Saturday, February 19, 2011

Preschool

A few friends and I started an At Home Preschool this week. Here is how we have it organized!

Each Month we are working on a Color and a Shape. We just incorporate those into the lessons each week.

Each Week we are working on a Letter. Different Letter each week. This week was “A”, next week is “B”, and so on.

We meet twice a week for two hours each day and each mom takes a week in rotation. So this week, I had the group both days. Then I won’t have them again for another 5 weeks. Next week, another mom has them both days, and so on.

Each Day we have it broken down into a pretty set schedule. It’s nice because you can be flexible with it, but the kids always will know what is coming next. With five ~3 year olds, their attention span isn’t very long, so we have to keep them moving! It has worked out great!

Our daily schedule is like this:

9:00 - 9:20 Focused Free Play time (while everyone is arriving) then clean up

9:20 - 9:30 Pick helpers for the day, Weather and Day charts

9:30 –9:40 Song w/ finger plays time – Itsy Bitsy Spider, 5 little Monkeys, etc.

9:40 - 9:55 Writing/Worksheet Time

9:55 – 10:10 Snack and then clean up (put their bowls in the sink)

10:10 – 10:20 Story/Quiet Time. Quietly read books, then I read them a story or two.

10:20 – 10:35 Craft Time

10:35 – 10:45 Large Motor Skill Activity

10:45 - 10:55 Free Play with Toys time

10:55 Clean Up

11:00 Home

It has been GREAT! And I don’t feel rushed. I can adjust it as I need each week. That is how we are running the daily schedule!

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Focused Free Play is that we are all working on one activity together. Play Dough, Sensory Box of Beans, Building Blocks, Puzzles, ..that kind of thing!

Helpers we use: Weather Helper, Snack Helper, Craft Helper, Writing Helper, and Special Helper

Large Motor Skill Activity can be anything to help build muscles. I have a 6’ parachute they LOVE!, play twister (learning right and left) running games, etc..

Writing time: Here are a few websites we use:

www.first-school.ws

www.everythingpreschool.com

http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com

but really, we use anything we can find that we want to use for the week that relates to the letter, color, or shape. Please share with us any other great websites you know of, we would greatly appreciate it!

The kids are soooo EXCITED, and so are the mom’s! We just finished our first week, and my son has asked me 3 times already today when the next preschool day is!

2 comments:

Sam and Emily Grindstaff said...

www.letteroftheweek.com, preschoolexpress.com

The Stimpsons said...

Yeah, I also do letteroftheweek.com with both my kids and love it! So fun, thanks for the ideas!