Switching Gears

Hi! I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I just haven't sat down to write in a while. Sorry! Now that summer is winding down a bit, we are going to be switching gears into Preschool Mode! Rowin will be four in November and this year is attending a "Parents Day Out" program. He'll still have a whole year of preschool after that before he's in kindergarten. While we love the program he goes to, it's really not academic at all, so I thought this year, I'd start supplementing with a little Preschool at Home. I'm talking pretty laid back, three days a week, we'll see how it goes kind of thing. :)

But I thought I'd give you a heads up if you have a 3-5 year old and would like to follow along with us, here's roughly what I'm thinking...three days a week, focusing mostly on a new letter each week.
Here's kind of what the breakdown will look like (I'm thinking about a half an hour a day?)...

Day 1:
*Bible Story and Memory Verse-We love our Jesus Calling Bible Storybook. I haven't tried memorizing Scripture with him yet, so we'll see how that goes!
*Calendar/Weather
*Introduce the Letter of the Week and learn it's sound
*Some Kind of a Letter Hunt or Match
*Beginning Sound Basket-Collecting objects that start with the Letter of the Week

Day 2:
*Bible Story/Memory Verse
*Calendar/Weather
*Review letter/sound
*Practice Tracing/Writing the Letter
*Other writing practice

Day 3:
*Bible Story/Memory Verse
*Calendar/Weather
*Review letter/sound
*Letter Craft Activity

I'll sprinkle in name practice, numbers, counting, shapes, colors, rhyming, etc. too but I think we'll focus a lot of our time on learning the letters.

If you'd like to join us, I'll try to start posting some of the materials we're using as well-lots of Dollar Store grabs and free printables-all easily accessible stuff. I'm excited to feel like I'm a teacher again! :)

Days and Days of Dinos

We've been in and out of town all summer, but when we're home, all Rowin wants to do is play dinosaurs. I hear, "Mommy, do you want to play dinosaurs with me?!" about 37 times a day. In fact, at dinner tonight, we asked Rowin what he wants to be when he grows up and he said he wants to be a dinosaur. Not exactly sure how he pictures that working out...but that's beside the point.

Here are some of the dino activities that have been keeping us busy this summer.

Play Paleontologist

I poured kinetic sand inside a cookie sheet and spread it out so that it was smooth. I picked about six different dinosaurs and put them out so that Rowin could see them. I made him leave the room and then I'd use one dinosaur to make "fossils" in the sand by pushing it's body into the sand and making footprints. When he came back in the room, he used his magnifying glass (because, why not?) and had to figure out which dinosaur matched the fossils in the sand. He LOVED this!

Hatch Baby Dinos

I found these "Grow Capsules" in the $1 bin at Target. Remember these!? You put them in water and then they grow and turn into little sponges. Another hit. Thanks Target.

Dig for Dino Doodoo

We used the Rah-Rah Raisins Girl Scout cookies and toothpicks for this activity. This time, I told Ro he had to be an archeologist and dig for dinosaur bones. He used the toothpicks as his digging tools. The little nuts in the cookies were bones and the raisins were doodoo. :) He had to extract the fossils without breaking them.

Build a Jurassic World

This time we set up all of his dinos in the water table. You could use a sandbox, a bin of rice or beans, the bathtub, or just in the grass.

Dino Stickers

I realize this is very unimpressive, but that's ok. I bought some foam dino stickers-another $1 find at Target. I drew a big dino scene (volcano, lake, trees, rocks, etc.). At three years old, he still thinks I'm a great artist. :) Then he just had fun playing and sticking the dinosaurs all over the paper.

For those of you with dino-loving boys, I found a couple cute dinosaur crafts on Pinterest that I want to try, so stay tuned... :)