First week

Well, this is Sunday, the first day of the first week of the preschool thing. I am getting excited and nervous at the same time. I am going to start doing this without telling our families I'm doing it. I decided that I can't deal with negative criticism at this point. Brian said last night that he's on board if I want to do this but he thinks it won't work because I won't keep up with it. I guess I have to prove him wrong, then, don't I?

So today I'm taking the time to prepare for the upcoming week. I've already organized a binder with information and a calendar breaking down the week and days. If I take a look each day, I will know what I'm supposed to be focused on and that should keep me on track. And if I don't get to really work a lot with her during the day on a particular thing, I can always use the night after Kylie goes home, or spend more time on the weekend before we change the information. The way the program is set up gives you an entire week to really spend time on a subject.

Here's the information for this week, courtesy of letteroftheweek.com :
Theme- Cows (Monday)
Vocabulary- Calf (Monday)
Shape- Square (Tuesday)
Letter- A (Wednesday)
Number- 1 (Thursday)
Nursery Rhyme- Hey Diddle Diddle (Friday)

I also decided to go ahead and buy her a book involving cows since it's a special milestone- the beginning of her schooling! We bought Click, Clack, Moo Cows that Type by Doreen Cronin. I have several songs on CD that we can play involving cows and letters/numbers/shapes/colors. I've already cut the pieces needed for a few art projects and have color pages ready to go. I am going to look up videos on youtube of cows being milked, mooing, etc. We will probably play a lot of games involving a hunt for squares, and she has a sticker book where she gets to put the correct number of stickers on a page. That last one I'm a little nervous about trying this week only because she loves stickers and won't appreciate doing only one.

My most pointed effort needs to be getting her out to play with others more often. We hardly have gone out for a few weeks because it's been so cold. I finally got a library card this past weekend and got their monthly schedules for lapsit story time.

Here are a few pictures of the things I've done so far to prepare. I hope to have better pictures once we get more involved in this.


This is a picture of the Learning Poster we made. Each week, every day, we had the week's information. Monday we had pictures of the theme and vocabulary word, Tuesday the Shape or color, Wednesday the Letter, Thursday the number, and Friday the Nursery Rhyme. The poster is now hanging in our living room and is easily visible as a constant reference for her. The pictures stay up a whole week and are only changed when the new theme, shape, number, etc. change.





This is a set of number-matching cards I made for her. The idea is supposed to be for her to count the number of stickers and know the right number written on the other card, but I also read it might take a while for her to actually get it. I figure I will start by showing her what I want her to do, and hope she catches on. I also might start out by only giving her two or three of the cards and asking her to try to count them and match them to a certain number. We shall see. There are a few options for these.



Here is a look at our little 'preschool corner'. I only call it that because it happens to have a few things over there that we will be using. The poster, obviously, and her CDs and Books on CD, and her "Feed the Bunny" game for fine motor skill development. Of course there are some random books, puzzles and blocks over there, too!




I went to the dollar store and got a few things, too. Dollar Store= awesome.

Some posters...







Baskets. For each new color that we learn, I figured I would get a basket or container in that color and use it for a scavenger hunt type game where we collect different objects of that color. The first coming up in two weeks is green.



And although I don't have pictures of it, I made myself a binder to keep myself organized with this stuff. I have several folders in there with coloring pages and art projects ready for the week ahead, as well as future projects. I keep her number matching cards in a zipper pocket with a small book where she will be able to put stickers on pages in the number of the week. I bought a Monthly calender that fits in there and on each day, I've written what I'm supposed to be focusing on with her. I think I'm more than organized at this point, I just hope I stay that way.

VERY Tentative Preschool Plans

Since there is nothing set in stone at this point, I think I'll just share my thoughts and the goings-on around here.

Brian and I have been talking about doing preschool from home for Kayla. I know that when I mention this to the families, it will cause an uproar. To put it simply, they are all very pro-preschool. The expected her to be in one by the age of 3, so I know the topic will be coming up soon.

Financially, it's just ridiculous. We have looked for some options that wouldn't put us in the poorhouse in two months, but it's just not happening. So, we decided to look into just doing preschool at home. Surprisingly, I'm loving the things I'm reading and the prospect of it. I'm so excited that this may be happening that I can barely focus on anything else lately. I've stayed up late to work on projects for it, putting together information and organizing papers and outlines. I have found two websites that I really like and have been using them as my basis for 'lesson plans'.

Five in a Row-
http://fiarhq.com/fiveinarow.info/index.html

and Letter of the Week-
http://letteroftheweek.com/

Both are awesome, awesome sites. Since my original goal was to have her in preschool at around age 3, anyway, I figure that I will begin immediately with the preparatory curriculum from Letter of the Week. I have plenty of time to go through all, or at least, most, of that before September, when I thought would be a nice time to begin the Five in a Row curriculum. I would also continue the Letter of the Week in addition to the Five in a Row, too, because I just love it, and it's very simple and easy to incorporate. Five in a Row is highly literature-based, so I am loving that aspect of it. I also have a friend who's has first-hand experience with it and is even sending me one of the Volumes. (Thanks, Jen!!)

Since I don't really feel like taking and uploading more pictures at the moment, I'll do that soon. I raided The Dollar Tree today and found a bunch of cute things to help with some lessons I've already been working on for week 1 of the the preparatory Letter of the week program. The great thing about this entire thing is that it's mostly based on play. A toddler learns best through play, so it's not difficult at all to teach them things. All I have to do is think of creative ways to keep her interested in the themes and subjects I'm focusing on that week. I also love that this program breaks things down into days, for some of the topics, and gives a few suggestions for activities to reinforce those themes. The first week's theme is Cows. The vocabulary word is 'calf'; the shape of the week is a square; the number is 1; the letter is A. On Friday of each week you learn a nursery Rhyme or song that pertains to the them, so this week's will be "Hey Diddle Diddle" and throughout the week, you sing songs, read books, and do art projects all about that particular theme- in this case, cows. I'm very excited about all this.

Since socialization is an important aspect of preschool, as well, I have to make it a specific effort to take her different places on a regular basis, especially once the weather warms up a bit. I have posted on a several message boards asking for advice, and a preschool teacher responded to one of my posts explaining that most Kindergarten teachers can't expect much more than at least a 10 minute attention span and for them to be potty trained. Aside from the INFORMATION aspect, which will be much easier to provide for Kayla, there are certain other things that she needs in order to be successful in Kindergarten. She has to learn how to play with others, how to share, and how to take turns. She also has to be able to sit still for extended period of times when she may not really want to and learn to speak in turns. The poster suggested that I take her to story time at the Library, book stores, and other places that may offer it. That will not only give her time to interact with others but help her to learn to sit quietly while the reader is reading. If I also take her to parks, zoos, museums, science centers, activity/jumping places, and other public places to give her time to explore the real world, then I should do enough for her for Kindergarten. I can also plan 'field trips' for her by finding apple orchards or other places that are unique. For example, if I wanted to wait to do the theme on cows, I could have possibly taken her to a farm nearby (we live near several) to see actual cows in person.

Anyway, that's the general idea of it all. I will post more, I'm POSITIVE. I don't have a huge outlet for this stuff just yet so I'll need to vent somehow!!

Wish me luck breaking the news to the family!