Preschool Week 2, day 3

On this day, Oliver wanted to wear his Melissa and Doug construction vest down for school time. He had his hammers too at the table! I think he had three or four at one point but was content with the two (one for each hand) while working. We went outside for our weather check and I love this shot of him gleefully looking up into the sky at the sunshine. Oh sweet boy!
He then counted to 11 back inside and proudly found the number 11 on the calendar (that wasn't the date, but anything that encourages counting is great!)

We were working on day 5 of creation, fish and birds. I spent some time the night before going through magazines for pictures of birds and fish. I cut them out, and on a big sheet of construction paper wrote "fish" and "birds" on separate halves with a line drawn down the middle (I added in clouds and water lines later to help Oliver understand what went where). Oliver sorted through the pictures and places them on the right sides. He loves to search for things and complete puzzles, so this was a lot of fun for him.
A side note: I like to save the materials I make, even though they are so simple (um, also I need to get a laminator for these things) so that I can either use again later, or re-purpose. I thought that I could even use these images for sequencing later, having him sort the size from smallest to largest.

After sorting, we did a little painting with watercolors. I drew day five with fishes and birds for him on a piece of paper with the number 5 on it and he painted it in his choice of paint colors. Lots of green going on here!

After paints we worked on color finding. Oliver already knows his colors so I thought a recognition game would be fun for him. While I was searching for fish and bird pictures I cut out pictures that were just pretty or interesting with color in them. I laid these out and gave Oliver one color of felt pom poms (I picked up a bag of assorted colors at the dollar store) and had him find that color in the pictures. It was a good searching game for him to look at details and take his time. Some pictures only had a little bit of that color so he had to focus on it. He liked this game a lot! We ended the day with some more writing practice with his dry erase marker and worksheets. It was a good school day, we seemed to get a lot in!

Oliver's second week of preschool, days one and two

Sooo, funny story.
I was going through my photos from last week (second week of preschool, done!) and for some odd reason I don't think I took photos on Monday. I'm trying to think through our week and I cannot for the life of me remember what happened on Monday. Did we take a break? I'm fairly certain we did have school that day but I can't remember what we did. Ha! My memory is terrible. Always has been and I'm embarrassed at my lack of memory merely one week ago. Seriously?
Ah well, moving right along. Last week was fairly smooth. There was a day or two that Oliver wasn't quite as into school as he was the week before. One day he quietly told me "I don't want to do school", after I had reminded him at breakfast that we were going to start soon (with much excitement!!). We kept it pretty low key that day and stayed in pajamas throughout it. On Tuesday we celebrated the actual birthday of little brother, so with family over, we didn't do too much for school time. I have one photo from it. We reviewed our days of creation and I had Oliver do this craft for day 4. I think it's my favorite piece of art he's done yet. I had him glue down stars, a moon and a sun on a black piece of construction paper. He did just that. All squished down in on corner with gobs of glue (I took a photo with my phone, so the quality isn't too great).  I love it! It makes me smile whenever I look at it, but I'm proud of him for doing it on his own, no matter what the outcome is.

After review of day four and our routine things done we didn't really do much else as we had family in that day.

Preschool Day 5

Can you hear it? The jubilant shouts coming from this direction?
We made it through a whole week! Perseverance!
Really, it wasn't that rough. It was fun, and I know Oliver enjoyed it as much as me!
Here is what we did to wrap up the week.
{Also, side note, the time we have together goes so fast. I was surprised at how quickly the morning time flew by, and I had intentions of doing some of the activities in the afternoon, once nap is done, both boys are up and dinner time creeps up, we just run out of time to do more. But that's okay too. I just think I'd like to make more time to review throughout the day what we are covering. At least a little. Or limit what we learn even more, keeping it even simpler. We'll see as we go along. I'm taking cues from Oliver as to how much is too much, and what we need to slow down and focus on. (like the ladybug counting thing. needed to back that train up. and we did)}

Okay, so here we go, day five. I was inspired the night before while I was thinking through day 4 of creation. The sun, moon and stars. I had a bag of glow in the dark stars and moons tucked away as a special reward from Oliver's potty training days. Well, Oliver took to potty training SO FAST, with NO PROBLEMS, I never needed them. Not true. I just forgot about them until that very night.
So I had the notion to hang them down from the ceiling over his seat, so he would see them first thing in the morning. He gets SO excited when there is something special out just for him. And when he came down for breakfast, I carried him down the hall and told him quietly that there was something special just for him. He looked up and said with big eyes "Ooo, what is it?" He was excited to see them! And I told him what day of creation they were, what God made and continued to ask him again, while pointing to them to help him remember.
So for day 4 of creation we painted on the illustrated paper I made, and Oliver chose his paints. Which turned into a big massive blackout on that paper, but that's okay too. Also, there was time to start painting himself. (I actually didn't realize he'd started this, and when I did, I thought well at least it's watercolor!)  I also took a shot of him doing our weather on the calendar. He loves this part so much!
We didn't do much more on this day aside from our routine things. We needed to run to the store and start on a major checklist for his little brother's party the next day. Baby brother turning one is a big deal. Well any birthday is a big deal! So our school week ended pretty low key. A great week though, and after celebrating baby brother on Saturday, church on Sunday and a nice needed nap, I was ready to plan for the new week!
Are we really doing schooling? In our home? Craziness!

Preschool Day 3

Okay day 3. Getting even more into routine now. Oliver knew right where to go when we started our school time and was just as excited to get started as he was the past couple days. Yah! We went right into our routine items (weather, calendar, prayer, verse, song) and then went to the first activity. Focusing on the number zero again, Oliver practiced with the dry erase marker. He is doing great making circles, I just keep asking him what number it is to help him remember it's not the letter "o" but the number zero. Kind of tough since they look the same. We also worked on day 3 of creation which is the trees and plants. While my intentions were to have him paint it, I changed my mind and chose something more textural. I tore up some different colored tissue paper (for grasses and flowers) and some brown construction paper (for trees, and sticks). He did great with the glue bottle today, and while there may have been some ginormous piles of glue on the paper, he got the motion down. Squeezing, stopping, putting paper on it, and tap, tap, tapping the paper. 

We then moved onto working on the letter D. This is something I added in. The curriculum doesn't introduce letters until week 3, and I was feeling ambitious and creative the night before while prepping and came up with this game for Oliver. Because he already knows all his letters (smart boy!) knowing what each one says is a brand new thing he has yet to get down. Next step to reading! So, I cut out some D's in some yellow construction paper (great idea-keep LOTS of construction paper on hand for teaching, crafts and learning play!), gathered up a few things that started with a D and put a yellow D next to each one. I didn't have a lot of items around but Oliver had fun searching for the yellow D's next to (or on, taped on a door). I was hoping that finding the D on the item a D started with would help him to visually lock it in his mind. "So door starts with what letter?" 

(I have to admit that I didn't keep up with follow through on this, as I decided to hold off on letters at the end of the week, I felt we were covering enough just sticking to the curriculum, and didn't need to rush as we'd be there soon enough in week 3. But it's still a fun idea I plan to use when we get in letters. Will update if it helps him remember!) 

We wrapped up our school time with a little watercolor painting. Working on colors here, again this information is not new to Oliver, he already knows his colors, but we'll keep on with basics to start and move into color theory (my hopes anyways) later. This ice cream cone project is in ABCJLM. You cut out ice cream scoops and a cone (I also did a cherry, um, over achiever here) and work your way through building the layers of colors on each scoop. I let Oliver paint the cone, and I think the cherry. He amazed me at his precision. I've never given him a shape to paint and he was very thorough in completely covering the entire shape with paint, rather than just making big strokes. Great job Oliver! 

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.