Preschool Tools

Lately, I have been helping our co-op with preschool for 2-4 year olds, so I pulled out some books I have used in the past...here's just a few I find helpful:

Fun with Teaching Rhymes for finger fun, action rhymes and playtime by Sally Lewis Eaton

My First Bible Verses: Finger Plays for God's Word by Suguitan
These Bible verses get kids moving and doing hand motions.

Playtime Devotions by Focus on the Family
There is a point, verse, action rhyme and prayer on each page.

Read Aloud Bible Stories by Lindvall
Very simple text (few lines)with lots of sound effects highlight the graphic simple yet bold illustrations in this book.  Why bother with little pictures and tons of text at this age????  This book is perfectly fit for this age.

We are using Five in a Row curriculum and modifying it down to this level, so I plan to use www.homeschoolshare.com for my unit on Cranberry Thanksgiving next month.  Lots of free resources there.

I lent my art project book for preschoolers but will add the title when it is returned!

Free coloring download for ABC pages

Fun find:

Writing ABC's on little hearts are character ABC pages for free download...perfect for my two little ones.

Gratitude--Fishing behind Museum of Science & Industry and others...

"I walk the dog.  Beautiful!  I walk the dog. Beautiful!" -Aziza's first song written in English.

She "read" her second book today-a naming picture book--amazed at all the words she knows now.

Toni helped Rosebud finish her Math book--She did it in 3 months and caught up to her grade level.

Tom's boy time fishing with Chad this morn behind the museum of Science & Industry (we do what we can in the city :-))

Lettuce & Kale harvest today

Juicing Kale for Chad & I

More sun on my lawn now that they demolished the coach house next door.

Finally bought a glass pitcher.

ahhh Summer.

Our new girl said this was "Koshasha" or dirty on her first day...where Tom lives when we homeschool--

By day three she was sitting in there rubbing the sand all over her.... The weather has been great and Tbone has been living in this....nothing like the sand hills of Wyoming --but fun nonetheless!

Letter N

I love personalizing the kids school. Tom lined up his cars on letter N. I was thinking about having Bethan spell a word, get one nail painted, spell a word, another painted...maybe Friday. This is all new for me and the possibilities for making things fun and tailored keep opening up as I go. These days Abi is blogging as I mentioned before 18inchdolls.net. She loves the conversational aspect...she's way into the comments section. She is also learning Amharic with me. This afternoon she quizzed me as I deboned chicken. While we were shopping for a birthday gift yesterday, she kept seeing "Disney". I told them 1 penny for every Disney word they find IN THE HOUSE. There's no way I would do that in Target--I'd be broke. What struck me was the ramble of facts about Walt Disney that came following her discovery...things she had learned because I grabbed a stack of books on cartooning and Disney at the library. He is our "modern art" focus for the term. It has been really fun and has encouraged the kids to get back into drawing. Bethan surprised me by reading one book instead of watching a movie. Its called "Adventures in Cartooning"