Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Preschool Day one

We started our week on a Monday and it went pretty smoothly. My curriculum choice that I am using is ABC Jesus Loves Me (ABCJLM). I followed what the lesson plan for the week was pretty closely, and switched up a few things if Oliver already knew them, or if we didn't have the book(s) or item she recommended. I didn't know how closely we'd stick to a strict schedule since Oliver is only three, but my goal was to begin doing a structured day, or "school time" for him. Mornings seem to work the best since his little brother naps. So we stuck to about a 30-60 minute block of time, depending on how long our activities were.
We start with calendar time, looking at the day. Then we go to the weather. I made a few cards with different pictures of weather on them. We go outside and see what the day is like and Oliver chooses what card goes with the day. He loves this activity because he gets to do it all on his own (there's a pocket on our calendar he puts the card in). Then we follow with prayer, a Bible verse and a song about the days of the week.
I wrote a brief outline the night before of what we'd cover in what order. ABCJLM advises that you don't overplan so that you or your kids don't get overwhelmed. Truth. I didn't overplan, but felt ready to go down our list of things to do.
Since we are going over the days of creation the first couple weeks, that was our next focus. I had drawn out simple illustrations for each day of the week on separate pieces of watercolor paper with the number in the corner. For day one it was light and dark. I had Oliver cut or tear up pieces of black paper to glue on a white paper. He used his safety scissors (picked them up at the dollar store) and a glue stick.

we then moved on to working on the number zero. Around and around and around we go! Oliver is pretty good at drawing circles so it was just more practice for him, as well as learning what zero is. I made salt letters with him a few weeks back and these were perfect for him to touch (since ABCJLM recommends making sensory numbers) while he drew it. Then we played with numbers a bit. There is a ducky book that goes with the week, which I don't have, so we just worked on sorting numbers from mama duck and all 5 baby ducks. And that wrapped up our school time.

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