Preschool fun!

One Schooling at Home struggle, is that my very academic preschooler really doesn't get the 1:1 I like to provide at this age...especially with reading.  But, really, he's probably more advanced than either of my other two were...mainly because preschoolers are like sponges and he is just absorbing so much that happens around the kitchen table!  But I do thank our 3rd grader who takes him under her wing often and does things like read a book to him!  :-)  So sweet! 

 

  Oh yeah!  Lite Brite.  We were so excited to get some new patterns for our very old Lite Brite.  He took his time sorting out pegs (this helped reinforced which color when with each letter) and then painstakingly put each peg where it needs to be only to find out there wasn't enough whites!  Ugh!  I so don't like it when things like that happen.  And do you think we can just purchase pegs by themselves?  No, I can only find small packs with the new cube Lite Brite patterns.  :-(  So, anyone have any Lite Brite pegs they want to get rid of?!!  :-D

 

3rd grader brought in a craft she created at home with T. in mind.  How sweet!  He enjoyed the alphabet board and matched foamie letters to it.  He's starting in with sounds of the letters now...how fun! 

 

File Folder Games...an ol' time favorite.  Unfortunately I do not have time to make them...but glad that our local library has a few we can check out!  T. loves them!  Rhyming, goes together, letter sounds, size, shapes, colors, etc. 

 

T.  loves to do things similar to what the other kiddos do.  (One day I gave him a few "worksheets" to do...I'm not big on them but he loves them.  When he finished them I said, "You can put them in the basket now."  Oh, it was hilarious!  "Really?!  Put it in the kids' basket?"   Yes, T.  :-)  That made his day!  Anyway, 1st grader is working on counting money so T. was sorting coins on a mat. :-)

 

This is what T. often chooses to do during our minute test in the mornings.  I like to see how his drawings change over the course of time. :-)

 

He cut the lion out all by himself! 

 

Then he added a pattern mane, flipped it over and wrote his name.  :-)  Then he wanted to write the word lion.  :-)  Love those little moments.  When I asked him to spell it he told me "lion, /l/, L".  Today I overheard him talking to someone about how to spell his name.  Then he said, dad, a in the middle and 2 D's.  Fun!

 

Child Care Land idea called "scrunch and glue".  All it is a page with random dots.  He uses liquid glue (perfect for glue control!) on the dots and then scrunches a piece of tissue paper and sticks it on top of the glue dot.  GREAT fine motor!  Good for reinforcing colors as well.  He enjoyed this very simple activity.  Side note, this is the first year I actually purchased precut tissue paper squares....in like 15 years.  I always was that penny pincher and just cut my own tissue paper.  How silly.  I recommend you just spend the few extra pennies and buy the precut ones.  LOL

 

There's that 3rd grader with T. again.  :-)  She has such mothering tendencies.  A sweetheart.  They organized the pool for water play.  :-)

 

 

This is always a favorite!  A bit messy, but so fun for the kids.  Practice blowing in the straw first!  Soapy water is a little gross!  :-)  I used liquid watercolors and dish soap.  And of course the other kids in the kitchen didn't get anything else done during that time.  :-P  We ended up doing it as a whole group activity during our Free Friday activities.  They had such fun!

 

And, a weekend activity.  T. LOVES to help in the kitchen.  He does quite a bit with me.  Please allow your preschoolers to help as much as possible...great for learning responsibility, helping with their self-confidence, and is awesome for fine motor development!  Here he is making us some sugar cookies.  :-)  He felt very important using the hand mixer!

This and That

Little guy and his brothers. 

He wasn't so fond of putting on a costume, as usual, but I'm betting that next year won't be an issue.  We didn't have to walk up to any door with him once he realized there was candy involved...and though he wouldn't say Trick 'or' Treat...he did give a resounding "Thank-you" after most houses.  :-)

A few things T. enjoyed recently...

Letter Sort

Tiles in mashed potato flakes.  :-)  A little messy but easy clean up.

He'd dig through with the spoon but not really "shake off" the extra flakes.  That made too much mess for him since he couldn't control the spoons so well...so he ended up digging through with the spoon and when one got on top he'd pick it up and place it on the mat.  Mr. Perfectionist here...time to go outside (his favorite part of the day, of course) but he was missing 2 letters and COULD/would not go outside until someone helped him find them.  LOL

 

I think this little book was a birthday gift and we are just now getting to it. :-P Actually, I had to find time to tear all the pages out of the workbook and put them in plastic sheet protectors...to allow him to do it again and again. :-) I'm fond of the Kumon Tracing workbook. This one is nice also. It's called Fun to Trace the ISBN number is 978-1-60553-648-4.  Beginner lines, shapes, letters, numbers, and more "maze" like lines in the back. He loved it! And...this is the first time he actually did loops!

 

Now, this is a great picture of Mr. T! LOL Wonder what he was saying to me.  T. does not care for playdough. Really?! Yes, really. I can't get him to play with it at all. But, if I create snakes for him to cut, yes, that's okay. Got to love this kid!  :-)

 Should probably think twice about posting this picture.  I know there was quite the controversy over this not too long ago.  Yes, those are thumb tacks.  

I wouldn't say the process of this was his favorite activity.  It worked the muscles in his fingers and it took him 5 days to do (one day per letter) but the great thing about the project was that when he was done...he was very proud of it!  So, that in itself is a good thing to learn young...perseverance!  Anyway...please supervise if you are allowing your children to use thumbtacks.

 

Give him a tub of sand in the pool and will he explore?  Nope.  Give him some sand at the table with a spoon, funnel, bottles and happy as a pea.  :-P

 

If you haven't done this yet...please do!  :-)  Fill a clear jar over 3/4 of the way full, squirt shaving cream into the jar to fill to the top.  Two primary colored containers of water and two eye droppers.  The colors will eventually make it through the shaving cream and mix.

 

Another, "right up his alley" activity.  :-)  I didn't hide the tiles this time.  Just plopped them on a tray.  He loved it and even started singing ABC song.  The stickler...he actually started going from left to right and the pumpkins went in a vine like pattern left to right then right to left.  Messed him up...but it did show me that he's starting to internalize the left to right movements. 

 

He enjoyed the end product of his paper cutting pumpkin. 

I often had him snipping paper and then we'd paste it into a project.

 

 

 

Water Beads are always a hit!  These have been around for quite awhile.  They have even been outside in the garage in hot and freezing temperatures.  No mold (that's what I was afraid of) and did not freeze.  Cool beans! Oh, look at that...you have Tuesday on the left in the digger shirt and Wedneday on the right in the Thomas shirt.  LOL  Have you noticed all the digger and Thomas shirts?  No, these weren't taken on the same days.  :-P  And I promise they are clean...and on the rare occaision we talk him into a red or green striped shirt because the other two are in the laundry...he's not all that happy.  :-) 

 

Mr. T. has moved from 12 piece puzzles to 24 piece puzzles.  Um, well those won't last long either.  Next stop, 63 piece.  One benefit of the larger puzzles is that it gives me a few more minutes!  I particularly like these dollar store nursery rhyme puzzles.  The quality isn't the best but it's nice to reinforce the song.  T. hasn't learned them like the other kids did.  I think they are great for teaching phonological awareness.

 

 

Oh my, not very happy here...blurry pic, sorry.  This was his first "real" cutting project.  I put glue on the border to make it a little harder for him to cross over into the acorn...but it didn't help and heaven help us when he accidentally cut inside the acorn instead of outside.  But, he did pretty well and the next step was to crunch up leaves and paint/glitter the acorn...the really neat thing was that I thought he'd balk at crinkling up the leaves but he didn't!

I wouldn't say the end product was beautiful but the process sure was!  He's proud of his work and that's what counts!
 

And there he is!  Mr. T.  3 years 5 months...even had his first dentist appointment today and though he refused to talk to anyone...he did great.  :-P

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!