Please Comment

I have to say that right now, being in the first trimester of my pregnancy, I'm kind of slacking. I'm still doing preschool, but the ideas might not be great. Please use the links to Everything Preschool and Letter of the Week. Those sites have lots of ideas. Enchanted Learning is also great. I'll add that link to my sidebar.

I have heard from a few people that they check this site for ideas for teaching their children. I would like to ask those of you who read this blog for ideas to comment with your own ideas. I'm not looking for comments about how great my ideas are because I leave plenty of room for improvement. But I'd love it if some of you took a minute to share your ideas for each letter in the comments section so that we can share even more great preschool ideas. And if you can share ideas after trying them with your kids and let us know how they worked, that would be extra helpful.

Thanks for reading!

R week: plans

Here are the plans for R week:

word cards: river, rabbit, radio, robot, run
poem:

RIVER, RIVER

RIVER, river, running through the land,
Are you a traveller over foreign sand?
Are you a carrier from town to town,
River, river, as you hurry down?

Yes, I'm a carrier from town to town:
Here are ships with white sails, there are boats with brown,
What shall they bring you, what will you send?
I'll be your carrier to the land's end.

Monday (geography): We drove home from Rhode Island. We'll look at a map and see where we traveled.

Tuesday (reading): R is for Reading! We'll start reading some early readers I have. I'll read most of the words and have him help with one word on each page. Unless he shows interest in reading more on his own.

Wednesday (scriptures/Gospel): Read the scriptures. While visiting our friends this past weekend, we read the scriptures every night. I need to start this practice with Connor. We'll start on Wednesday, reading the scriptures. Reading and remembering what we've been taught. Not an original or great R week idea, but something I need to make sure I do with my kids and this is my chance to make it happen.

Thursday (movement/music): Red, Red, Red. A game from The Toddler's Busy Book. Call out three colors. If they're the same (red, red, red) then the child(ren) runs, skips, or hops to a distant point and back. If they're different (red, red, yellow) then no one moves.

Friday (art project): Rainbow crayons. I've been wanting to do this with Connor, but never did. This is the week we'll actually do it. I hope.

Other R words that might come up or spark ideas for activities: rainbow, ring, ribbon, right/left, rectangle, responsibility, rose. (Check the Letter of the Week and Everyday Preschool links at right for more ideas.)

Other things we'll fit in this week:
Listening to the radio
Teaching Abigail the sign for rabbit.
Run around as much as possible; Connor needs more exercise.

Q week: report

Q week was kind of a sad preschool week. But that's okay because there isn't much that starts with Q. Our favorite Q week activity was playing 20 Questions. Connor was really good at thinking of an animal and not telling me what he was thinking of. And he usually stumped me, which surprised me because I thought he might tend to choose an animal that he could see or one related to what I had just chosen (kind of like hide-n-seek with kids; they hide in the same place they just found you). But he was original and very good at the game.

On Thursday we headed up to Rhode Island to visit our friends here, so we didn't have preschool Thursday or Friday. But we did play 20 Questions with our friends.

Q week: plans

Here are the plans for Q week:

word cards: quilt, quick, quarter, question, quiet
poem:

The Queen of Hearts
a Nursery Rhyme

The Queen of Hearts,
She made some tarts
All on a summer's day.

The Knave of Hearts,
He stole the tarts
And took them clean away.

The King of Hearts,
Called for the tarts
And beat the Knave full sore.

The Knave of Hearts,
Brought back the tarts
And vowed he'd steal no more.

Monday: 20 Questions. We'll play the game 20 questions and review what a question is. (Think of a color, number, letter, animal, etc. and then the other person tries to guess by asking questions..) I'll also show him what a question mark looks like.

Tuesday (math): quarters (fractions). I'll briefly introduce him to the idea of a quarter being 1/4 of something. We'll cut a sandwich, a cookie, and an apple in quarters.

Wednesday (scriptures/Gospel): not a Q lesson. I want to read from the new illustrated New Testament we got. We'll spend some time looking through at the pictures and then reading together.

Thursday (movement/music): We'll learn the rhyme "Five Little Ducks and Five Little Quail" and do the actions. This is how it goes:

Five Little Ducks & Five Little Quail
Five little ducks went out to play (Wiggle five fingers on one hand)
And met five quail that came their way. (Wiggle five fingers on other hand.)
The five little quail went to get a snack (put quail hand behind back.)
And the five little ducks went quack, quack, quack (use hand to form duck bill)

Friday (art project): Quilt project. I'll cut fabric scraps into squares and Connor can design a quilt and glue them onto paper.

Other Q words that might come up or spark ideas for activities: queen, quack, quartet.

A few books:
Quick, Quack, Quick! by Marsha Arnold
The Josefina Story Quilt by Eleanor Coerr
Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood

P is for patience

Today's preschool lesson was suppose to be about patience. We had a life lesson in patience instead of talking about the virtue. Connor has been sick for a few days. He woke up Saturday with a red, puffy eye (no goop, though) and by Sunday afternoon had a fever and wasn't feeling well. He did fine for a couple of days with Motrin, acting like nothing was wrong when it was working, and like he really didn't feel well when it wore off. Today I thought he'd wake up feeling better. He slept a little better last night than the previous two. But today he seemed to be sicker. His eyes were really hurting him and his fever was not breaking, even with the Motrin. So even though my gut told me that it was a virus and would pass on it's own, we bundled up and braved the cold and went to the doctor. It's a virus and will pass on it's own. Just as I thought. But I'm still glad I went. Better safe than sorry, right? And it's just good to know. Actually it's good to know that my motherly intuition (based on past experience) is right.

Here's where the lesson in patience comes in. We waited for 10 minutes at the doctor's office. Not too long. We handled that fine. Even Connor who was feeling awful. Then she checked him out, did a strep test, told us it was probably just a virus. But she still wanted us to go down the hall to a pediatric opthalmologist to have him look at Connor's eyes. She thought it was viral, but wondered if because his eyes hurt so badly that it might be something else. I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of going to another doctor's office, but she called and they said to send us over, so I thought they must have time to squeeze us in.

When we got there, there were a couple of little girls waiting, obviously ahead of us in line. One mom was talking to her daughter about how long they'd been waiting. I thought, Oh, great. We're going to be here forever! And we were there for quite a while. We waited there for almost an hour. But Connor was great. Abigail was great, so entertained by the toys. I felt fine. Sometimes in these situations it's easy to be bothered by how long you're waiting, to get restless, to be impatient. But the three of us were models of patience. I'm especially proud of Connor who was feeling awful and really just needed to get some rest, but sat on my lap and even played nicely with Abby for a while. What a patient little boy!

P is for patterns

Today we made patterns with our snacks. Connor wrote perfect Ps on his paper. Then we made patterns with the snacks and drew the patterns on the paper. Connor and I both really enjoyed this activity. And I remember from school that it's important for children to record their observations, to learn to draw and write about what they see. So we'll be doing this more often. Taking a clipboard outside and making observations, etc. It's great for kids and fun too!

P week: plans

Here are the plans for P week:

word cards: please, pajamas, parade, people, poem
poem:

Poemsicle
by Shel Silverstein

If you add sicle to your pop,
Would he become a Popsicle?
Would a mop become a mopsicle?
Would a cop become a copsicle?
Would a chop become a chopsicle?
Would a drop become a dropsicle?
Would a hop become a hopsicle?
I guess it’s time to stopsicle,
Or is it timesicle to stopsicle?
Heysicle, I can’t stopsicle.
Ohsicle mysicle willsicle Isicle
Havesicle tosicle talksicle
Likesicle thissicle foreversicle-–
Huhsicle?

Monday (social studies): President's Day. President's Day is just two weeks away. I'll teach him about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington, whose birthdays are in February. I'll try to find a website with a fun lesson or activity about those two presidents.

Tuesday (math): patterns. Connor has been noticing patterns lately. We'll use snacks to make patterns (popcorn, raisins, marshmallows, pretzels).

Wednesday (scriptures/Gospel): patience. Patience is one virtue we all have to develop. Mommy is working on this daily. We'll talk about what patience means and how Connor can try to be patient when he's waiting for me to get him something or sharing with Abigail.

Thursday (movement/music): Pachelbel. We'll listen to Pachelbel's Canon in D. It's a famous song that it will be fun to introduce Connor to. We'll also talk a little bit about what a composer is because he's never been introduced to this concept.

Friday (art project): President Lincoln's log cabin. Abraham Lincoln (Papa Rich's favorite president, and hero) grew up in a log cabin. We'll make a picture of a log cabin.

Other P words that might come up or spark ideas for activities: popcorn, pajamas, pasta, pizza, peace, penguins, pets, picnic, post office.

A few books:
* The Poky Little Puppy by Janette Sebring Lowrey
* The Teddy Bear's Picnic by Jimmy Kennedy
* Barney Says, "Please and Thank You" by Stephen White
* Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper
* Curious George at the Parade by Margret and H.A. Rey
* Blaze and the Grey Spotted Pony by C.W. Anderson