First of all, let me say that I'm a fan of the new blogger. It's about time they updated some things! Hopefully this will make blogging and posting pictures even easier!
My mindset and methodology for preschool is PLaYiNg and natural learning... learning as we go. In early spring we went on a bike ride and saw five gopher tortoises, setting the perfect stage for learning a bit about gophers! We spent days talking about the difference between a turtle and a tortoise, burrows, the color green, and of course, doing great tortoise crafts!
On a regular basis, we practice shapes and colors at the grocery store, almost always initiated by Grace Louise..."oh, there's a triangle!" (as she points to the aisle number sign above). If we keep our eyes open to the learning opportunities around us in everyday life, our children will soak up useful knowledge and life skills like a sponge.
I put Grace Louise on the waiting list for First Methodist Preschool when I was pregnant with her... just in case it was something we might want to do. When I got the call to sign up for two day preschool for this coming August I just wasn't sure. Jimmy and I ended up deciding against it, since Baby Boy will be arriving (sometime) in August. Too many transitions for our family in one month. Maybe next year.
So, in the meantime, I'm going to try my hand at more topical lessons with Grace Louise. After our really fun and effective Easter Week, I realized that learning by topic is perfect for Grace Louise AND for me. The repetition in the daily topic makes for good retention, excitement/anticipation, and lots of connections for her... having a theme helps me come up with something simple for everyday (hello pinterest!)
Yesterday was Earth Day, so we spent last week on "earthy" concepts. Very basic, mind you.
We live on planet earth.
E is for earth.
The earth is round, like a circle.
God made the heavens and the earth and everything in it.
The water is blue (ocean) and the land is green (trees).
God wants us to be good stewards of the earth. Recycle and No littering!
We found a few books on recycling, trees, various animals, and the Bible story of creation at the library. Miss Kara, the librarian, was a huge help helping us navigate the children's library to find these books!
First day, making our earth! We finger and brush painted blue to represent water. And then made green footprints for land. We followed up the next day with a color matching activity, using the same earth. She matched blue foam handprints and blue pompoms to the blue water and green handprints and pompoms to the land. Of course, gluing was her favorite part!
Before we got started on our blue water, she drew this and said, "Look mom! It's a G!" I had no idea she could draw a G! (Well, backward). I've seen her draw an "A", but this was a pleasant surprise! She's got several tracing apps on the ipad, the best by far is My Name, an app that requires the child to trace the proper way and teaches them the alphabet, programmed names (like their own), and simple words.
We combined recycling (reusing) and trees in this fun craft, creating a tree from tissue paper and a toilet paper roll. Some of the books we got from the library were Early Reader/NonFiction that had great pictures of recycling and trees. My favorite, though, was Our Tree Named Steve!
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