a song off the Wonder Pets show.

 

Visit the link below to read more!

http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/06/zoo-scavenger-hunt.html

Toot & Puddle by Holly Hobbie

To read the rest of the Unit Study, please click on the link below:

http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/06/toot-puddle-unit-study.html

 

To make it fun, I had Kiley go into the kitchen, pick out food that we eat and take a picture of it.  I printed out the pictures and used them to show the different food groups.  We divided each food into it's group and made our own food pyramid.  

She's still learning what food goes in which group.  We play games with the pictures and it's really helped as a visual learning tool.

We read about the Cirrus, Cumulus, Stratus and Alto clouds and saw what each looks like.  Then Kiley made her own clouds out of cotton balls.

It's been so long since I learned about clouds that I had forgotten all about their names and which was which.  So even I learned something!


 

To read the rest of the blog and other Cloudy W/ A Chance of Meatballs activities, go to:

http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/05/cloudy-with-chance-of-meatballs-unit.html

This weeks unit study was on the book Horton Hears A Who by Dr. Seuss.

    The story is about an elephant named Horton who becomes caretaker/protector for a different type of creature from himself, the Who.  This is no easy task, for all the animals in the jungle think he is crazy and steal the Who away from him.  But Horton stands by his friends no matter what happens.

Horton Hears A Who is an excellent story that teaches it's important to stand up for something you believe in, even if everyone else is against you.  I think Horton shows himself to be courageous and a really good friend.  It shouldn't matter how different we are,

"A person's a person.  No matter how small."


 

The Who are so small that the whole town lives on a speck of dust!  They are much different than the animals that live in the Jungle of Nool.

Kiley and I google imaged different cultures.  We were able to see how other countries cultures are different from ours.  We learned about how they look, dress, eat, favorite sports and activities.  Some countries we googled were:
China
Guatemala
Africa
Japan
Australia
Egypt

Horton helped the Who because they were much smaller than him and needed help.  If no one helped them then they could come to great harm.

There are things we do as a family to help those in need.  Some on a regular basis and some a few times a year.  I wanted to find something that Kiley could do on her own and it be something she was passionate about.  She has a heart for other little kids and enjoys making pictures for the little girl we sponsor through VistionTrust. 

I found a site called Latte Losers. You can read about Latte Losers and what Kiley decided to do to help others by visiting the link: http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/04/latte-losers.html

 
Showing A Loved One You Care

This worked out perfect because it's daddy's birthday this week and Kiley wanted to make him a coconut cake.  She's been planning the coconut cake & balloons for over a month now.  And since my husband loves raw goodies we made him a Raw Coconut Cake.  Recipe can be found at this link:
http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/04/raw-coconut-cake.html



 

Horton is the only animal in the jungle that could hear the Who.

To read the rest of the unit study visit:

http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/04/unit-study-on-horton-hears-who.html

This week in homeschool we learned about the letter Q.  Kiley learned how to write it both in upper case and lower case and what sound Q makes.  We made a quail puppet.  Quincy the quail who likes to eat queso.  Also we looked for Q & q all over town and learned lots of things that start with the letter Q.  We do these things every week, but with the following letter in the alphabet.

Doing this every week, especially the silliness with the puppets, has really helped Kiley learn.  Having something tangible and coinciding with a letter helps her to remember what the letter looks like and what sound it makes.

This week we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr & John Archambault

A cute rhyming story where all the lower case letters race up the coconut tree.  And then uppercase "mommy and daddy's" come to the rescue.

It's a fun and witty rhyme with very colorful artwork.  Lots of letter recognition practice opportunities for little ones!








Monday was a quiet day.  Introduction of the letter Q and that afternoon we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

 

Tuesday-practiced Spanish.  We discussed tropical climates, like those that coconut trees grow in, type of weather and animals that live there.  We went to the local produce stand and bought a coconut.  When we got home I had Kiley hold the it and tell me what she knows about coconuts:

Comes out of a coconut tree
We drink it's juice
We eat it
Brown
Fuzzy
Hard
Has 3 little dots




When daddy got home we had him show us how he opens a coconut.  To learn how to open a coconut and interesting health benefits from eating them, click below:
Crack Open A Coconut

 
Wednesday was a fun day at the park.  Kiley's friend Donna came.  We had a picnic and played.  When we got home we used the coconut water from the coconut and made a fruit smoothie!

Fruit Smoothie Ingredients:
2 frozen bananas
Handful of strawberries
Coconut water


Cut up the banana and strawberries.  Then put all the ingredients into a blender and blend that baby up!

To read about the rest of the week and fun activities we did, go to:

http://homeschooljabber.blogspot.com/2012/04/chicka-chicka-boom-boom-letter-q.html

Tease, Tickle, Taunt...Teach?

Apparently, not every child is eager to learn. In fact, "making learning fun" is a billion dollar industry. Everything from "Sesame Street" to "Leap Frog" is an attempt by this billion dollar industry to get kids interested in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Over the past few years I have purchased an assortment of these "Make Learning Fun" products. Yes, my kids really enjoyed them, but I wasn't convinced that very much learning was actually taking place. My daughter could watch a whole Sesame Street episode on the letter J and by the end of the show she could repeat everything but the actual letter. It seemed that the theatrics of the shows were outshining the lessons they were intended to teach.

 

Then I made an amazing discovery. Without spending a single dime, I found a tool that works for every child - every time. It has never failed me. I use it almost everyday, and like a charm, it captivates my children's attention while enhancing the learning process. Before I reveal this tool let me ask you a simple question, "How many times can Daddy pretend to fall down before young children (1-8 yrs. old) don't think its funny anymore?" That's right - infinite. Daddy can pretend to fall an infinite amount of times and toddlers will respond with an infinite amount of laughter. It never gets old - its never "not funny".

 

Well, the tool I discovered applies the same logic. The tool is called "Tease-Tickle-Taunt" and I consider it the ultimate teaching tool. Here is how it works:

 

Before I begin teaching or quizzing my daughter I employ the "Tease."

 

Mom: "I don't know if we should do school today. I think it's too hard for you."

 

Daughter: "No it's not. I can do it!"

 

Mom: "Well, we will see about that. Let's see if you can find Italy."

 

Daughter: (Proudly pointing) "Here it is. See, I can do it Mom."

 

Mom: "You better not get this one right or I'm going to tickle you! It's very hard! Where is Japan?"

 

Daughter: "Ha ha, Here it is!"

 

Now I employ the "Tickle". Kid's loved to be tickled. It is one of those hits that never grow old.

 

Mom: "That's it! I am going to tickle you!" (Tickle, Tickle)

 

Daughter: (Laughing and squealing)

 

Then, I follow through with the "Taunt".

 

Mom: "Well, those ones were too easy. You will never get these next ones!"

 

Daughter: "Yes I will!"

 

That is really all there is to it. I can continue to cycle through various versions of the "Tease-Tickle-Taunt" and I lose interest long before my children do. That is why at my house learning time is a privilege. I never have to nag or fuss. The opposite is true. My kids beg me to do school. People are always telling me how lucky I am that my children sit still long enough to be taught. They tell me their own children just won't sit still and listen. If luck is involved it is the luck that I stumbled upon this great tool. My children are no different than anyone else's and this tool is universal. Utilizing the "Tease, Tickle, Taunt" I have nearly covered the whole alphabet in the same time it takes Sesame Street to cover a single letter. So, the next time you find yourself struggling to teach - don't hesitate to whip out a little "Tease, Tickle, Taunt".

If you liked this post. Please check out my site www.trueaimeducation.com. Thanks!