My "Academic" Preschooler

Those that know me well know that I really push that sensory-open ended art during the toddler/preschool years. T. is 3 years old and has had what I describe as "sensory issues".  :-)  He never liked to get his hands dirty...actually, still doesn't for the most part.  Forget any type of messy art...or sensory.  And really, the sensory tubs/pool does not keep his interest for long...even with "clean" materials. Do you know what he really likes?  Academics.  Huh?!  Yes, that's what he likes and thrives on.  So that is throwing me for a little loop this year as most "academic" type tasks usually requires some assistance when you are talking about a 3 year old.  But, we'll get it figured out!  Here are some of the activities we did this past week...

 

Matching numbers to pumpkin seeds.  Ha!  This was on a whim.  I didn't think he really could count sets past 3 so I put only 5 pumpkins down because then the shape would help him "self-correct" but no, I put down the 5 and he tells me, "all of them".  So I went ahead and so that meant there were 2 or 3 of the same shapes.  Oh my goodness!  I was impressed!  He did them all.  He couldn't really count the 9 and 10 correctly but the shapes then helped him but the rest he did on his own.  So, now I'm curious, was it just guessing or not...so now we'll explore that this next week.  :-)  And by the way, this was right up his alley of "fun". Ha!

 

He's really into pumpkins since we went to the neighbors and picked pumpkins.  We have such kind neighbors!  Matching has always come easy for him but again, this is right up his alley as "fun".

 

Measuring scarecrows.  :-)  The time he somewhat shocked me here was that he was getting to the 4th scarecrow and noticed the pattern 1 crow tall, 2 crows tall, 3 crows tall and he looked at me and pointed to the 4th scarecrow and said, "This 4 birds."! 

 

1:1 correspondence.  We'll do this again with different types of tweezers and the pumpkin erasers in a bowl vs. a bag.  I just hadn't planned for him to do this right at the moment but he saw it and wanted too and I didn't have the few moments it took to really prepare it how I would have liked to.  But he was happy!

 

Another favorite of his.  I do not put this under "sensory".  This is fine motor and he loves all sorts of tasks like this.  Very orderly...definitely appeals to his personality. 

 

Matching numbers..again "fun" for him.  He actually recognized them all but the 4 (which I don't use that font for 4 typically and 6, 9...understandably. 

 

Shapes are one area that he really hasn't grasped the names of.  He knows circle but more often than not calls is an "O".  Everything else usually ends up as a "triangle" as his first guess.  So we'll do more of that as time goes on.

 

Definitely another "academic" type activity.  Matching letters to spell words, these were fall theme words.

 

Oh boy, I think I have my work cut out for me.  The nice thing is that our schooling at home routine is starting to settle into a very nice routine...not as overwhelming.  We are figuring out when we need to do what...so usually I have the time to at least slide over to him and review what he did so we can get some growth out of the activities.  :-)  Have I mentioned that he loves "school" and when I don't set trays out for him...we all go a bit crazy...I learned my lesson! 

E is for....

Do you ever have mornings where time flies?  Most of my mornings do but today especially so.  I looked at the clock and saw it was 20 minutes to 11 and I about had a heart attack!  :-D  Until I saw we were almost done.  Actually, we finished at 11:01 AM.  We're getting this timing thing down without having to rush...so that's good!   We try to be done with our center rotation by 11A so that we get cleaned up, lunch prepared and eaten and cleaned up again to go outside.  Not a big deal today since it's pouring out but boy oh boy...time flew!

E is for egg!

Of course, Humpty Dumpty must be included.  So we did a little dice/drawing game from http://www.sugardoodle.info/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3712%3Ahumpty-dumpty-lesson-plans&catid=4294&Itemid=484.  A lot of laughs with this little game!  I like dice games because learning how the dots are formed to symbolize each number, instead of counting each dot individual every time we roll the dice, is a good skill to learn. 

We must always hammer eggshells or the children wouldn't forgive me.  :-)  Well, that might be an exaggeration but hammering eggshells is always a favorite.  So I dyed some eggshells (rubbing alcohol and food coloring) and dyed my hands in the process when the bag had a leak, oops!  :-) And I provided a small wooden hammer.  They also cut out a cardstock egg shape, cutting across the center for a "crack" and then glued the eggshells on top.  

We did a short e and long ee word sort.  Each picture was placed into a plastic egg.  Note that I put the eggs inside of an egg carton.  This allows for review or introduction to the term "dozen".   Not sure if you can find these egg cartons anymore...the ones I have are really old but what I like about them is that it allows for practice in counting from left to right and top to bottom.  A regular egg carton does the same but with only two rows.  I also created color pairs to reinforce the term "pair" and "couple".  And since we read Eggs and Legs: Counting by Twos by Michel Dahl I also incorporated the skip counting concept with this activity.  Side note:  One journal page today read "Look, 6 eggs and 12 legs" and "maybe little falcons" were coming out of the eggs.  Cool beans!  I was expecting something like "chicks".  :-P 

We made sets of 12 by placing one item in each space (1:1) in the egg carton.  I was sure to have more than 12 manipulatives in each cup.  I also was watching for left to right movement while placing the items in as well as they were counting.  I was also listening to how they were counting.

I've found some very nice printables at http://www.sparklebox.co.uk recently.   After watching ABC Twiggles E-What's in the egg? online story, we talked about what other things come from an eggs.  Here is one of the printables I used from the above site, titled Animals That Hatch From Eggs.  The original is a full sheet for each picture.  I printed 4 to a sheet and cut around them to display.

 Tree?  What does that have to do with eggs?   They definitely don't hatch for eggs.  Ha!  Well, I'm trying to incorporate the season and slowly but surely our leaves are starting to change.  So when I came across a recent blog from Teach Preschool I knew it would fit right into our day because they used bottom of egg cartons for the leaves.  We made one big tree, they made individual trees.  I showed the trunk because I wanted to just mention that this activity could be used as a letter T formation activity if you desired.  That wasn't our focus today so we didn't but we did incorporate vocabulary, texture, shades, culture, skin color names, vertical and horizontal lines.  Turned out pretty cute!  Here's her site with the original idea...I do recommend the cardboard egg cartons vs. the foam.

http://www.teachpreschool.org/2011/09/painting-fall-trees-with-egg-cartons-in-preschool/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TeachPreschool+%28Teach+Preschool%29

Have a lovely week!