Homeschool Preschool: Easter fun and letters G and H.

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This week we had to fit in some Easter fun.  I will admit I focused on the fun aspects of Easter, instead of the religious one, quite simply because I didn't really know the religious affiliations of the kids that would be joining us today.  A handful of the kids that join us are actually from our church and we go to the same playgroup on Fridays, where we have religious lessons.  Most of the children are from a meetup group though.  This week's letters were G and H, so I fit those in with our fun.  Oddly, we only had two other little girls join us this week!  I believe it is spring break, which would account for some not making it. 

 

We started with circle time, everyone stood up, twirled around and introduced themselves.  We then all responded "Hello (name)!"

 

We did our opening song and then I went over the weeks' letters with them.

 

I then explained we were going to go hunting - Easter egg hunting!  But first, we needed to practice our hunting skills.  I then put on the WeeSing CD and put on the Lion Hunt song.  You can hear part of it here.  This video is also similar.  We walked around acting out what the man was saying, all as part of our "lion hunt."  When we finished with that I read a little poem about finding eggs in nests on the ground and then we went outside to see if we could find any!  Each little girl carried around a plastic bag to carry their haul.  I told them to just find the eggs and we would worry about opening them up when we got inside.

 

 

It went very smoothly and they quickly found all the eggs - but not too quickly.  There weren't any problems with fighting over eggs either. 

 

When we came back in, everyone opened their eggs to see what was inside.  It was an assortment of letters.  Big H and little h, and Big G and little g.  Each little girl identified each letter and we matched them together.

 

A quick little break for a snack and then we moved onto our craft.

 

I read this book, Little Bunny's Easter Surprise, before our craft but then I realized this book may have been a better choice.  The above one was fine, but the "I need and Easter egg!" book goes over many different types of eggs and the creatures that lay them - so it would be a more educational selection.  We have it, I just didn't think of it until the girls were doing their craft and talking about a chick hatching out of their egg (which happens in the book I read).

 

We ended with everyone decorating an egg.  Just gluing paper pieces I cut out the night before onto egg shapes.  They could also color on them - whatever their hearts desired!

 

So, a pretty simple but fun "class" today! 

 

Helpful Hint: Duvet Cover Craziness

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Do you have a duvet? 

 

Does it have a cover? 

 

Does it always end up an annoying mess where the duvet scrunches down in the cover? 

 

If not, you can stop reading.  Well - go ahead and keep reading.  You still might need this some day.  We had that problem.  Then, one day, I was putting on a cover that my Mother-in-law gave us.  It had these weird little tie things on the inside corners.  Then it hit me.  Somewhere, someone was making duvets with loops to go with duvet covers with strings and you were supposed to tie them together so you didn't get the sliding issue!  Our duvet, of course, didn't have loops on it.  Simple problem to solve. 

 

All you need are strips of fabric or ribbon, a needle and thread.  No machine required.

 

 

For the cover, take two pieces (ribbon or strips of fabric, whatever you have) and sew them on the inside corner.  Repeat on each corner AND at the halfway point on the short sides - where the head of the bed and foot of the bed are. 

 

Next, you'll take one piece of your chosen material and make a loop and attach it to the corner of the duvet.  Repeat on all corners and, again, at the halfway point on the short sides of the duvet.

 

Tie the duvet cover to the loops you made on the duvet on one side.  Then start the process of pulling the duvet cover over the duvet.  Once it is over, tie the remaining side together and close up the duvet cover.

 

Viola.  That should prevent the annoying traveling duvet.  Simple and oh so gratifying.

 

Learn something new every week: Sleep is amazing

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Sleep is amazing.  Seriously though, who doesn't know that.  We all know that.  But sometimes we are reminded of that, like when we don't get any.  My son is 6 months old today!  That went super fast.  BUT - the six months of being able to count on one hand the number of times I have slept "through the night" has not gone by quickly.  Let's not forget about pregnancy - so add a that final trimester onto the tally of months without sleep and it gets pretty rough. 

I haven't posted much lately on this blog, or my family blog, because this Mama has not been getting much sleep.  I am one of those people that needs 8 hours.  Little Man has been waking every 2-3 hours, sometimes every hour, during the night and of course hasn't settled into a nap schedule during the day.  If I held him all day he would be golden, but that isn't possible.  Then pile on an almost 3 year old that is iffy with the naps and a husband that is in school at night and that makes for some looooooooooooong days.

Anywho - sleep is amazing.  And I have gotten some the past two nights.  Hence, my catching up on posts.  Last night my son only woke up once.  ONCE!  He also took two good length naps yesterday.  Sleep begets sleep.  So true.  Heck, I nursed him again when he woke up at 6am (I guess that was his second waking, but that is usually when he gets up) and he is snoozing again.  I was able to get a (kinda) restful nights sleep, get to the gym for a 5am class (yes, I am a glutton for punishment), get home before hubby needed to leave for work, cuddle and nurse with Little Man and BAM - get these posts done.  All before 8am. THAT, my friends, is what sleep can do for you.

Sleep is amazing.

Homeschool Preschool: Letters A and B and playing nicely.

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Okay - so I'm finally finishing up this post.  This was done right after the Letter Recognition one.  We basically started into two letters per week after that one.  This week was A and B.

We started with our circle and had each kid stand up, twirl around, and tell everyone their name.  Some are more willing than others and some take a little while to come out of their shells - all expected!  I had a puppet kid pack that I had gotten from the library (which I totally forgot to take a picture of!), so I took out the finger puppets and moved to our lesson that focused on handling interpersonal relationships during potential conflict situations.  Sounds deep, huh?  Yeah, we talked about playing nicely with each other. 

When a kid doesn't know how to swim, we teach them.  When a kid doesn't know how to spell, we teach them.  When a kid doesn't know how to do math, we teach them.  When a kid doesn't know how to behave......we need to teach them.  I know you don't - but there are people that simply punish a child when they don't know how to behave.  For example, one child is playing with a truck and another child comes up and takes it from them because they wanted it.  The other child hits the one that took it.  Then one or both children get in trouble.  That first kid needed to be given the tools to know what to do in that first situation - as did the second.

 

I got these print outs when I was doing continuing education stuff for child care in Maryland.  It shows kids what the options are when they are presented with a tough situation, like the one I described.  In my class, they suggested laminating them and attaching them with to a ring.  Then, when you're observing the kids and see a situation that this would apply to, you go over with the cards and encourage the kids to look through and pick an option for how they want to solve the problem.  So I used finger puppets and tried to talk it out with them - on finger puppet having a toy that the other one wanted.  What options did the one that wanted the toy have?  Ask nicely for it.  Ask if they can play with it together.  See if they might want to trade. Wait and take turns.  One important part is also teaching the kids that it is okay if the other kid says "No" - just because you ask for something doesn't mean you get it.  The kids were kind of glazed over with this - it would have been much more effective if I had them act it out.  I'll probably try to visit this again and have them play out the scenarios.

 

Then they needed to wiggle. I had one of the parents print and cut out a bunch of apples to use in one of our centers.  Before that, I handed them out to the kids and read some rhymes for them to listen and follow along to.  "You have an apple, it is red.  Put the apple on your HEAD!"  All the kids then had to put the apple on their head.  "An apple is round, as you can see.  Put the apple on you KNEE!"  So on and so on.  You can come up with lots of different ones.  I think we also did a music thing, but honestly can't remember at this point.  Probably a "Freeze" type song - all the kids dance and then have to freeze when the music stops and start dancing again when it starts back up.

 

Then we did centers.

 

 

 

They had to put the acorns in the appropriate basket.  Big A or little a.

 

Seemed to be a popular one.

One center had a print out and they had to color the bird blue, apple red, frog green and the sun yellow. 

 

 

There were also little finger puppets I had glued together the night before for them to color.  A for Aligator and B for Bear.

 

 

Another station had them picking the apples with "A" off the tree.

 

There were also bananas with Big B's and little b's on them (forgot to take a picture) and the kids had to sort them, putting the little b bunch together and the Big B bunch together.

 

 

The last center was just building a tower with red blocks.

 

Then it was time for a snack!

 

There were red strawberries, red peppers and red tomatoes.  Mmmmmmm.

 

Then play time!  (And Mom chat time!)

 

 

Homeschool Preschool: Spring! Letters E and F.

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So - this actually was this weeks lesson!  I know I'm behind, and I actually have the last two weeks or so as drafts in the pipeline.  I even typed one up, spent a ton of time on it too, but then lost my changes!  I figured I will type today's up while it is fresh in my mind and then catch up on the other ones. 

Today is the first day of spring!  Yay!  Looking forward to getting outside more!  So today we focused on talking about spring, as well as the letters E and F (focusing on two letters per week).  First we got in our circle, everyone introduced themselves and sang our "welcome" song.  It is the same song they sing at the library for story time and the same song we sing at our church playgroup.  When searching it online I was very surprised that I couldn't really find it in it's entirety or a video of it.  I found some of it here and have copied the lyrics below. 

 

Hello Song

(Silly Songs)

(Tune: “Skip to My Lou”)

Hello, how are you? (Wave hand.)

Hello, how are you?

Hello, how are you?

How are you this morning?

I am fine, and I hope you are, too. (Point to self, then a friend.)

I am fine, and I hope you are, too.

I am fine, and I hope you are too.

Hope you are fine this morning.

Turn to your neighbor, and shake their hand. (Shake hands.)

Turn to your neighbor and shake their hand.

Turn to your neighbor and shake their hand.

Shake their hand this morning.

 

We also do the repeating verses of: "Reach up high and wave your hands" and "Bend right over and touch your toes" and "spread your arms and flap like a bird" and "roll your head from side to side" and then end it with "Now we're ready to have some fun!" where they swing their arm like a swashbuckling pirate!

 

When all that fun was done we read this book about spring.

 

We talked about the different things on the pages, asking them to identify stuff too.  There was mention of eggs hatching and flowers blooming, which led into us talking about the letters of the day.

 

I didn't do the centers this week.  I wanted to do more group stuff - and I've also been super tired lately.  You'd think an almost 6 month old wouldn't still be waking every 2 hours to eat, right?  Anyways, we did all our activities together today.

 

 

First, I had these two flowers (w/o the petals) on a board.  I explained the flowers had lost their petals and we were all going to help put them back.  The kids took turns picking up a petal from the floor and deciding if it went on the big F or little f flower.  Good old blue painters tape on the back helped them stick it on the appropriate flower.

 

By then they needed to wiggle.  So we put on some music, first putting on the Wee Sing Train song and just moving through the house like a train, at different speeds - getting some energy out.  I then put on the freeze song (any song works, you can pause it yourself, or there are lots of versions where the music will stop and the kids are supposed to freeze when it does).

 

Instead of freezing though, the kids were instructed to look at me and see which letter I was holding up, big E or little e, and they would then run over to that letter on the floor.  I had placed pieces of paper with a big or little E in different areas of the floor.

 

After this I passed out plastic eggs that had pieces of paper in them.  Some had E's and the others had different letters.  The kids then got to open them and tell us if they had an E or not - some were able to say which letter they did have, even if it wasn't an E.

 

Then they did snack.  We had too many kids today to sit at the table, so they had a little picnic on the kitchen floor!

 

 

When they were finishing up their snack I read them "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle and then went over these little cards about how a seed turns into a plant.

 

 

They each then got to plant their own seed!  They put dirt into the little cup, put in their seed, and then topped it off with some more dirt.

 

Everyone got to take home their own little seed.  We'll see if they turn into plants or not!

 

I should probably also get around to starting some seeds for our own vegetable garden!

 

 

 

Homeschool Preschool: Letter Recognition

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Okay - I'm totally behind.  This was done last week.  There is just so much to do, it is hard to get these posts completed and posted sometimes.  Know that feeling?  I'm sure you do.  We all do.  This is just one of those periods of time I'm taking care of so many other things that keeping up with this has become difficult.  But, I like doing this and it is important to do things you like when things get stressful - so here I am!

SO - letter recognition.  Most of our kids know the alphabet song or at least mumble through it.  I wanted to start focusing on the specific letters.  I had a couple ideas brewing and then noticed an Alphabet Kidpack during our weekly library visit.  Check if your lirbary has these.  It is a bag with an assortment of things that all follow a certain theme.

 

This one had several books about the alphabet, a video, a puzzle bag, alphabet cards and a book with activities based on letters!

 

 

I am really liking the books from The Mailbox company.  I noticed some in the kids section this week and checked them out.  They are proving to be a great resource.  I should have them be my sponsor.....

 

We started with our circle time as usual and read one of the books form the Kidpack.  I then took out some flash cards and played a tape - yes a tape - from an old Hooked on Phonics kit my Aunt gave me to use.  It was basically the alphabet song done slowly so you show a card with each letter.  When that was done we sang the song again on our own.

 

Next, we played a little game where there were lillypads spread around with different letters on them.  Each kid took a turn holding the frog and jumping to the letter I asked them to hop to.

 

We then did our "centers" where the kids went around with their Mom and did an activity at each spot.

 

They had to put the items that started with a B into a basket.

 

They matched up some rhyming puzzles.

 

 

They had to swim the fishies over and put them under the matching letter.

 

They had to match up different alphabet cards.

 

There was also a simple sock toss into a bin to get some throwing fun in.

 

Next up was a little craft.  We wrote their names with one letter per car and then mixed them up.  They then unscrambled them to spell their name.

 

Then they glued the cars to a strip of paper.

 

And they had little crowns to wear.

 

We had orange snack items and then playing! 

 

I'm going to play around with the order that we do things, move up the snack and do centers afterwards, otherwise it gets a bit late for that.

 

I will also be posting what we did THIS week in the next day or so!

 

Back to the craziness!