Beyond Picture Books: Longer Real-Alouds for Preschoolers

My kids still love picture books.  Picture books have wonderful illustrations to explore and discuss, rhymes that are terrific for phonemic awareness, and they are just fun to read together, especially when you only have time (or patience) for a couple minutes of reading.  My girls (who just turned 3), however, have started begging for more and more stories and I found myself reading as many as 30 picture books to them every day (we usually read 4 times a day, anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour!).  So I found some longer books to read aloud to them....

Tricycle Reading Game

For the twins' 3rd birthdays, they each received adorable tricycles from my parents.  They've been happily riding them in a loop through the living room and kitchen every day (and are getting fantastically good at turning the tight corners!).  Since the girls (especially L) are demonstrating a 'sweet spot' for phonics at the moment, I reinforced what we've been learning by creating this game for them...

Grocery Store Dramatic Play

I introduced L and E (3 years old) to money recently.  They already knew the concept of money (taking it to the bank, buying stuff, etc..), but were not familiar with the coins and their values.  I promised them that they could use their plastic play money to play 'Grocery Store', so that is the first thing they asked for the next morning, even before breakfast.  It was really simple to set up, and they've been requesting the 'Grocery Store Game' all week...

Preschool Math: Comparing Quantities with the Crocodile Game

Nearly every person I know was taught the 'greater than' and 'less than' symbols as crocodile mouths (the crocodile wants to eat the larger quantity).  Here's a fun game that I put together for my preschoolers (L and E just turned 3) to teach the concept of comparing quantities.  I put magnets on the backs of number tiles a couple weeks ago and we've using them for many fun math activities on our magnet board, but I always seem to forget to take pictures.  For this game, the magnetic backs are not really necessary, and you could even play with cards that have numbers on them (like Uno).  Here are the rules of this simple math game...

Preschool Science: Learning about Air

A couple days ago, the girls (3 years old) and I did some science experiments to learn about the properties of air.  They were inspired by both Building Foundations for Scientific Understanding (BFSU) and the book Science in Seconds for Kids by Jean Potter (which contains over 100 experiments that have very little setup time).  Here are the four experiments we did...

Leaping Frogs Homemade Reading Game

I've been following the phonics reading method described in Teach Your Child to Read in Just 10 Minutes a Day by Sidney Ledson.  I was terrified to hear that schools now take the 'whole word' approach to reading - which is basically teaching kids to memorize sight words rather than decode words using letter sounds.  I know that when adults read, they don't sound out each word, but rather identify it from memory, but I'd rather give my kids the foundations to understand the mechanics of words.  I noticed that when I let the girls watch the Meet the Sight Words DVDs, they learned nearly 50 words very quickly and could soon 'read' sentences, but if they forgot a word (or came to a word they hadn't learned) they guessed what it was (with the guess usually not resembling the correct word at all), which means they were not really reading.  I'm very happy with the phonics approach we're doing now, and the girls (3 years old) are progressing marvelously.  Here's a game I made that followed Sidney Ledson's 'block game', or 'train game', but uses frogs instead...

Homeschool Preschool Curriculum - 2012 / 2013 School Year

I realize that Preschoolers don't really need a "homeschool curriculum" - they just need to play and explore the world!  That's exactly what we're going to do this year.  The curriculum is really just for me to organize fun activities and games in a well-rounded fashion.  I figure that if my twins (just turned three) are receptive to activities that teach Kindergarten-level skills, why not go for it?  I always follow their lead and never force them to complete anything.  Here's our 'curriculum':

Creating Designs with Toys and Household Objects

One of L and E's favorite activities is to use various toys and household objects to create large-scale artwork on our floor.  I have to admit that this is a fun activity for me, as well.  The above photo uses pieces from a letter construction game, but we've used everything from building blocks to markers to plastic animals to create our masterpieces.  Here are some more examples I just have to share..

Paper Cup Stacking

Sometimes the best toys are the least expensive ones.  The other day, E (3 years old) spent the entire morning (yes, multiple hours) stacking paper cups...

Twins Turn Three

The twins (L and E) turned 3 years old last month.  My family came out for the celebration, and then we headed out to visit my husband's family for a week, so things have been busy (thus no blogging for a while).  I can't believe the little preemies I brought home from the hospital 3 years ago are now preschoolers! 

Settling Sibling Arguments with a Calendar

Although I'm blessed with three amazingly well-behaved kids (really!), our house still has its share of sibling arguments.  There is always fighting over which book to read, which show to watch, what color cup each girl gets, who brushes her teeth first, etc., etc., etc...  I've found a (hopefully long-lasting) solution to some of these arguments by letting each of the girls (L and E are 3 years old) get a 'special day' on the calendar.  When it's a girl's 'special day', she gets to go first whenever we take turns and gets the first choice of books/videos/toys/food.  For those random sibling arguments over toys, unless it's clear who took the toy away from whom, the 'special day' will settle the dispute.  Even my husband will ask the girls whose day it is when they fight over something.  We've been doing this system for a week and a half now, and it's working really well.  I've actually observed the girls saying "let's look at the calendar" to each other so they can see whose day it is.  They know the turns alternate so they acknowledge that if it isn't their special day today, they'll have their day tomorrow.  I can't take credit for this idea because I'm sure I heard about it somewhere, but I'm very excited about how well this is working, and wanted to share!

Preschool Learning Activities

Here's a quick summary of some of the learning activities I've been doing with L and E (3 years old).  I've been toying with the idea of trying some more structured 'homeschool preschool' time for the girls, but I realized that we fill most of our day with early learning activities, anyway.  I'd rather keep the structure really flexible for now.  I think the key is to plan enough ideas for things to do each day that when the girls ask for an 'activity', I don't have to scramble to pull something together.  For example, for our daily art activities, if I pull out all the materials I need the night before, I don't have to keep the kids waiting while I look for everything we need for the craft.  So here are some of the recent activities I've put together...

Masking Tape Resist Painting

I mixed up our usual painting routine by giving L and E (3 years old) some painters tape and creating tape-resist artwork.  It's really easy to do and produces neat results.  The tape (both sticking it on and peeling it off) added some new fine motor-skills practice, and the girls had a great time..

Cooking with Kids: Face and Hair Masks

Instead of our usual Cooking Day last week, I enlisted the help of the girls (3 years old) to make an Oatmeal Yogurt Face Mask and an Avocado Hair Mask.  What's more fun than 'cooking up' mushy stuff to slather all over your face and hair?  Here's what we did...

Sticky Mosaics

I usually don't review many products on this blog because, well, I haven't been approached by any companies to do reviews, so if I mention a specific product it's because I really really like it.  I do want to mention something fun that engaged both my girls (almost 3 years old) for well over an hour this week.  It's the My First Sticky Mosaics activity from The Orb Factory.  It is basically little foam stickers in various shapes and colors which are placed on color-coded spots on sturdy cardboard to make a mosaic.  We've had this product since the girls were 2 years old, but at the time, only L had the fine motor skills (and patience) to complete a picture (with a lot of assistance from me).  Earlier this week, I took this activity out and was amazed at how carefully and patiently the girls finished their mosaics...

Preschool Science: Baking Soda and Vinegar

I don't know anyone who hasn't heard of the classic experiment where you add vinegar to baking soda and watch the chemical reaction (which produced carbon dioxide bubbles).  For L and E (3 years old this month), the scientific details of this chemical reaction is beyond their level of comprehension.  However, this fun experiment is a great way to reinforce the concepts of the scientific process and observation...

Nursing Strike

We got back from a wonderful camping trip on Tuesday when Baby H (9 months old)  suddenly decided to go on a nursing strike.  He doesn't appear to be teething, so I'm not sure what prompted it.  I've been pumping, but he doesn't know how to use bottles or sippy cups, so for the first two days the only way he'd take my milk was with a spoon.  Between pumping, spoon-feeding milk to my baby, loading him up on solid food, and taking care of two three-year-olds, it seems that all the time has been sucked out of my day - thus I haven't had the energy to blog all week.  Baby H finally figured out how to use a straw, so I think things will get easier.  I'm also getting over the emotional shock of a baby who happily nursed 8 or more times a day suddenly refusing to even be held in a nursing position (although I'm still holding on to the hope that he'll go back to breastfeeding).

15 Activities with an Alphabet Puzzle Mat

When the girls were 5 months old, they received a Foam Letter & Number Floor Mat Puzzle.  It was useful to keep them from getting hurt as they learned to crawl, stand, and walk, but they soon discovered that they could take the pieces out (and throw them / put them in their mouth), so it was retired shortly after their 1st birthday.  Recently we re-discovered this puzzle mat when cleaning out a storage closet.  I was debating whether to even keep it, but L and E (35 months) have been asking for their Alphabet Mat every single day this week.  Accordingly, I've been making up tons of new activities with this toy, and wanted to share some of these ideas...

Misc Preschool Activities

When I was going through my photos I realized I've taken a few pictures of activities that we've been doing this week that either I've already blogged about, or are not really worthy of their own blog post.  Here's a glimpse of some of these miscellaneous preschool-level learning activities that L and E (35 months) have been doing ...

Yogurt Dots and Banana Ice Cream

Last week I tried out two snacks that I found on Pinterest: Frozen Yogurt Dots, and One Ingredient Banana Ice-Cream.  Initially I was planning on having the girls help me make these for our weekly Cooking Day, but I was low on time, so I made them myself while the kids played with play-dough (making their our meals for their 'babies').  Both treats were fairly easy to make...