New Year, New Plans- Our Home Preschool

 The holidays are over and life is getting back to normal.  January has inspired me though.  I've come up with some new plans.  I have made a new schedule for us to follow in the mornings when we get up, to try to keep a good routine.  I notice it helps if we always follow a routine, even before starting our preschool day.  I've started getting up and sitting down for breakfast and Bible story time with the kids in the mornings, before getting myself ready for the day.  This seems to help with all our moods and we start the day off a lot better.

I've found a fun looking cookbook that Joelle and I are going to go through together.  We will make one recipe a week, which she chooses, on the weekend when Daddy can take Jaren.  We are desperately in need of some Mommy/Daughter time, so this is one way I am trying to consciously plan for it.  It's called The Mom and Me Cookbook by Annabel Carmel.  The pictures are quite appealing and each recipe shows a child helping with the steps.  Joelle is already very excited about it.  I am pretty excited too as there are some pretty fun looking recipes in it.  I had looked at this book awhile back on Amazon and it has mixed reviews. But, after I was able to look through it in person at Barnes and Noble, I knew it would be a good one.

Little man got to try out a sensory bin for the first time!  Playing with unifix cubes, counting bears, and attribute blocks with the girls!

So happy!

 I'm trying out a couple new lesson plans.  I've wondered a lot about Itty Bitty Bookworm curriculum since I love that it is so focused on literacy.  They actually have a free download so you can try it out.  I downloaded a sample of the Bailey curriculum that covers two weeks based on the book Five Little Monkeys.  I'm trying this one that is meant for toddlers because I basically want something simple that gives me a theme with easy art projects and circle time ideas, and is broken down by the day.  The Bo curriculum in Itty Bitty Bookworm even seems too complex.  I do not want to see all of that on a page- its just overwhelming.  I need some ideas and some structure, but not too much.  So I'm glad I can try a two week sample to see if we like this.

http://www.ittybittybookworm.com/

My Lovey Girl enjoying time playing the ukalele during our weekly music class

I've also recently found this program that looks fun:

http://thisreadingmama.com/free-reading-curriculum/reading-the-alphabet-prek-curriculum/

We will be starting this next week for something new and different to try.  I won't be using all of it since we are also doing other stuff, but I like the little sight word books and the games that help with number recognition and print awareness.  Anything we do needs to be fun, because I don't believe in forcing learning, especially at this age.  The kids must be enjoying it for it to be worthwhile.  Joelle has started pointing out to me when certain parts of words sound like others, and noticing it all on her own.  She has also started asking when she will know how to read. So I was on the lookout for an easy and fun approach to some beginning reading.  We will see how this goes.  It looks pretty cute, and I love that its all free!  I have printed out unit one, and I'm looking forward to trying it out next week.

Another new thing I've started is review games during circle time.  I sing a little song to the tune of the muffin man about the shape I have, and the girls guess.  Whoever guesses the shape gets to hold it.  They are not totally solid on shapes yet, so this is good review.  Today they were both asking to play the game over and over.  I cut out some number cards to use with that game as well, and we will work on number recognition through 20 by using that song.

I have also looked ahead at our Kindergarten plans for next year and it is suggested that the child know color words.  We are using this curriculum next year:

http://www.mfwbooks.com/products/M50/20/0/0/1

(Yes, I already have it- because maybe I'm just weird that way.  I'm a super planner- so what can I say :)  I read enough awesome reviews about it!  I want plenty of time to collect all the books and any awesome supplemental stuff.)

So, anyway, we are doing another fun circle time activity for color words.  I let someone pick the color for the day, and I spell it with magnetic letters on my white board.  Then during circle time we sing a song about that color while I point to the letters (which are spelled out in the song).  I search and finally found all my color songs for free here:

http://rg022.k12.sd.us/color_word_songs.htm

The girls love this too!  I think if this is all we do, over time they will start recognizing those words.  I've found that repetition truly works.

So, these are our new plans for the new year.  Life is busy but great!  I will end with this:

My two love bugs!