Homeschool Preschool Weeks 23 & 24

L and E are 3.5 years old.  If you read this blog you know that over the past 6 months I've been going back and forth between structured and unstructured homeschool time.  After spending too much time being told by the twins that they're too busy to play with me, I decided to just ring a bell (a triangle, actually) and tell them that it means it's Preschool Time and they need to hurry to their table.  I still set up 6 trays with various activities, but I keep them on the dining room table and pick which one comes next instead of letting the kids decide. This system has been working great so far and we're back to doing 'Preschool' twice a day for 30-60 minutes each session.  I'm always pulling out fun activities and new manipulatives so the girls get excited about our time learning together and don't mind getting pulled away from their dramatic play adventures for a little while.  Here's a sampling of the types of activities we've been doing over the past 2 weeks..

Call For Entries: Math Teachers at Play

Be sure to submit all your math-related blog posts (anything from Preschool through Calculus) for the Math Teachers at Play Carnival by this Friday!  I'll be hosting this month's carnival on Learners in Bloom next week...   

Preschool Science Experiments and Exploration

I come from a family of scientists, so naturally science is one of my favorite subjects to do with my children.  I absolutely love watching their brains at work as we do experiments and they observe, ask questions, try new things, and make inferences - lots of fun!

I rounded up links to some of the science activities I've blogged about over the past year (twins were 2.5-3.5 years old)..

Montessori Monday - Counting Corners with Pushpins

My kids love pushpin activities - they provide great fine motor practice for the pincer grip used in writing.  Today I switched things up a little by including some shapes cut out from construction paper and inviting L and E (3.5 years old) to use the pushpins to count the corners..

Cooking with Kids: 10 Ideas

One of my favorite thing to do with my kids is to let them help me cook and bake.  I've been cooking with the twins since they were 20 months old.  Sure it takes twice as long, and the results are often less than spectacular, but it's really all about the process and I love watching how focused they can get as they work on those fine motor skills.

Here are ten of my favorite Cooking with Kids blog posts from the past year...