Preschool Homeschool Update + Fun Preschooler Craft

As much as I love doing preschool homeschool with my little miss, it has totally fallen apart in the last two weeks! Well really, I’ve fallen apart with it. Between being out and about way more than usual in those weeks, and then trying to play catch up with life at home, it fell right through the cracks.

At first, I was really upset. I filled my journal with some pretty angsty mom woe entries to the tune of: Am I failing as a mum? Am I letting her down? Will she never make it in school because I forgot some Goldfish activities?! It was at that point I took a step back, and allowed logic to kick in. She is only three. She is already quite smart. Two weeks of not following my plan doesn’t. Matter. One. Bit. And considering she doesn’t have a clue there is a plan to follow, it certainly isn’t phasing her any!

So now, with the anxiety out of the way, I’m ready to try again starting this week! This time knowing that if it doesn’t happen every day, that’s okay too. Yesterday kicked off our ‘Animals’ week, and she loved out activity. Prior to this week, when I was ‘off plan’, I just did some basic learning activities with her when time allotted. We’ve worked on letter sounds, days of the week, and other simple things.

Since the weather has been warmer we’ve finally been able to walk outside daily again! She loves to take ‘treasure walks’ which means we bring one of her beach pails with us, and she fills it with rocks, leaves, pine cones, and anything else that suits her fancy along the way. Since our bucket was getting a little full, I figured why not DO something with all that stuff? And thus, the Treasure Sculpture was born.

She was absolutely thrilled to put these together! I manned the hot glue gun, and she told me exactly where to put the glue, and stuck on every piece herself. The pride was oozing out of her as she placed each piece. She was so focused in her work. I so wished I had waited until the hubs was home so he man the glue gun and I could have taken photos! But there will be other times. These beauties will have a place of honor in the garden this year!

I really liked this activity as it gave her a taste of sculpture, which we’ve never really done before. And like her drawings and paintings, she definitely still favors abstract. It’s very rare that she sits down and tries to draw something specific; she tends to make spirals, or spikes in different patterns around the paper. I don’t encourage either way – I just let her go with it!

I’ll definitely be incorporating these kind of sculptures in our Art Week!

Until next time,

-Kayly

 

Preschool Homeschool: Week 1

This was our first week of doing preschool activities at home. I could write a novel (or at least a short story) about my thoughts on public school vs. homeschool but to sum up I’ll just say I’m entirely split down the middle. I think they both have benefits and downsides.

Regardless of what I end up doing, I wanted to start her on some ‘school’ like things at home, so if I do homeschool, it won’t be a huge change in pace. I’ve planned out the month with a very basic ‘curriculum’ consisting of age appropriate (and attention span appropriate) activities. It’s been going really well!

Shape tracing! She loves to do her worksheets.

This week’s focus is writing and letter practice, and learning the days of the week. Lots of letter, number, and shape tracing along with one big activity each day. She has this ‘My First Calendar’ that we’ve done daily since she received it for her birthday, and she adores it! She’s well on her way to recognizing the day’s of the week (we identify them by first letter) and she is so excited to be able to change the season to spring soon!

Our days of the week activity was really simple – I’m all about simple and cheap! During nap time I cut out some cardboard rectangles on which I wrote the days of the week. Her task was to put them in order (we started with Monday since it’s the day her calendar starts on). She did great!

Thursday we did our biggest activity of the week. Matching uppercase and lowercase letters. This was another simple and cheap project to make!

Using my 1″ circle puncher, I made 52 circles, and wrote the uppercase and lowercase letters on them. Then I hot glued them onto felt. I only used red as I have copious amounts of these red pieces for some reason! Then I cut them out.

The felt board is from a dinosaur felt game her grandma bought her, but making a felt board for this would be so easy – hot glue a big piece of felt to a big piece of cardboard and voila! (The easel is mine that my grandfather made for me.) Her task was to match the lower case letters with their uppercase counterpart. Or as she called it, matching the baby letters with their mommys and daddys. Since she knows all her uppercase letters, learning the lowercase is priority for now. She knows about 1/3 of the lowercase, most obviously the ones that look the same!

However, with all the activities, nothing is pushed. I don’t force her to continue if it’s clear she’s not into it. She is only three, and has plenty of time for school. Most session take about 20 minutes, and so far she has been loving them! Next week we tackle writing numbers, counting to twenty, and maybe some super simple basic math using Goldfish. I think she’ll like that one!

Do you homeschool? What are your thoughts on homeschool vs. public/private school?

-Kayly

Preschool Experiment: Baking Soda and Vinegar!

I’ve decided that this year I’m going to start some preschool level homeschooling with my three year old. We are still debating having her start preschool in the fall, or waiting another year, but I definitely want to start some specific ‘school’ activities at home! I’ve already sat down and planned out the month of March, and I’m using February to prep, and occasionally do some specific activities with her.

This week I decided to set up a mini science experiment. Super basic, super cheap, and most importantly lots of fun for her! First, I got our supplies:

• Baking soda
• Vinegar
• Food coloring
• Squirt bottle
• Cookie sheet

Then I spread out a thin layer of baking soda in the cookie sheet – just enough to cover the bottom. Then, the questions began. First I asked her what she though would happen when we added in drops of food coloring. She told me that it would turn colors – go logic haha! She instructed me where to put each drop of food coloring (I’m not ready to hand over a bottle of food coloring yet!) and then the fun began.

Before we started, I asked her what she thought would happen when she started squirting on the vinegar. She told me she thought it would change color. I thought that was a good guess! Definitely a logical jump.

She started squirting it on very delicately at first, just a little drip on each drop of color. You could see the wonder as she watched it fizz up – she kept exclaiming, “Fizzy bubble colors!” with a little giggle.

Then she really started getting into it and squeezing out a lot of vinegar to make big fizzy sections. Once the bottle was empty, I poured some vinegar into a measuring cup so she could see the difference between dumping it on and squirting it in a line. She definitely preferred the squirt bottle!

I put a little more vinegar in the squirt bottle for her and she kept at it, making sure to soak and fizz every available spot.

Then I gave her a butter knife so she could draw in the paste we had created. She loved swirling all the colors together (despite the fact that when you mix all food coloring together, it makes a sickly green – didn’t seem to bother her). Finally, she declared that her drawing was done, and we left it to dry.

I asked her again what happens when you mix baking soda and vinegar to which she replied, “It makes fizzies!”. I figure we’ll wait a couple years before explaining chemical reactions!

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