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!

 

 

Christmas Thank You Cards

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'Tis the season for thank you notes!

The past two years I've turned our thank you cards into a fun project I can do with my daughter.  Last year was potato stamps, this year we reused some wrapping paper.  I saw a neat idea for cards using old wrapping paper here, but I knew it would be asking a bit much from a two year old, so we did our own version.

 

We started out with our old paper.  I gave Little Lady a pair of kid safe scissors and told her to cut away and also gave her the option to rip it up into little bits. 

 

 

 

 

She opted for the scissors, since they were a novelty.  In reality, I made most of the scraps. She was pretty into those scissors.

 

 



This is a really great project for getting some "destructive" energy out.  Let them rip up the paper to their hearts content!

 

Next, we grabbed some big index cards (5" x 8"), and folded them in half.

 

Then give the kiddos some glue sticks, or a bottle of glue and have them spread it all over the front of the card.  A glue stick is probably best, but I somehow couldn't find ours when we were doing this.

 

Have them pick out scraps to place on the card.  While they are doing this you can ask what colors are on the scrap of paper or what shapes - use it as a teaching/learning project too.

 

Some of the pieces they put on will overlap the edge, just trim along the edge once everything is dry.

 

 

You'll then have a bunch of cards to let dry.  Admitedly, she did eventually tire of putting the paper on and wanted to go back to cutting with the scissors, so I finished up the last couple.

 

While they dry, hop on your computer and print up a sheet with a bunch of "Thank You" on it, in whatever font you want.  You can also just hand write it too, whatever works for you.

Cut them out, again, have fun with it.  I obviously did the cutting, Little Lady isn't quite there yet, but if you have an older kid they can do this part too.

 

I then pulled out the Modge Podge and did a quick covering over the front, "unifying" the papers on the front and the "Thank You" tag. 

Kids can help out with that part too, but I did it after Little Lady was in bed.

 

There you go!  The finished project - you have a pretty easy kid craft and personalized thank you cards!  Just stick them in some 4.375 x 5.75 envelopes and mail them off! 

 

 After you write in them, of course.

 

 

Kid painted onesie!

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Then end of pregnancy, while chasing around a two year old, can be very exhausting and challenging.  I had to come up with fun things for my daughter to do that would engage her and where I could, in all honesty, just sit there and not have to move around too much!  My daughter was very aware that Mama had a baby in her belly.  She went to my appointments with me and sonograms.  Part of that was because we moved halfway through the pregnancy and we didn't have anyone to watch her here, but I also wanted her to learn about the awesomeness of babies and where they started out.  I think keeping her very much a part of the process was a great thing and really helped her welcome her new little brother into the family gradually, so it wasn't as big of an adjustment once he popped out!  I thought it would be great for her to have a present to give Little Man once he made his debut and even better if it was something she made.  We have TONS of white onesies from when she was a baby that were getting passed on to him.  I like to keep things simple and try to reuse what we already have, so I thought a personalized onesie would be perfect!  So, here is a......

 

Kid Painted Onesie

 

 

For this project you'll need:

 

Plain white onesies or t-shirts.  We had an assortment of sizes and I had no idea how big he would be, so we did one short sleeve shirt and one long sleeve onesie, both 3 months.  Little Lady went straight into 3 month sizes, so I figured that would be safe.

 

Fabric Painting Medium.  I used DecoArt fabric painting medium. 

 Pretty sure I just picked it up at JoAnn Fabrics.

 

Acrylic Paints.  Whatever colors you choose.

 

Cardboard, brushes, plate, tape, pencils, whatever fun things you want to paint with.  Really, have fun with it.  You're kid will get a kick out of using different things.

 

 

 

 

Little Man was due at the end of September, so I figured a fall one would be cute.  I taped a rough tree shape to give Little Lady something to work around.  I know there are much more "professional" ways of doing this, but I'm a fan of using whatever I have laying around, so I used good old blue painters tape.

 

You mix the textile medium with the acrylic paint (follow the instructions for the ratio).  You don't need much.  I also suggest putting a scrap piece of cardboard inside the shirt so the paint doesn't seep through to the back of the shirt.  I didn't do it with the first one she did, but did with the second.

 

She started out using unsharpened pencils, dipping the end in the paint and tapping it on the shirt.  She enjoyed the different use of the pencil and getting to bang it.  What kid doesn't like bashing things?

 

I had envisioned the dots representing leaves, all around the taped off tree, leaving a white tree surrounded by leaves.  Ambitious on my part.

 

 

She tired of the dots before too long.

 

Ready to move on!

 

 

Since she tired of the "leaf" circles quickly, we filled in where the tape had been with the paint to represent the tree.

 

 

This one we slid the cardboard into.

 

She used the brushes for this one, painting some areas before we put our "stencils" on.  For this one we, okay - I, cut different shapes out of tape and put them on the shirt.  Little Lady then painted over the tape with the different colors.

 

We also used this opportunity to review the different shapes and colors.

 

 

 

Follow the directions on your textile medium for drying.  Typically letting it dry for 24 hours, ironing and then tossing in the wash.

 

 

When Little Man finally arrived, she was excited to give him the presents she made for him.

 

 

 

She loved seeing him wear them.

 

 

And I did too.