Butterflies...A 3 year old's take

At our local zoo, there was a butterfly exhibit over the summer.  We went several times.  Little Guy always wanted to stay until a butterfly landed on him!  Recently, we took his camera.  Here is his perspective!

Preschool- Planning and Organization

If you know me, you know I am a planner.  As an elementary school teacher, that aspect of my personality helped me in many ways.  As a teacher of 1, I want to make sure that I am giving Little Guy what I gave to my students.  So I am back to planning!

To plan for our homeschool preschool this year, I wanted to make sure I was including many skills, not just the ones I remember.  I started searching for some planners.  I found this one from Homeschool Creations.  It is customizable, so that is really handy.  However, since I am planning on doing preschool only 2 days a week, I did not need a daily planner.  Then I found this one on Not Just Cute.  It is a thematic planner with lots of different aspects of a preschool curriculum.  Based on this, I created my own planner, then tweaked it even more.

This is the planner I used when planning our insects unit.  (Some of the lines show how I wanted it re-organized.)  While I created it in Excel, I found it easier to print and write on.  Not all activities were completed during our unit, but I can use it to roll ideas forward.  After this first draft, I made some modifications.

I feel like this is a very usable document for me. I can have several printed off and plan ideas for the next several units.  It will be great as I search on Pinterest to actually write down the ideas, not just pin them for later, to be forgotten.  I don't think I will fill every box for every unit, but I can use these to make sure that over time all are included.

So now that the planning was under control, I had to organize all these activities.  So I bought this cart.

I'm sure you've seen them before.  I picked my up at JoAnn's.  Its nice because it will hold 10 different activities, with a place to stack additional items on the top.  Previously, I was using some baskets that could stack together, but whenever we went to work, I laid them out on the floor, and they took up a bit of floor space (I can't tell you how many times I kicked and tripped on those baskets!).  Little Guy can easily pull out the drawer he wants and it is easy to find the activity you are looking for. 

How do you organize ideas and activities for your preschooler?

Homeschool Preschool- My plan

I can't believe that Little Guy is 3!  He is getting so big, but is still such a little person.

As moms around me consider where to send their kids to preschool or even as the bigger kids begin a new school year, I have decided to homeschool preschool Little Guy!

I'm not sure how well it will work, but I am excited about the possibilities!  We are going to try this for this year, and then we will re-evaluate in the late spring/summer what to do next.  He will be able to begin kindergarten in 2 years (although that would make him a very young kindergartner). I want to make sure that I have done all I can to prepare him for that, regardless if that is in a public, prviate, or home school.

Based on what I know our schedules will be like over the next year, I know that we will not be able to work on preschool every morning. Little Guy currently naps every afternoon, so I don't want to count on afternoon times, although that may change if/when he drops his nap. My plan is to dedicate 2 mornings a week to our preschool learning.  During those mornings, I want to have more structure in our time to maximize what we do.

My plan is to present learning opportunities to Little Guy through themes. Within each theme, I can read books, present specific letters of the alphabet, review the alphabet as a whole, work on counting, patterning, and other math skills, and learn about the theme.  I will be able to tailor the themes to his interests and what is going on around us.  (I had initially thought about doing a letter of the week.  But when I think about how I like to plan, I decided to go with themes.)

Originally, I was planning on finishing out some random letters and hanging out until the second or third week of September and starting our "preschool" then.  But you know what?  We didn't wait!  Last week was our first week of preschool!  I'll share more about that soon!

To help Little Guy learn from others and with others, I have signed him up for a couple of classes through our local parks and recreation department.  Our zoo offers a "Preschool Zoo" program once a week and I signed him up for a dance class.  In addition, we will continue to do things with our playgroup, attend story time at our local library, and be open to other learning opportunities. 

I am excited and nervous for what lies ahead!  What are your plans for preschool?

Tot School- ABC assessment

With us wrapping up our Tot School and preparing to shift to preschool this fall, I wanted to find out how many and which letters Little Guy could identify.  The thought of sitting him down and drilling him on what he knows is definitely not an option (doesn't sound fun for me or him), so I wanted to do it in a way that incorporates fun and things that we would be doing anyway.

Supplies Needed:

• I printed off the Tot School assessment form from 1+1+1=1.  (Any list of the alphabet would work.)
• Magnetic Letters
• Playdough
• Metal cookie sheet (letters written on the sheet are optional)

 What we did:

• Little Guy sat an his picnic table, where he always does his work.  
• I sat across from him, placing my clipboard with the assessment form on the bench, so he would not see that I was writing.  (My goal was to prevent him from focusing on what I was writing, so he could focus on the letters.)  
• We got out the playdough with letters already mixed in and the cookie sheet.  
• As Little Guy would pull out a letter, I would ask him what it was.  Then I would put it on the cookie sheet in the correct spot.  (He could have put it on himself, but this made it more fun for him that mommy was doing some of the work.)  
• As he pulled out the next letter, I could write his response on my clipboard. 

Things I wrote down:

• If he named a letter correctly, I wrote a check mark.
• If he named a letter incorrectly, I wrote the incorrect name and if he then gave the correct name (for example, Little Guy confuses K and X.  When he found the X, he first said "K" and after prompting "X." I wrote down- next to the X- "K, check mark."
• If he gave a word that starts with that letter.

This was a fun way for me to see what Little Guy knows and find things to continue to work on.

How do you find out what your toddler knows?