Homeschool Preschool Activities

My little boy, H, will be 3 years old next week!  This means that he has graduated from Tot School and has started Preschool (homeschool).  H participates in Circle Time (and other activities) with his older sisters (see my Homeschool Kindergarten day-in-the-life post), but he also gets plenty of his own activities...

While his older sisters can concentrate on worksheets, H needs more physical games and activities.  I usually make up these types of games on-the-fly, like dropping little balls into containers (above) which is wonderful for hand-eye coordination.

I also come up with variations for H based on whatever his sisters are doing.  On a day when L & E were doing math with buttons, H got his own activity for stringing the buttons.

Our Preschool time mostly consists of a series of activities, many of which H can work on independently.  Some of the tasks, like shape/color sorting, are easy but still a good exercise in independent work and concentration.  When H has finished each activity, he cleans up after himself and then is given a new activity.

Almost all the preschool activities we have are things I bought or made when the twins were this age, so I typically don't have any prep-work to do.  The musical instrument matching is just a combination of the musical instrument Toob (small plastic models), and $1 flashcards from Target.

H has a good number sense and is quickly catching up to his sisters in this area.

Many of the preschool activities are taken from other games.  I don't even remember how to play this turtle game, but it does make a wonderful matching activity.

File folder games are also a favorite - like matching these animals to their homes..

.. and matching outfits to the weather.  I'm really glad that I saved (and organize) all these games because H will go through 4 or 5 activities like these every morning.

H is reading simple words now.  He's not only reading CVC words, but also starting to sound out words with beginning and ending blends and some vowel combinations (like ee and oo).

Luckily the twins were reading at a young age as well, so I have a lot of games and activities to help support H in this area.  We're currently reviewing sight words and putting it all together.  H is very excited about learning to read.  He read two simple sentences yesterday and could not have been more pleased with himself.  For more info about my strategy for teaching little kids to read, read this guest post I wrote about Teaching Preschoolers to Read.

Of course I never push the children academically.  We have plenty of time for the fun stuff like cooking with Mommy.

We've been enjoying a lot of homeschool field trips lately - fresh air, sunshine, and exercise is just as important as indoor learning.


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