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!

 

 

Homeschool Preschool: fine motor skills and feelings

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This week we had a younger crowd joining us but it seemed like they were still able to do at least some of the things with us. It's never too young to start! Our focus ended up being on fine motor skills and feelings. To start our "class" this week I wrote every one's name on the back of a paper plate.

 

 

  I gathered everyone in our "circle" area and reviewed each name before placing it on the ground. I then put on some music and we all danced around until I paused it. When the music stopped the kids were supposed to find the plate with their name on it. Basically working on name recognition. We repeated this several times until the song was over. Then we set out the pillows for each kid to sit on and we read "The Feelings Book" by Todd Parr. 

 

It goes over lots of different feelings - including several silly ones. I tried to get everyone to make the faces for the different feelings. Once we were done with that it was time for everyone to work at the different centers. There was one for each kid, so everyone took a turn working with their Mom on the specific "skill" at each center.

 



Two of the centers were a string between two chairs - like a clothes line. 

The child had to pick the green (blue at the next center) felt out of the basket and hang it up with the clothes pin.



They had to differentiate between the colors and practice pinching open the clothes pin.



 

The next station had a box full of cotton balls, a pair of tongs, and a Tupperware container. The child had to pick up the cotton balls with the tongs and transfer them to the Tupperware container. They could repeat back and forth.

 

 

 Next was geared more for the younger ones, but the older ones still seemed to enjoy it too. A colander and pipe cleaners. They just stick the pipe cleaners through the holes, the older ones can do both ends and arch them over each other.

 

 

 The last station was more for the older ones. There were a couple sewing cards. They used the string and went in and out of the different holes, threading the string through the card.

 

I had a timer set and when it went off we would all rotate to the next station. Three minutes at each one seemed like plenty of time. We then went to the table for a little drawing activity. They were supposed to draw a happy face and a sad face.

 

 

 Of course most started coloring on them right away or were too young to draw a face - so that didn't work out as well as I hoped! I would find another activity for this part in the future.

 

 Next up was snack. I asked if some people could bring something green to share, reinforcing the color and hoping the kids (primarily mine) would be encouraged to try new things. I have been told several times by Little Lady that she doesn't like "green" - she has apparently decided it is a food category, like fruit or nuts.



 We had kiwi, celery and green jello. The faces some of the kids made while tasting some of the things was priceless! I will say though, they did TRY everything. Whether they FINISHED is a whole other story! We then ended with free play. I really like the "skill" centers and plan to do more of them in the future. I can then also leave them out for my daughter to use while getting lunch ready and tidying up!

 

It is tough to fit much into an hour, which seems to be their max attention span for this stuff.  I might move it up to twice a week in the future. I want to start getting in stuff about the seasons and more work with letters and numbers.  I'm deciding what to do next week.  I printed out some neat cards for teaching children about playing well with each other when I was doing daycare. That is always a good lesson for two year olds!  Now I just need to find them..... 

 

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!

 

 

Getting Organized: Sewing

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As I've admitted, I'm a big remnant bin shopper. This leaves me with lots of random rolls of fabric. I can put them in a drawer and awkwardly sort through them once I've come up with a project, but I knew there was a better way. While cleaning up my closet I came across a shoe organizer I no longer have a need for. In all honesty, I have big feet and I can't fit all that many shoes in it anyways. 

So a method of fabric organization was born!

 

 

Depending on the thickness of the fabric, several rolls can fit in each slot.

 

 

It also makes it easy to see which fabrics would work well together. You could even keep the fabrics meant for specific projects together in their own pouches. Having them out and visible also keeps me thinking about what I can do with them, so hopefully I'll be encouraged to find some time to use them.

As you can see, I'm a fan of using what I already have laying around the house. I happen to have a bunch of pill organizers laying around. Seriously, my Grandmother was getting rid of several and my husband figured we could find a use for them. I mean, really, who couldn't use five pill holders? Well, they happen to make PERFECT bobbin holders!

 

Seriously, it is pretty similar to what they sell in the store for that.

 

Just a few simple things that can make a sewing area that much more enjoyable and productive!