First Day of Preschool

It's our first day of preschool!

Someone was very excited!  He went on and on about how he wanted to do activities and learn things and I how need to clean the living room to make sure there's room for him to go to preschool in there.

We started with the date and weather:

I began with stating that today was Monday, the 19th, and we counted together to 19.

We spelled August and found the number that means August.

We looked out the window at the beautiful sunny day and made sure the arrow on our weather wheel pointed to the right slice.

We identified the letter (F) and number (2) of the day.  

I am following the Handwriting Without Tears winning order in regard to how I pick the letter of the day; with the hopes that after several activities with the goal of growing familiar with the shape and "feel" of each letter, Oliver will be able to trace and write the letter.  

The numbers will go in order, starting at two (I just felt that was a good place to start).  I will go back and touch the concepts of one and none, but for lesson planning, I chose to start at two.

Then we sang a few songs:

The Wheels on the Bus (of course!), and 

Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes (at different speeds to make it silly and fun).

At some point I want to make picture cards to represent a few songs for them to select out of a bag because I think they'll get a kick out of choosing our morning songs that way.

Our letter and number activities for the day were Do-A-Dot pages using our homemade dabbers.

I presented two folders, each with a name on them, and Oliver was able to identify his own and his brother's.  On one side was his sheet with the letter, and the other side had the number.  We will add to them weekly.

I was so very surprised that Owen, at 22 months, didn't stray from the shapes of the letter and number.  (In fact, I even considered his letter to be neater than his big brother's, who would press down too hard with the dabber so that it slipped).

At this point we were way ahead of our timetable...but who cares?  I acknowledge that creating that was more for my own benefit than theirs; so that I have no excuses for not finding time to do things.  

It was nice to find ourselves so ahead of schedule.  It assured me that I was not biting off more than we could chew, and I took a moment to revel in the fact that as homeschoolers we are not bound to a strict schedule, instead viewing it as a tool to guide us as needed.

Also, I was able to let transitions happen naturally.  Even if we were behind schedule, I think it's important to move at their pace.  If they need to run around between tasks.... well, there is no hall pass necessary, and no principal's office they'll land in.

For story time we read All of Me!: A Book of Thanks, by Molly Bang.  It was a great book to illustrate the form-equals-function aspect of examining our bodies, the focus of the day.

We also read a board book from the dollar store, a book about firefighters, and we got through a few pages of a children's internal anatomy book.

         

After snack time, we moved on to our subject study for the day.  Today we looked at pictures of animals and observed how their bodies are different than ours (e.g. Giraffes have long necks because they need to reach the leaves up high.  We do not have long necks because we don't need to reach for our food that way.  Owls hunt at night and that is why their eyes are much larger than ours.  Frogs have webbed toes because it helps them swim through the water, etc).  I consider this preschool science.

On a sheet of paper I listed animals 1-6, and actions 1-6.  I had the kids roll a set of oversized foam dice from the dollar store, one at a time.  Oliver would count the dots to see what number was rolled, and we matched it up to our paper to see what silly thing he needed to do.  For example, Oliver had to climb like a koala.  In this case we talked about the use of a koala's long nails in grabbing on to the tree.  Another roll had Oliver climb like a giraffe.  Right away he knew this was ridiculous, "Giraffe's don't do that!"  In this case we used our imagination to picture a giraffe using his long neck to wrap around the tree and pull himself up.  Other rolls had Oliver walk like a duck, or sing like an owl.

And that was all I wanted to get through for the day.  The only problems came from little brother; I need to be better about having things to occupy him.  This is tricky because each boy wants to do what the other is doing.  So if Owen has a tot-tray, you know Oliver will be all over that... and while Oliver is doing a worksheet, Owen wants to see what's going on.  I think it would help to have a set of shelves for each boy with personalized busy activities, but I have neither the shelves nor the space for shelves.  I'm sure we will figure something out.

I offered some TV time to the kids, but Oliver did not want it....SHOCK! Seriously...woah. Is this my child?

Instead, I showed them the different activities I put into what I called his "busy bins" for them to play with.

And here they are making their way through the games:

Jumping frogs... which caused much frustration because they couldn't get them to actually jump.  Instead they settled for sorting and stacking them up.

Foam Anatomy Puzzle... definitely a far cry from true anatomy, but he loves puzzles and he's not even 4, soooooooo....good enough.  The first time around I helped him and tried to give simple explanations of some of the organs functions.  He was able to do it all by himself the second time.

Magnetic Letter Book.  Each page has an illustration, a sentence about the picture, and a word to match the letters to.  This was good lower case letter identification practice for him.

Bolt and Nut Pieces.  This was frustrating to the little bugger who didn't quite grasp the concept.  But he independently adapted the game so that he would match the colors of the pieces and stack the bolt on top of the nut.  He was very proud of himself.

Then came lunch, yard play, nap time (quiet time for the big one), and then some cookie baking (they creamed the butter and sugars...which is what? step 1? before they lost interest!) and tv watching while I made dinner.

We had a great day.... definitely set the bar for the school year pretty high!

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Here is our little preschooler earlier this morning: getting ready for his first day of school.  Here's to a smooth start to the school year!