Getting ready

Tomorrow Landon and I will start our school time.  I'm working on what exactly to call our school time but for now it's just "Mom's School".  Today I thought I would show you what my plans are for the week and how I plan to do Calendar Time.  I use the word "plan" because everything may change the first few days if things are not working as I had thought they would or, as I already now for this week, our schedule may change.

Here are some pictures of what our Calendar looks like.

 For the calendar we will count the days up to the current date.  I am going to have 3 numbers on the green board and he will choose the number that will come next.  Now, I know that he is not ready to do this on his own and I know that he doesn't and won't know his numbers up to 20 to 31 for a while but there is no reason not to expose him to these numbers.  I will help him find the correct number by giving him hints such as, "which of these numbers has a 3 in it", or something like that.  I will read the number choices to him correctly just so that he see and hears the numbers and who knows, maybe he will learn these numbers quicker than anyone thinks.  After the date we will "read" the month and the day of the week.  During this time we will say or sing all of the days of the week and the months of the year.  When we are done we will go over "Today is (day of the week) ,  (Month) (date).  I don't have a spot written out for this yet but I'm thinking I need one for Landon to see as we say it.  I'll have to work on that.

The other parts of our calendar will be "Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday",  "The Weather Outside Is", "What Color?, and "How Many?".  For "Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday" we just go over it so that he hears those words.  For "The Weather Outside Is" we will open the door go outside on the porch and look.  We will talk about what we see and then come back in.  I will have 3 choices for him to choose from on the green board and he will pick one and place it on the chart.  The color and how many charts are my creation.  Learning his colors, or at least consistently telling me the correct color, has been difficult so I wanted to add something to our daily routine that would specifically go over it at least once every day.  I will either have a color word put on the chart and Landon will have to select the correct picture that matches from the green board or I will have a picture up on the chart and he will have to pick the correct word.  The "how many" chart will work similarly.  I will put up a number and he will select how many characters he needs off of the green board.  I made the characters Toy Story to help with the interest level.

Each week we will work on a new nursery rhyme and I will make a chart so that we can read it and do other activities with it.  I have a little pointer that looks like a hand pointing that we will use with the calendar and the nursery rhyme, along with many other things.

Here are the plans I have for Week 1.  I hope you enjoy them and I will post pictures of some of the activities soon.

I have mentioned the "green board" several times so I guess I should tell you what that is.  I bought a cork board and covered it in felt to make a flannel board.  My calendar time pieces all work with Velcro so the pieces will stick to the flannel board.  I will put Landon's choices up on the board for him to choose from.  It works great.