Homeschool Preschool: Getting Started!

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My Little Lady will be turning three in April. This, of course, has brought up the topic of preschool. Heck, we are actually behind the ball on it in some circles. We don't know what our plans are for school when she gets older. We've discussed public, private and home school. I honestly don't know what we will do yet. That said, I did want to get started on some form of preschool for her, but don't necessarily want to shell out the money for it and sending her off to "school" just doesn't feel right for me yet. For now, I have decided to do home school preschool. I have invited several other 2/3 year olds (and their mothers) to join us so we'll have a group each time and Little Lady will get the socialization she needs. For now I am doing it once a week. The first half is structured lessons and activities, then a snack, then free crazy running around and playing for the last half. Pretty simple!



 

We started with a form of circle time. Each child just sat on a pillow. Having a specific item or spot for them will help them stay in place. You can just remind them to stay on their pillow. Of course, some might still run off into the other room to play, that is just how they are at this age.
This was our first "class" so everyone introduced themselves. We rolled the ball and the person it went to had to tell us their name. I then wrote it out on the dry erase board as I spelled it out loud. The ball was rolled to someone else and we continued until everyone had introduced themself - or their Mom did. ;-)

 

That was enough sitting for them, so we then did some movement stuff with songs. Wee Sing are great CD's for kids. Their discs include songs and games. Check and see if your local library has them. We did the Follow Me song with everyone taking a turn being the leader and doing a different movement that we would all mimic. Then the Wee Sing Train song to get some more moving in, going slow, then fast, then slow. Lastly we did the colors song where you stand up if you have a certain color on, then spin around and sit down again.

 

After all the music we did a coloring activity that focuses on listening. They had to listen to my instructions to color their picture. The activity and printout are from a book I have with preschool lessons. It is called Superbook Preschool from The Mailbox.  I picked it up the other year from an educational supply store that was going out of business.  It is a really great book. You can also just make your own version of this page and your own instructions. Make one with shapes so they work on colors, shapes and listening all at the same time. Color the stars yellow, the triangle blue, the square red - you get the idea. I drew on a sheet as I told them what they were supposed to do, so they had a visual reference for the instructions too.  They each had a set of crayons and picked out which color I was saying on their own.  They got in some listening, work with colors and identification of the different aspects of the picture.  It also let me see where everyone is at so I can plan lessons accordingly.

That was it!  They then had a little snack and played. Too much more and they probably would have been over it, but this seemed to be just enough stuff to keep their attention. I will share our activities with you each week. Maybe you can start doing this with some of your friends too!  Share any fun lesson ideas you have in the comments!