First Day!

 Today we started our home school preschool. Surprisingly, it went pretty smooth. We started about 9am and finished around 10:45a. This was a little quicker than I expected but my previous experience is with 25 kids trying to do something 😀 We started with Calendar Time and reading a book to start our theme "All About Me". Then we followed the schedule I made and worked through each activity. A few activities I needed to be hands on and guide him through such as the alphabet blocks and tracing lines. Sensory bin was more independent. 

Overall, Owen seemed to enjoy it and even wanted to pretend teach when we were finish. Here are a few pictures of our morning. On Friday I will post a review of the week so be on the lookout for that!

Lesson Plans and Resources

To get started I made a book list for September and October that includes at least 2 books for each theme. Any books related to theme will work but these are the ones I am using. 

Sept./Oct. Booklist

We will be starting on September 8th! I am going to do a weekly review post here on Friday each week. As for the plans and supplements I will be putting them on Teachers Pay Teachers in bundles for each month. I am going to put the month of September below for a free download. I will post an overview of the monthly plans on this blog with a link to my TPT store. I am excited to get started!

September Plans

Bulletin Board Fun

 If you know or are a teacher then you probably know how much we love a good bulletin board! When I decided to start home school preschool the first thing I did was purchase a 3ft x 4ft cork board from Amazon. I then made a list of what I wanted to include in this learning hub: 

• Calendar
• Shapes
• Colors   
• Alphabet
• Weather
• Numbers

I bought some resources and made others. Below I will walk through each section with links to resources. All of these could also be made by hand but would take awhile. 

Bulletin Board

Calendar: I purchased the calendar and blank cars for dates from Lakeshore Learning. If you go in person they will laminate the calendar for you! I then simply wrote numbers 1-31 on the cars in sharpie. I made the monthly headers using clip-art I purchased from TeachersPayTeachers. I have included the link for a free download below. 

Calendar Headers

Colors: I purchased the crayon clip-art from TeachersPayTeachers and then added a text box for the color name. I then laminated these using my Swingline personal laminator (I'm obsessed!). 

Swingline Laminator

Weather: I created this using basic clip-art from Word and then laminated. I can use a dry erase marker for the temperature each day since it is laminated.

Weather Board

Shapes: I found a set of shape flashcards in the Target Dollar Spot and decided to just use these. Simply pulled one of each shape and stapled to board. 

Numbers: I quickly made these on my computer and then laminated them. 

Alphabet: Owen picked out this alphabet poster when we went to Lakeshore Learning. I had them laminate it there. 

The Finished Board:

(We finished our basement weeks before Owen was born and still haven't gotten around to trim...someday it will get done!)

Schedules, Schedules, Schedules

Sometimes I think the word 'Schedule' should be a swear word for moms! The one upside to this pandemic upheaval is the quick reduction of things on our schedule! However, I needed to come up with a schedule for our home school preschool so I could better plan our lessons and activities. I know a lot of preschools start with 2 or 3 days a week for 3 year old students and they typically run about 2-3 hours per day. I thought about our normal week and what might work for us. 

How I miss Library story time!

I chose 3 days for approximately 2.5 hours per day. I chose 3 days because I felt that Owen can handle that and I like the idea of structure 3 mornings a week. You might be thinking that 2.5 hours, 3 days a week seems like a lot to plan! Let me break it down.

I broke each morning into 7 20 minute segments. They are:

• Calendar/Welcome
• Alphabet
• Math
• Science or Pre-writing
• Motor Skills
• Sensory Play
• Art/Craft

The majority of these activities are self led by Owen and need minimal instruction from me at the beginning. Calendar and Art are the 2 segments I will need to teach/lead the most. Just like when I started a new school year with my Kindergartners I will need to teach how to do each type of activity and set expectations. The best part of home school is that I can adjust this schedule as I see fit based on how Owen (and myself) are handling things. 

Adventures in Home-school Preschool

 After surviving several months with no formal activities (i.e. Gymboree, Mom Group, Library Story Time) I decided to get into teacher mode and start planning. As many of our schools here in MI are not going back in person right now my husband and I decided to try home school preschool for Owen. 

I have scoured the internet and Pinterest for ideas and plans but ultimately decided to create my own. I modified a calendar of themes I found on Pinterest (littleslearninglife.com) to better fit our needs. I have thought about things that I want to teach Owen regarding safety, cultures, differences in families and protecting our Earth. I will be incorporating these into themes and lessons throughout the year. I am planning on 3 mornings a week for about 2 hours. I broke the time into calendar, math/numeracy, literacy, fine/gross motor and art. I will share more information on the daily plan later on. I did go out and buy a 4ft x 3ft bulletin board so I could have a space to display a calendar, shapes, letters, weather and numbers. Below you will find a free download for the theme calendar I will be using this year.

Theme Calendar