Home Preschool Week 1 Day 1

Today was so much fun.  It was our first day doing preschool at home.  Landon did great and really enjoyed the Nursery Rhyme, singing time, and most all of the activities especially when he got to use the pointer.

This week and next week we will be learning about how God created the earth.  Today was about day one which is the creation of the Day and Night.  During out ABC time we are going to start focusing on one letter per week in a couple of weeks but to get us started we are just doing some letter matching.  Because Landon already knows most of his letters we are going to use the letter of the week as a review and a spring board to do activities that will encourage reading, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and speech.  The letter matching today was interesting to watch.  I helped him with the first two he drew from the mystery box by showing him where to place the letters.  When he did it by himself, you can see in the pictures,  he put the magnet letters on top of the printed letters.  That was fine but just interesting.  I can't wait to see what he does tomorrow.

Our Bible verse for the next couple of weeks will be Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth".  I taught him the signs today and it was so touching to see him working on it.  I am hoping that by the end of the week or at least by the end of next week he will have it down pat and I can video it to share.   Here are some of the pictures that I took while he was working on some of the activities.

making "Creation Booklet" day 1

gluing paper for his "Day and Night" collage

pulling letters from the mystery box for his letter match

Enjoying his "Day and Night" Oreo snack

Letter match

In case you missed my lesson plans for this week:  Week 1

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.