Summertime Preschool

  Since we moved here, Hinder and I have been involved in a preschool co-op with a few other stay-at-home moms in our area. We both enjoyed our little class so much, but it recently came to a close for the year.I feel like we had the best experience, and it ended with a fun little picnic at Fort Williams playground.

 (Vyla with her best little friend at our end of the year picnic)

Since this is Hinder's last year of preschool before kindergarten, I feel like I need to work with him more on some basic skills. Not just to get him ready for kindergarten academically, but because I'll really miss the chance to have one on one time with him once our lives get transformed by becoming a part of the public school system. (I can't even think about it too much or I start hyperventilating. How did this happen? Didn't we just have him in a swaddle like...last week?!!) And I can't really trust myself to be on top of it this fall, with a new baby and everything...so it's now or never!

***Warning- this post is mostly for recording purposes, and as a way for me to be accountable to myself to complete this little program we've started. It might be a tad dry.

(insert ultra-boring-to-the-maximum)***

 

So a few months ago I complied a little summer home school preschool program that we've been working through for about 3 weeks now. I'm amazed how much he loves it. After breakfast, it's the first thing he wants to do everyday. I'm so grateful, because if I had to fight him to be motivated it would really ruin the experience.

My basic plan is pretty simple. Each week we have a little theme that we follow. Everyday we do a phonics/phonemic awareness exercise, read books that follow the theme, and usually a math activity. Then we do either an art project, science experiment, cooking project, field trip, or humanities activity. Just depends on what I have on hand or planned for that day. 

Here's what we've done so far:

Week One our theme was about plants. There are so many fun plant/garden books! The highlights of the week were taking a nature walk around our neighborhood and finding a little meadow full of plant-life...

... And then planting our own potted garden. I was a little nervous that we wouldn't get anything to grow and H would be majorly disappointed. (He checked on them just about ever hour the first few days) I can't believe how quickly things sprouted here. That's a major difference from the Eastern Idaho desert. We've since transplanted our little sprouts into bigger containers. He planted green beans, lima beans, a tomato plant, and some squash.

 Week Two's theme was Rainy Day. Our topics included the water cycle and the letter "U" for umbrella. Ironically, most of the week was, in fact, rainy, so I couldn't have planned that better. 

One activity was to cut pictures out that start with the /u/ sound and place them under the umbrella. H does great with initial sounds...and not so great with coloring.  He could really care less about staying in the lines at this point.

We did a little math work with money this week. I love this worksheet. He filled in the blanks with what costs a little or a lot of money, $1.00 or $100. It's always adorable to find out what's going on in a 4 year old head! Cute little illustrations, too.

(In case you can't read it, the boxes say "This costs a little money. It is an umbrella","This costs a lot of money. It is dragon pet", "What can I buy with $1.00? Toy Shark", "What can I buy with $100.00? Pogo Stick)

 Week 3 was all about dinosaurs. Of course, it was a big hit since the boy is border-line obsessed with anything prehistoric. We made fossil imprints with play dough and reenacted a prehistoric mudslide with dino fruit snacks, Oreo bits, and pudding. H especially loved the baking soda volcano. He and his little playmate covered these dinosaur shapes with pasta scales. I love preschool because it's so easy to throw together a project from stuff I have laying around.

 Hinder was so motivated during dinosaur week, we finished all the material before Friday, so I taught him how to make loop-de-loop art. Did you ever do this as a kid? Ya know, when you make a giant squiggle all throughout a paper and  I used to do this all the time! 

Here's my example:

 And here is Hinder's first attempt:

 Pretty darn good!

We just started Week 4, and our theme is Occupations and Transportation. I'm excited for this one because I feel like it's something Hinder doesn't know much about. At the end of today's lesson, I let him make a little construction zone with his matchbox tractors in a pan of cornmeal.

 It was a wretched mess, but look at that silly smile! Highly recommend this for any little boy!

 So far, so good. Having the themes and lessons already outlined makes a huge difference  in my consistency. I can already see some strides that he's making with reading and higher number, but more importantly an increased excitement for learning that I hope never diminishes.