Preschool: Week 16

I've discovered that Trevor has definitely outgrown some of the parts of our current preschool plan, so I've been tweaking it and trying to morph it so it starts to look more like what we will do next year.  Like last week, we've been starting off each time with singing and reading the story with goes with our theme.  This is nice because Mackenzie can participate (well, not distract) in this part.  I want to get some musical instruments for next year and expand on this singing time, so doing it just a little now is nice practice for the fall.  One day I gave him some independent reading time.  This is something I should do more, but honestly don't think of it.  I'm hoping to make it a regular part of our days starting in the fall.  We are also reading though The World of Pooh.  It's the first chapter book we have tried and we are both enjoying it!  I like that it makes him sit still and pay attention for longer than the usual simple stories we read.

Here is what we did each day...

Day 1 - Theme: Butterflies

• Color the butterfly coloring page
• Talk about vocabulary word "cocoon"
• Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• Sing What Shall We Do When We All Go Out
• Science Activity: Spring Blossoms
• We kept our eyes out for butterflies or caterpillars while we were on our walk...no luck!
• Trevor did stop at each dead worm and ask if it was a caterpillar.

Day 2 - Letter: "P"

• Ok, we just didn't do this one at all.  
• Instead we just did a lot of  Scrabble spelling while laying on my bed.  I started off with the letters needed to spell "tan" "ten" tin" and "ton."  We had to review the short vowel sounds, but other than that he did a good job.  Then just for fun we swapped out more letters and he practiced sounding out those words (ex. "ten" into "pen.")

Day 3 - Number "16"

• Count to the number "16"
• Put sixteen stickers on the number "16" handout, counting as you put them on
• Put 16 pegs in the pegboard, counting as you go
•  Patterns 
• Using our pegboard and pegs, I lined up four pegs in a simple pattern and had him put in what peg would come next.  For the first time he sort of got the concept.  He could do it if i was talking him through it, but when I set up a couple of rows for him to do and I left him to try it himself it wasn't even close =)

       
Day 4 - Color: Purple

• This is another area that he has outgrown, so since he had already drew a face on the oval from last week, I just had him try to draw a butterfly with a purple marker.
• Trace and Cut Pages

Day 5 - Review and Science Activity

• Review concepts from this week while putting the pages into the school binder
• Science Activity - Looking for Tracks (I hope to do a post on this one soon.)

Happy Learning!