Preschool is in session!

I wanted to start doing a preschool with some other moms. But there are few 3 year old kids who were interested. There are a lot of 4 year olds who are doing a preschool, but I just don't think Rhylan is ready for that. Then I got to thinking. I want to TEACH more than Rhylan needs to be in preschool. So really, I was doing it for me not her. Then I wondered whats stopping me? I'll do a SHORT preschool every morning with just Rhylan. I have been busy ever since, getting things together and getting ideas.

1. I made a list of things Rhylan likes for our weekly themes. (ocean animals, princesses, cats, flowers, Pet Store, Dinosaur Train (TV show), etc etc etc!!)--These themes are a learning aid. Counting is fun, but counting Princesses...well you get the point.

2. I decided on 5 areas of study--once for each day of the week (Art, Language/Writing, Math/Matching/Sorting, Science/Sensory, Gross Motor/Field Trips)

3. Then I tried to come up with as many ideas as I could, I went to the library and checked out a bunch of books to gain ideas, got a bunch of ideas from this site. I really really liked this book, I was marking every page, so I decided to check out the price on Amazon...used for $0.23!!!!!!! Really twenty three cents, I ordered it:)

4. Checked out books about our theme for Rhylan.

5. Started right away. We started this Wednesday Our theme was ocean animals!!

How it works:

Once Gracin goes down for his morning nap we go to her room and sit at her table. I have created a little learning center in her room, we use that for preschool. We start by using her Alphabet chart singing the song and Rhylan pointing to each letter. Then we review the numbers the same way (she still needs to recognize the letters and numbers.) Next we sing a song. It may be a familiar song, a new one about our theme, or teaching her the Primary songs. Next comes story time. We read a book about our theme, or lesson for the day. Then lastly is the Learning activity.

This week (we had to combine a couple because we started on Wed)

Art: Make an aquarium. She used fine motor skills to color with markers, put faces on her fish, shake the glitter. Then she picked colors and 4 sea creatures to put in her aquarium. I think her favorite part was shaking the glitter!

Language/Writing and Science/Sensory: S is for Seahorse. First we looked at a nonfiction book about sea horses. We learned about their colors, size, and homes. We used a few different textures to make our sea horse. Then we made a S shaped sea horse and learned about letter S. Check out how well she wrote her name!
Math/ Field trip: We headed to the pet store for a scavenger hunt. I made this chart/check list for her to search for. She got to decided on the last ocean animal we needed to find. We really couldn't find any bubbles!!!! She also brought along her new dollar store magnifying glass and new clip board to help. This mini clip board is perfect for Rhylan, it was only $2.44 in the back to school section at Wal-Mart. Rhylan LOVES her "ma-fy-glass." Here she is exploring rocks, an idea she came up with all by herself. She started sorting them largest to smallest. Then she created a rock family, inspecting each rock carefully before it joined the group.