Preschool Week 7, Letter D, Number 4, and baby Moses

This week we focused on the letter D. Again. I actually jumped the boat when we started preschool and wanted to include letters even though the curriculum waited a couple weeks into it...you can read that here. 
But after a week or two into preschool, I realized it was better for us (and a lot easier for me) to just follow the curriculum regardless if Oliver already knows the letters, shapes etc, of what we are covering. I can add to the curriculum each week if it's just too simple for Oliver and I love doing that.
But back to the week, we focused on D, the number 4 and the Bible story of when Moses was born.
I created a page of words with "d" in them for Oliver to find and circle. He still gets frustrated with this because it's hard for  him to make small circles around the d's. But I talked him through and helped him find words that started with the "da, da, da" sound.
Also, I love this picture of our sweet boy. I can see his boyish, childhood all wrapped up in that little face. :)

We played with some play sand this week again, which is ALWAYS a huge hit.
And I also let Oliver put a puzzle together that I printed for free online. It's a puzzle that is in strips you stack, with the number at the end of the strip. You can find the numbers and line them up (1-10) and then the pictures line up too. It's hard to get them (with three year old hands) perfectly lined up, so Oliver wasn't a huge fan. But as his fine motor skills and attention span increase I think he'll like doing this one a little more :).

We read the story of baby Moses this week too, and our craft was very simple for it. I printed the free printouts from ABCJLM and used those. Oliver painted and glued the pieces down on a sheet of paper. He did good gluing them all down in the right sequence (brush, basket, baby).

I found a super cute theme packet for brown bear that I printed for free! I used the sequence bears for Oliver. He's gotten really good at figuring out sequences. And Oliver worked on matching letters (big and little) from his name on this car that I made him.

Another counting activity we did: I used the ladybugs previously and instead of matching them to leaves, I had Oliver count the dots on the lady bugs and match them to the corresponding numbers I had made on sheets of paper. (I just made numbers 1-10 with simple matching dots under them)
He really loved doing this! He counted each dot on the ladybug and on each sheet of paper. He really likes counting and matching!

We are enjoying some lovely weather here in Georgia and it's wonderful to take lunch outside and enojoy these mild fall days together. The boys love being outdoors so any chance we get is always a hit! I am so thankful to be home with the boys to be able to do this with them. Such a huge blessing!
Also, nevermind that my foot looks completely out of proportion with my body. What the?? It's what you get from self timer. ha!

Our week ended with a little paint project. I had created these balloons for Oliver to paint for his daddy. Whose big birthday was that weekend. He did fabulous painting them with much gusto. He really likes to paint shapes. Aren't they pretty in all those colors?

Preschool Week 6: letter C, number 3, Joseph and his coat of colors

All right. I am a bit late posting our progress, since we are actually in week 8 as I write, but I've decided to just post some things we worked on that were particularly interesting that I'd like to remember for later use. Considering we do a lot of things consistently (like our routine things, and working on drawing lines, tracing numbers/letters etc.) it will help me overall not spend too much time here, when I need to spend my time in other places.
So with that being said, and the fact that I may be boring all those faithful readers (hee, hee, all two of you? ;) I will post weekly, or maybe biweekly, but let's not get too hopeful of that!
For our 6th week we were working on the letter C, number 3 and our Bible story was Joseph and the coat of many colors. These along with our weekly Bible verse kept us busy.
Here are some things we worked on {also, I'm warning you now it's going to be a picture heavy post}:

For the letter C, I had Oliver glue down puff balls (pom, poms maybe?) in C and c. He did a great job squeezing out his glue bottle and tapping down all the puff balls. He loves to make lines, so this was right up his alley!
I also introduced him to a new art: q-tip painting. You paint with a q-tip onto a letter that has little circles for you to fill in. I think this was a little too detail oriented for him at this point. He started out trying to fill in the dots and it turned into a great big mass of one blob of color. Which is okay too. He had fun using something new to paint with (q-tip)! I found the templates online for free. We'll keep them handy for more practice.

I created a "C" filled basket for him. To help him with the sound of C (what sound does C make?) I found a lot of items starting with C, and added in some things that didn't start with C. We pulled them out one at a time and talked about what their names were. I asked him each time if that item started with c and he got about half right. Sound is a hard thing to learn, and we'll get there. It was a fun visual way to work on letter sound.

I also drew some items starting with the letter C for Oliver to circle. We'd look at each picture and say what it is, then I'd ask if it started with "C". He circled the things that started with C. Also, I love old fashioned chalk boards. They are not used in schools as much, so I love being able to use one at home. I well remember working on chalk boards in my own schooling days. Is there anything better than a fresh clean slate? (I'm the nerdy one that loved washing the board down, so satisfying)

Oliver practiced cutting with his safety scissors (picked them up at the dollar store), and we had fun counting with a firefly game I printed free online. You put fireflies in the sky then count and find the matching number. He did great on this! He loves math, so far :)

Worked on a matching game (free online) where you match heads and tails.
Another easy game for Oliver. He actually started matching these months ago, and he loves matching games! He also glued down some circles I had cut out of different colored sheets of construction paper, into a caterpillar pattern of his choice. The head may have been in the middle of the body, but that's okay! ;) C is for caterpillar! 

A new thing we tried this week was drawing what I draw. I would draw something and have him copy me. We started with a circle then added to that to make a snowman. Oliver was frustrated at not being able to duplicate it, so we tried again with a simpler picture. A wavy line for water, a curve and line for a boat, a straight line and a triangle added for the sail. He did a lot better with this than the snowman. I'd like to keep doing this with him as it teaches him how to make shapes and lines and also follow direction. He'll be on his way to drawing his own pictures one day! 

And our Bible story craft this week was for the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors. A craft suggestion of ABCJLM was to paint colors on a brown grocery bag that you cut into a coat for your kiddo to wear. The first day we painted Oliver had no interest after about two strokes of paint. So I put it away for the next day. The next day I put paint on a plate for him and he liked this better than using a watercolor set. He painted with his brush, then turned to use his hands. 

Funny thing is, I loved the way the look of the dried paint was all mixed up on the paper plate he used. So we later cut out a coat shape from the paper plate and glued this to a piece of paper. I like that craft better than the original idea! Look at that bright colored coat! 

And that was the end of our week. 

Also, congratulations for making it through this long post. 

Preschool week 2, day 4

Today was a pajama day. Someone woke up a little grumpy and did not want to do school.
This was stated before breakfast. Not getting a good nights sleep, not being a morning person, and not having eaten yet could all be factors in this. Plus the fact that he is only 3, some days are just a little harder to get up and go.
So we kept it low key and I let Oliver stay in pajamas.
After a little guitar practice, we did our routine things, then reviewed our days of creation. Today we learned about day 6, when God created man, woman and the animals. I had drawn out day 6 for Oliver, and my people sketches had to be the worst yet. I have an art background and I'm pretty embarrassed at how poorly drawn Adam and Eve were! I don't think Oliver cared, and I don't think you can see the horrendous figures in this photo (ha!). But Oliver and I talked about what God did on this day, and I let him color with markers. We then moved onto counting. I had written numbers on some paper and Oliver had to match the number with the same amount of felt balls. It started out as more of a game for him to line up the balls (he loves to put things in a row) but once I helped him get a little more focused he did great counting and matching numbers with balls.

We ended our school time with color matching again. Oliver looked for black this time on the pictures. I especially like the black spots he found in the frog picture! It was a low key day for sure, but I'm proud of what Oliver is learning with identifying and counting.

Preschool Day 4

Onward upward! Day 4! We almost made it a week! Woohoo!
Honestly I was a little tired at this point. I know, seriously? It's only preschool?
It's just something new in our everyday, and starting a new routine, making changes can always be a challenge. Even if you enjoy them, somtimes it get's tiring. But I knew that the beginning would be the hardest, and once we'd get our stride we'd be on our way. (Truth, because I'm actually writing this the next week and feeling better about it all already.)
So, here is what day 4 looked like.
Little brothers napping schedule, our late start in the day and the morning in general didn't work out quite as smoothly as the last couple days. So, you roll with it and do the very best you can. We didn't get to do quite as much project wise, and that's okay. If Oliver shows signs of "okay, I'm completely done with this NOW" then I assess the situation, the mood, the time we've spent so far and make a decision to stop, or like we did this morning, take a walk outside while it's beautiful. Also walks are beneficial in lifting the moods of not one but two fussy, grump boys. It's amazing.
Okay, so here's what we did prior to the mad dash, um pleasant walk, outdoors.

After our routine things, we started in on some counting. I decided to change up the ducky scene, since Oliver was not into lady bug counting this morning. I had him match the mama duck and the babies on their corresponding numbers. He likes matching games, and he did great at this. I need to make more of these. (the ducky printout is on ABCJLM, and the yellow ducks I made out of construction paper)
We moved onto some painting icecream scoops and he did great finding colors, learning to rinse his brush between colors (well, kind of, still working on this) and very thoroughly painting each and every square inch of the shapes.
I think it was at this point we loaded up and went for a walk outside. And THAT was the best decision for this morning!

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.