Preschoolers and Peace - Preschool Planning

Preschool Planning • Aug. 17, 2007

I'm a bit late on the preschool planning this year. The 9th grader is taking the bulk of my planning time, but the beauty is that once I've planned his, the others will be easier to plan as they hit the grades he's already finished because the skeleton will have been built. I tweak each year to fit the child, so things change a bit; still, the framework tends to remain the same.

Our preschooler this year will be four in December. She's our Beach Babe

She knows her basic phonics sounds, thanks to Leap Frog Talking Letter Factory (see sidebar), but as I prefer the vertical approach to teaching and learning phonics, we still have phonics to learn. What's a vertical approach to phonics? In a nutshell, it means that all the phonics sounds are taught for each letter as you go, as opposed to a horizontal approach wherein the child learns just the short vowel sounds and one sound per letter, going back to learn a letter's other sounds later. If you want to know more, you can read about it at VerticalPhonics.com.

By way of example, though, the child using the vertical phonics method would learn that the sounds the letter "A" makes are "a" as in "cat", "ay" as in "plate", and "ah" as in "talk".

Our current preschooler is a girl, which tailors some of our choices. Dolls come to mind- my boys weren't much interested in those

Here are our choices for this year, and in a future post I'll share our daily routine, as well:

Preschool Workbooks
Craft bags, made for her by her big brother, but also available from My Lil' Picasso
Nursery Rhyme Pockets
DK Children's Illustrated Bible
Lauri Puzzles (see sidebar)

Arts and crafts and table activities get rotated or little ones get easily bored:

M- Clay
T- Fingerpaints
W- Wikki Stix
Th- Stamps
F- Coloring pages or Paper Craft

M- Trains
T- Wedgits
W- Dolls
Th- Duplo
F- Preschooler's choice: weaving loom, pegs, or lacing cards

What's going on in your preschool this year?

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Sharing Thoughts

preschool schedule - Aug. 17, 2007

Shared by Anonymous

I'd like to see how you schedule your kiddos. Do you have a MOTH-type schedule?

Tracy in NC

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our preschool - Aug. 17, 2007

Shared by Rebekah

Since I ONLY have preschoolers (3 and 18 months) we have a lot going on this year.

For Bible we use the Betty Lukens felt board for both girls, as well as various Bible CDs and then a short memory verse for the older one. 15 minutes

Reading we've been using "How to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" skipping the writing part and dragging out a daily lesson into 2 days, plus a variety of other phonics songs. (older one only 10-20 minutes)

We've been using the Developing the Early Learner as our preschool workbook. (older one only 10 minutes)

For Spanish we use El Espanol Facil Jr. edition - both girls 10 minutes.

For Science we're using Usborne Adventures of the Human Body 10 week program (for older only, two times a week 10 minutes).

For Geography my daughter LOVES Fifty States Under God for Young Learners (for older only, two days a week 10-20 minutes), we supplement it with print outs from enchantedlearning.com

For Math we have Math U See primer and Kumon Numbers 1-30.

I really cheat on art since I'm not that into arts and crafts and I take them to the library for storytime and a craft that goes with it.

Can't wait to see what everyone else is doing, I love getting new ideas!

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Untitled Comment - Aug. 17, 2007

Shared by Anonymous

Hi Kendra :) I am meeting a new challenge in this area this year! My sweet little Mr S is one and a half and just loves doing "cool! cool!" like his big sister. She will be doing MFW 1st grade, and I am making days of the week activity boxes for him. I am gathering materials for them now (we begin the day after Labor Day) and can share more in a week or so.
Thank you for sharing your Pre4 scheule! I am adding it to my 4yo idea file :) With Love, Q
http://thousayest.blogspot.com

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Oh my goodness! - Aug. 17, 2007

Shared by SnowFairy

The timing of this is just so cool!

My oldest is four and we just started preschool activities today.

I'm flying by the seat of my pants so far (the kids-- 3 and 4 were so eager to start).

But we have a space mapped out (a kid table with a baby fence all the way around to little-bro out). So it seems like I'm finally starting "for real" something I've been anticipating and praying about for years.

(I've already blogged about my morning-- should that be embarrassing?)

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I agree-great timing! - Aug. 19, 2007

Shared by Anonymous

I am just beginning to pull together a routine for my almost 4 year old daughter and 2.5 year son (with a new baby coming in November) so this really is great timing. I also would love to see your schedule, Kendra, as well as see ideas from others. Sometimes it gets a little overwhelming for me because I have so many things I would like to do, but too much is not always good I guess. Just trying to come up with a balanced schedule. --Merri

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Our Schedule - Aug. 19, 2007

Shared by Anonymous

I'll post our fall schedule here soon. I do use a MOTH-like schedule, but I don't use strict time slots. Ours is more of a flow chart because I found I wasn't a nice mom when I was driven by the clock.

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Ooops - Aug. 19, 2007

Shared by PreschoolersandPeace

That last comment was from me :)

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Untitled Comment - Aug. 23, 2007

Shared by Julie

I've found the Never Bored books for ages 4-5 to be lots of fun for my little guy whose 4 1/2 (got them from Timberdoodle.com). He's had some trouble with letters, so we're focusing on one a week with the sound it makes. We're also working on basic things like cutting, gluing, etc. We're doing play doh one day, puzzles another, Mighty Mind (again, see Timberdoodle!), and he gets to make the crafts that we do with our 3rd grader with the Story of the World activity book for history and for science. We're doing gross motor skill stuff, like skipping and gallopping, playing four square and kickball, riding scooters and bikes (he can ride if dad starts him without training wheels!). I'm being more deliberate, but still casual with all of it. I want it to be fun for him.

http://accidentalpastorswife.blogspot.com

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