Monday, September 24, 2012

Preschool at Home

When Seth turned two I decided I would start Tot School with him. For the last year we have focused on letters or themes each week to help guide his learning. I have had a blast preparing things for Seth to do each week and I think he has enjoyed all the learning. Seth knows all of the letters (but not the sounds), colors, shapes, and can count to 12. He knows how to cut (although not on specific lines), glue, and hold a pencil correctly (most of the time). He's learned lots of other things too, but now that he's three, I thought we needed something more. I searched and searched for the perfect preschool curriculum but I just couldn't find anything that I liked. So I decided with the help of Pinterest, I would come up with my own plans each week. 

Each week we are going to try to do the following:
  • Focus on a letter and the sounds of that letter (For example, we will focus on the letter A this week. We will circle A’s in a nursery rhyme, play with animal stickers, do apple crafts, fine motor practice: tweezing ants, etc.)
  • Math- Counting (We will practice counting to 20 each day and this week focus on writing the number 1) Shapes (We will do hot glue rubbings.) Other Math concepts
  • Writing- (We will focus on writing our name for a while.)
  • Bible Story- This is one thing that I felt was lacking this past year. While we read Bible stories, we didn't specifically do crafts with them. We will focus on one story a week and do lots of fun stuff with the story. (This week we are focusing on Creation. We plan to do a Number creation craft, make creation sticks, earth with hands, and creation cups)
  • Focus Verse-We attempted this last year, but I gave up on it after a few weeks. I don't think Seth was ready to memorize a verse then. I think he's ready now. (This week our verse is: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Genesis 1:1)
  • Nursery Rhyme/Finger Play- I don't think Seth has been exposed to enough nursery rhymes so we will practice saying a specific nursery rhyme each day, (This week we are learning "Way Up High in the Apple Tree" and I made a felt apple tree and apples to go along with it.)
  • Songs- We will sing the ABC’s and The Ants Go Marching each day this week
At the end of each week I still plan to share what we learned. Just like last year, we might skip a week now and then and we might add or take away some things after we really get going with this new learning time. It's just the beginning, but I think it's doable and I feel confident that Seth will enjoy all that we are going to do.

4 comments:

  1. I love all your stuff! You should totally market this. :) I bought a Bible curriculum this year that I think we are going to love called Telling God's Story. In a couple of years, you should definitely check it out for your boys. It has crafts, recipes, coloring pages, etc for the parables and miracles of Jesus, the beatitudes and lots of great New Testament stories. There are plans for this company to continue to make a full Bible curriculum including the Old Testament. It's a new favorite at our house. :)

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    1. Hayley, thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely check it out!

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  2. I love your plan! We have an Awana cd for preschool (2 of them actually) where they set the target verses to music. It made learning them so much easier for Owen and we find ourselves singing them all the time. Let me know if you're interested and I'd be happy to burn you a copy!

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    1. Shelley, I would love a copy! I think that would be so helpful.

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