Preschool Hour

School has started and we have completed our first week! All in all the week went better than I expected with a few bumps along the road, but so far the schedule and curriculum are working very well.
I thought I'd share a bit of what we are doing for Preschool Time. Emily is in Preschool although she is able to do most Kindergarten work and Wesley is pre-Preschool.

My goal is to have a time of book reading, hands-on activity and physical game everyday and while we didn't quite meet all those goals everyday we did have fun.
I'm gleaning most of my ideas from "Early Education at Home" and "Teaching your own preschool children". Both are packed with great activities and ideas and real life examples.

On Monday we read several books from the library focusing on family and family relationships and then sat down at the kitchen table with a white board and marker. Emily knows how to spell her name, all of the alphabet and most of the letter sounds so we concentrated on Wesley's name and then wrote and talked about their full names and spelled them out. Then we clapped out the syllables for each of their names-first, middle and last. They found this to be very fun and William even came in to help out with the clapping. Next is snacktime and I try to pick out snacks that they can help me make unfortunately right now I can't remember what we did on Monday:)
Tuesday we were running on schedule pretty well but I got a bit distracted and so we simply made some marching band instruments out of kitchen stuff and then took turns leading the "band" around the front yard.
Since our focus color this week has been red we sat down on Wednesday and cut out flower pics from some magazines and they made a "red" collage. Next we made some Kindness Cookies for our snack and then I read a couple books to them while they ate.
On Thursday we read books again and then made a batch of Letter Pretzels up for our snack. I'll have to remember to double this recipe next time because they all really liked them.
Today we read books and then had our watercolor lesson with Alissa and Thomas joining in.

I will say that Wesley at 3.5 yo doesn't always stick around for all of these activities but I do require that he sit on the couch for the book reading and he does participate in our Table Time. I will be working on including more hands on activities for him this next week and my goal is to play a game (duck, duck, goose-hide and seek-ring around the rosy etc) everyday as well. I also would like to work with Emily on becoming an independent bike rider sometime in this next month.

LETTER PRETZELS

Dissolve: 1T. yeast in 1/2 c. warm water
Add: 1tsp. honey and 1tsp. salt
Add: 1 1/3 c. flour
Knead
Roll pieces into snakes and form letters
(Form letters on wax paper over a letter guide)
Brush with beaten egg.
Sprinkle with salt (use coarse salt if available)
Bake 10 min. at 425.


KINDNESS COOKIES

Mix: 1/3 c. honey
1 T. oil
2 eggs

Add: 1 T. grated orange rind
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. oatmeal

Drop spoonfuls on oiled cookie sheet.
Bake at 400 for 8-10 minutes.

Be Kind! Share your cookies.


Both recipes were taken from "Kinder-Krunchies" by Karen S. Jenkins