Homeschool Preschool Week 3

L and E (37 months) have just completed their 3rd week for "Homeschool Preschool".  We're still trying to stick with a daily routine, but it's become a lot more flexible.  There are days when they clearly want to play without me, so I let them play while I get some work done.  Other days, L will refuse to call me "Mommy", just "Teacher" and both girls beg for their activity boxes.  We just go with the flow..  Here's a review of the types of learning experiences we've been doing...

Cute Stuff My Kids Say

I need to start recording all the neat things my kids have been saying lately.  Here are a few examples:

School Supplies Activity Tray

I'm like a 'kid in a candy store' when it comes to discount school supplies.  A year ago, around this time I found a ton of clearance pencils, erasers, and pencil cases in a craft store, and made a little activity tray for the girls (who were 2 at the time).  For this activity tray, I showed the girls how to place the pencils in the pencil boxes, and how to put the erasers on the pencils.  This year, I reintroduced the tray to the kids and we made up even more games with it...

Preschool Science: Colors and Capillary Action

There are a number of experiments on light and color that I'd like to do with the kids.  Unfortunately, last week I just couldn't find the time to prep the experiments, so we ended up exploring colors (as well as capillary action) spontaneously using materials we had on hand.  It ended up being a lot of fun.  Here's what we did:

Tapping Syllables

One of our file folder games is a syllable-sorting activity which is just a collection of cards with various pictures, and a little sorting mat to identify whether each word has 1, 2, or 3 syllables.  If I had ink in my printer, I could have created these cards myself (or you could use stickers as well).  To make the activity more fun, I brought out our collection of percussion instruments and we played a bunch of early learning games..

Math Games with Animal Counters

My twins (age 3) are obsessed with little animal figures.  Somehow we've ended up with hundreds of them!  When we moved, I rediscovered a tub of 60 plastic animal counters (5 each of 12 animals), and the girls begged to play with them all week.   Here are some easy games I came up with to reinforce math and logic skills for my Preschoolers...

New TV!

It's true that you could buy your kids the most expensive toys, and they'll still end up playing with the box.....

Sudoku for Little Kids

Recently while surfing Amazon, I was tempted to buy a book called Preschool Sudoku.  Then I realized that the last thing my kids (3 years old) need is another workbook (we have piles and piles of them), and I could totally teach them how to play basic Sudoku myself using things we already have around the house.  Here's how I taught my Preschoolers Sudoku in one evening...

Collaborative Storytelling with Wikki Stix

Wikki Stix are pieces of colored yarn dipped in wax.  They are pliable and sticky - great for making all sorts of creative things.  L and E (3) were very excited to discover Wikki Stix in one of their Preschool Activity Boxes yesterday, and set to work right away making all sorts of creations.  We ended up playing with them all morning, working together to make up stories and scenes that go along with them..

A Day in Our Homeschool Preschool

As I mentioned in some previous posts, I officially started Homeschool Preschool for L and E (37 months) last week.  Basically it involves doing many of the learning activities we've already been doing, but adding a little more structure and calling it 'Preschool'.  This week, many homeschooling bloggers are sharing 'A Day in the Life' posts on the 'Not Back-To-School Blog Hop', where others can get a glimpse of a typical day in their family.  I thought it would be fun to join in.  Here's how our first day of 'school' went...

Sniffing Spices

Whenever I open the pantry, L and E (3) rush to the spices and say "I want to smell something!".  Usually this involves removing all the spice container lids and making a big mess.  Yesterday, I told them that if they sat at the table nicely, I'd take the spices out for them.  We explored our sense of smell with a spontaneous spice-sniffing sensory game..

Playing with Pushpins

Recently, I purchased some inexpensive corkboards and pushpins for the girls to play with.  Since pushpins (or thumbtacks) are sharp and a major choking hazard, I introduced this as a very special activity for "big kids only", supervised the whole time, and made sure we stayed in one place and put every pin back in the box when we were done.  It was a fun, inexpensive activity in creativity and fine-motor skills...

Even More Preschool Learning Activities

We started our 2012/2013 Homeschool Preschool year on Monday.  Every morning since we started, L and E (37 months old) have been requesting to "play Preschool".  I have a separate post planned that details our daily routine, but here's a sneak peak of some of the activities we've been doing...

Mazes on the Whiteboard

E (3) has really been interested in mazes lately.  It's great pre-writing practice and takes a lot of fine motor skill control and concentration.  We've already gone through a bunch of maze workbooks, so I thought I'd draw some mazes for her on the whiteboard.  She absolutely love these!  She's even started drawing her own mazes for her sister to complete.  Here are some photos of my sweet girl in action..

Monkeys on the Number Balance

The other day, while L and E (3) were playing with their hanging monkeys, I brought out the number scale for a quick addition game.  The monkeys were perfect for hanging on the scale and added a bit of variety and whimsy to this math game...

The Growing Up Feet

In preparation for a trip to the shoe store, the twins (3 years old) and I did a quick little activity about foot size.  We were (still are) in the process of moving to a new house (downsizing, but more convenient location), so I wasn't sure where all our old shoes were, or I would have extended this activity to a full Shoe Store Dramatic Play (maybe another time).  Nevertheless, here is what we did...

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...