Homeschool Preschool Activities
I thought I would just finish off my curriculum posting with a quick summary of the preschool activities that I rounded up for the younger two girls. To be honest, we haven't used them too extensively, as L was adjusting to an afternoon preschool schedule in September and I didn't want to push her with too many activities at home, and then in October the broken arm happened and all right-handed things were put on hold.
C has actually done more of these activities than L has, but in the past week there has been a renewed interest (L got her cast off Tuesday! Yay!) and I'm excited to get things going with including the younger ones a bit more in school time.
I'll start with two disclaimers:
1) The internet is a wealth of at-home preschool activities, and I can't really take credit for any of these ideas. They all came from somewhere, and maybe I put my own spin on them or used homemade materials instead of store-bought to save a little money, but the concepts are unoriginal. I'll try to include links to some of my favorite preschool and tot school websites at the end of the post, and hopefully credit will end up being given where credit is due.
2) Although I don't subscribe to any particular philosophy of education, I do find myself a bit more on the Montessori or Waldorf side of things. This year my main goals for the younger girls are all about encouraging increased independence and fine/gross motor skills, getting them outside play time, and providing opportunities to practice practical life skills. I also want to inspire a love of learning and expose them to a lot of different ideas and subject areas. I have a few academic things that I want to check off by the end of the year with L, but that's not the main focus, sort of by accident (see first paragraph of this post) and sort of on purpose. Also, with her in an away-from-home preschool two afternoons a week, if we get in even one of these activities in a week I'm satisfied. Trying to keep this a fun no-pressure situation!
So... allow me to introduce you to the preschool corner:
At the end of the summer we did a toy purge, and were able to empty out this toy bin and move it from our playroom into the corner of the homeschool classroom. I filled it with preschool activities and the younger girls are able to take their pick of something to do while I work with N on the big kid stuff. They tend to wander back and forth between playing with toys in the playroom and doing these activities.
Montessori-inspired practical life activities
Lid Matching. They all love this activity, N included. It supports all kinds of fine motor skills-- pushing, twisting, etc. and of course encourages independence.
Practice pouring. We use either rice or water into different sized cups. This is of course very messy so we save it for the days when I'm in the right kind of mood :) It is a great skill builder, though. With three meals to prepare a day, it surprises me how much of a relief it is when I can ask one of the girls to pour drinks. Just one little thing off my plate makes a huge difference!
Sweeping game. I made a little dry erase score card and they try to successfully sweep the correct number of cotton balls into the bin. This is fun because L and C can do this together and take turns. We need a smaller broom though... I just used an extra adult-sized one we had hanging around the house. This helps with counting, 1-to-1 correspondence, and of course improves sweeping skills so they can help clean up after we practice pouring with rice :)
I would love to add things like zippers, tying laces, etc. to the practical life bin, but we shall see what time allows. Maybe next summer?
Introduction to Handwriting
I bought a big slate at a curriculum sale online and we use chalk bits to do the "Wet, Dry, Try" method... it's an introduction to the Handwriting Without Tears method we're using with N (introducing pencil grip, left-to-right writing, and some preliminary handwriting strokes).
Both younger girls really love this activity.
We also have the Brain Quest Write & Erase Alphabet set, which achieves pretty much the same goal. (We have the numbers one too.) It's harder to teach correct pencil grip on a dry erase marker, though. The chalk bits are great for that!
We also do the roll-a-dough letters activity, which teaches them the components of the different handwriting strokes (big line, little line, big curve, little curve):
I just made my own letter cards and we use homemade play-dough that the girls colored themselves!
Introduction to Phonics and Reading
We purchased a "Get Ready for the Code" book for L (a pre-cursor to Explode the Code which we're using with N, and it's been a big hit):
She does it every once in a while (again, no pressure) and she's a complete whiz. She's got a good handle on phonemes already.
I got this pre-primer sight word cut and paste activity with flaps as part of a bundle when I purchased some lapbooks for N. Sometime in the near future I'd like to do it with L (I'm sure N would gladly help with the cutting and pasting) because I know if they were hanging up on the wall, she would be the type to just go over there and quiz herself and learn them on her own.
Other activities:
We bought L a few pre-k maze books at the beginning of the year and she LOVES those. She did the entire first book in about two days, I think. I try to have her do them with either a broken crayon stub or a pencil with a gripper so she can practice holding correctly.
We also have some tracing and cutting books-- C mostly does the tracing; we haven't done much cutting. Although L still struggles with that skill, I know she gets practice at away-from-home preschool, so I'm not stressing it for now.
Both younger girls love to paint. Watercolors is a much requested activity while we're in our homeschool "classroom".
I just printed out these pumpkin letter tiles and pumpkin pie counting cards (SO cute!) and I'm excited to do some counting and phoneme practice with these before Thanksgiving rolls around.
And of course, there's always free play, biking, running around the backyard, etc. etc.!
Here are my favorite websites where I find lots of printables and ideas for activities:
Welcome to Mommyhood (great stuff for preschoolers!)
The Homeschool Den (I especially love her huge list of things to do with your preschooler)
I'm always on the lookout for other resources, so let me know if you have any good ones!
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