Preschool In Our Home

 *Post originally written 8/4/14 and sat in the archives.  Enjoy!

In all my planning for the new school year, I find myself back in familiar territory... preschool.  Although I sent my older two to traditional preschool, I still did lots of supplementary activities with them... talking about letters... learning sounds... practicing life skills.  And while this is familiar to me, it's also strange.  I'm now balancing teaching three grades and balance is tricky.

But preschool is all about learning through play.  Finding the joy of learning... keeping school fresh...

On that strain, these are just a few of the things we're incorporating into our preschool year:

• Circle time-- He loves to join the older kids for circle time in the mornings.  Days of the week, months of the year, weather, time, graphing, songs... this is absolutely his favorite time of the day.
• Letter of the week-- Each week (or two) we learn a new letter.  Sometimes he paints a block letter, sometimes he glues beans on it.  Other days he models the letter out of playdoh.  
• Shapes and numbers--We do a similar process with shapes and numbers... sometimes even doing collage art to learn. Most of the time these activities are done while the big kids work at the table.
• Counting everything in sight-- Beans for collage, chocolate chips in cookies, counting for hide and seek, how many otter pops each sibling gets so he gets as many as big brother... math is everywhere.
• Community helpers-- We talk about the ambulance that drives by. Or stop and listen for the fire truck that's on it's way through town.  Or talk about what police officers do.  Most often we ask questions when the kids go to the Dr's office.
• Family structure-- Family is all around us.  Even if they're too far away to visit, they are a great way to learn about family structure, heritage, and history.
• Art--What child doesn't love doing art projects?  Break out the watercolors, crayons, markers, tissue paper... I've planned a few projects here and there, but I'm also open to letting him explore and learn on his own.
• Reading-- We love to read in our house. He's always a part of bedtime reading at night and reading our chapter books during the day.  I don't expect him to sit through the whole thing 'cause it's sometimes over his head. But he enjoys it and hears vocabulary, sentence structure, history, science... all kinds of new ideas.  And although he's still young this year, I know that next year he'll be ready to learn and we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
• Life skills-- Helping mommy with lunch... putting on shoes... picking up after himself... these and so many more are just a part of learning at home and growing up.  And I'm excited to see him grow in all these areas in the next year.

So what about you?  Do you have a preschooler at home?    What will you be learning this year?