Elementary Tales

It's important to start each preschool day the same.  Children thrive with routine and you will notice that behavior problems are significantly minimized when children know what's going to happen.  A timid child will have less difficulty saying goodby to Mom and an energetic child will get right to work.  Needless to say, each morning for us starts the same.  Which means planning is pretty repetitive as well.  My first task is to find a theme.  I use The Peaceful Preschool curriculum from The Peaceful Press to find a theme.  The next step is to go online and reserve five to six books on the same theme from our local county library system.  This planning stage must take place several days in advance in order for the books to be available in time.  Otherwise, I have to make an extra trip to the library to pull books myself.  Now I need to come up with several hands-on, student-led, independent activities to set out for stations....

My daughter has been getting her 9s and 6s mixed up.  She gets them right about half the time.  The great thing about the Peaceful Preschool numeral cards is that she can self-correct by counting the dots. For a quick math lesson, I gave her three cards and instructed her to order them a certain way (first three digits of my phone number).  She mixed up the 6 and the 9 but I didn't stop her and most importantly I did NOT tell her she was WRONG!  I let her finish her thought process and then asked her a series of questions that led her to finding and correcting her own mistake. Why is this important?  Because as children grow, they become more afraid of messing up.  They don't want to take chances or even TRY for fear of getting it wrong.  Take every opportunity to build your child's confidence.   Confidence is one of the 6 Cs that help your child become "well-adjusted critical thinkers," ( Becoming Brilliant, What Science Tells Us ...

The letter X is a great segue into a lesson on the human body because we already discussed bones and X-rays last week. Read: The Eye Book by Dr. Seuss (Intro for 5 senses), The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss (Intro for parts of the body). Flip-Flap and Lift-the-Flap are always very engaging for this age. Phonics: Our group has already studied the letters I, F, M, and X.  We created flashcards and used songs and chants to learn the words 'fix' and 'mix'.  All phonics review was sensory related because our main lesson involved the 5 senses.  Music/Movement: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and 5 Senses by Rachel Coleman Math: Measure our height in inches (letter I review).  Compare, order, graph with those numbers. Art: Trace our bodies on butcher paper and draw life-sized portraits. Science: Identify which of our 5 senses we will use to observe various objects.  Touch:  pine cone, ice cubes, water beads.  Taste:  cocoa powder, ...

Our weekly routine is very flexible, but Tuesday morning is set aside for our preschool group.  I teach a group of four little girls for about two hours. Below is my lesson plan template that I started with.  I've modified the times a bit.  We now spend the last 30 minutes doing free play.  I cut that time out of the circle time and math blocks.  Eventually I will update this template with shortened blocks and a time for potty/snack breaks which are typically at the same time everyday. The four boxes below are for notes and individualized instructions for each child in our group.  I use a kindergarten readiness checklist to drive this instruction. For two weeks we learn a new letter, and every third week is a review week.  I pick a common theme from the previous two weeks and do a big STEAM unit.  The review week does not follow the above lesson plan template.  In place of circle time, we will do a quick phonics lesson...

Last week we studied the letter M because one of the picture books from the curriculum is the classic Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans.  We are going on a trip to France in a few weeks so this worked out perfectly.  Along with the lesson ideas described in The Peaceful Preschool , I added a few more mini lessons: We created a clock with a paper plate and made the hour hand movable.  The girls practiced reading the time and finding numerals on the clock.  The poem  The Moon  by Robert Louis Stevenson mentions a clock face and we are using egg cartons to count to twelve so it all ties in nicely.   Tri-fold poster we use for circle time is a work in progress. I incorporated moon phases using chocolate sandwich cookies and a worksheet from Teachers Pay Teachers . On a ridiculously hot day, I took my daughter on a nature walk.  We were looking for birds to observe and draw.  We happened to see an art bench covered in a mosaic of...

This week marks our first official week of preschool.  We've been dipping our toes in it for the past month with a lesson here and there, but this week we are full force. Fine motor and sorting practice The Peaceful Preschool from The Peaceful Press is the curriculum that works best for us because we can tailor it to our needs and you can go in any order.  I follow it loosely and add in supplements from various STEAM resources from Left Brain Craft Brain .  It feels like all bases are covered with this combo.  I might mention that another great resource that I use is Teachers Pay Teachers because the content is created by teachers and the activities work in classroom and homeschool settings.  For me, this is my preferred alternative to Pinterest. Once I purchased The Peaceful Preschool, I went through each lesson and mapped out our whole year.  I looked at seasons and major events or trips we have planned and came up with a scope and sequence th...