A Bit About Us: A little about life and everything in-between
Friday, September 27, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Preschool at Home: Don't Spend a Lot of Money
One of the first mistakes many of us make when schooling from home, is thinking we need to go and buy as many learning tools as we can. Yes, there are things that will need to be purchased...but let's be smart with our spending.
In my attempts to keep this year's learning meaningful without breaking the bank, I have picked up a few tricks along the way to help me with this goal. First of all, thank you, Pinterest! I love all the fun ideas on there that, often, don't require a lot of (if any) purchasing. Second, I am thankful for Hobby Lobby and their weekly 40% off coupon. Third, always be on the look out for sales.
Pinterest has so many great ideas, often using things you already have at home.
Like tracing letters with a Q-tip and paint.
Here are a few things I have picked up from Hobby Lobby with my coupon (or with a 50% sale they were having on the product).
Some dot paint is fun for learning. Little ones love it anytime they get to use paint.
We used them this week for working on patterns:
Foam building blocks were fun to use when we were describing shapes and comparing the differences in them. Lil' Man loved building with them after the shape lesson was done. Remember to let the little ones explore learning through play.
They are also great at entertaining Miss Priss while Lil' Man is doing school.
These are stamps I already had when I was scrapbooking (now I do it digitally). I did use my coupon when I purchased them. We used these to practice stamping our name a few weeks ago. Next week, we will be using them to build our sight words we are working on.
Sales are awesome. I love a good sale. Here are some great buys I found for our learning time:
I found this tub of dinosaurs at Lakeshore...on sale. I was excited because they were on sale, but also, Lil' Man loves dinosaurs. I knew we could do a multitude of activities with these and his interest would stay piqued.
So far,
We used them to make patterns
Sort by color (which you can sort these by many different ways...great sorting manipulatives)
We also used them this week when working on our number sense activity.
Then there are the sales I ran into while grocery shopping. Which, by the way, after the "back-to-school shopping high" is over...you will find GREAT deals.
These little index card boxes are great for storing things in. I have one for number tiles, one for sight word cards, one for letter cards...I'm still deciding on what to use the other one for.
Find these on sale...BUY them!
We use them for a lot of things. Making word building tiles is one of them.
I found (and when I say "found", I mean digging-through-the-sale-bin kind of "found") this fun little calendar.
All sale hunting/finding aside... Don't forget about your local library! There are soooo many resources to use, FREE.
These are some of the books we checked out...two of them are for the rhyming skill we are working on and one is going along with the apple theme we are doing.
A DVD that we can watch to help us learn our sight words.
Oh, I would be remiss if I did not mention another great learning tool. Food.
Lil' Man loves that we use m&m's...he hates that we don't use them often.
Happy schooling!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
In my attempts to keep this year's learning meaningful without breaking the bank, I have picked up a few tricks along the way to help me with this goal. First of all, thank you, Pinterest! I love all the fun ideas on there that, often, don't require a lot of (if any) purchasing. Second, I am thankful for Hobby Lobby and their weekly 40% off coupon. Third, always be on the look out for sales.
Pinterest has so many great ideas, often using things you already have at home.
Like tracing letters with a Q-tip and paint.
Here are a few things I have picked up from Hobby Lobby with my coupon (or with a 50% sale they were having on the product).
Some dot paint is fun for learning. Little ones love it anytime they get to use paint.
We used them this week for working on patterns:
Foam building blocks were fun to use when we were describing shapes and comparing the differences in them. Lil' Man loved building with them after the shape lesson was done. Remember to let the little ones explore learning through play.
They are also great at entertaining Miss Priss while Lil' Man is doing school.
These are stamps I already had when I was scrapbooking (now I do it digitally). I did use my coupon when I purchased them. We used these to practice stamping our name a few weeks ago. Next week, we will be using them to build our sight words we are working on.
Sales are awesome. I love a good sale. Here are some great buys I found for our learning time:
I found this tub of dinosaurs at Lakeshore...on sale. I was excited because they were on sale, but also, Lil' Man loves dinosaurs. I knew we could do a multitude of activities with these and his interest would stay piqued.
So far,
We used them to make patterns
Sort by color (which you can sort these by many different ways...great sorting manipulatives)
We also used them this week when working on our number sense activity.
Then there are the sales I ran into while grocery shopping. Which, by the way, after the "back-to-school shopping high" is over...you will find GREAT deals.
These little index card boxes are great for storing things in. I have one for number tiles, one for sight word cards, one for letter cards...I'm still deciding on what to use the other one for.
Find these on sale...BUY them!
We use them for a lot of things. Making word building tiles is one of them.
I found (and when I say "found", I mean digging-through-the-sale-bin kind of "found") this fun little calendar.
All sale hunting/finding aside... Don't forget about your local library! There are soooo many resources to use, FREE.
These are some of the books we checked out...two of them are for the rhyming skill we are working on and one is going along with the apple theme we are doing.
A DVD that we can watch to help us learn our sight words.
Oh, I would be remiss if I did not mention another great learning tool. Food.
Lil' Man loves that we use m&m's...he hates that we don't use them often.
Happy schooling!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Friday, September 6, 2013
Preschool at Home: What Do I Teach?
As I have begun this endeavor of teaching my son at home this year, I quickly realized I needed a "starting" place...I needed something that would be beneficial to my son's learning needs. Most of the 3 year old curriculums I could find focused on areas of learning that, I knew, my son had already mastered. A "letter of the week/month" program was not going to work. Since we are doing preschool at home, I figured the best part was that I would be able to tailor his school day around his own academic needs. I, first, started with identifying what was expected to be taught in preschool and then correlated it with what my son already knew...then I began to plan accordingly. Here is the link that will take you to the standards: Oklahoma Pre-K Standards.
I am currently planning out a week at a time. I sit down and plan Friday afternoons for the next week. I go through and mark off standards as he masters them, I also write the date next to the standard so I can see when I taught something. This is a quick way to reference what I am doing and when. I also write the standard in my lesson plan book for a reference as well.
There are some things we focus on that may be extensions of a standard or may not even be listed on the list of standards. These are more or less the "enrichment" lessons we do together. I do this when I feel Lil' Man needs to go above and beyond the basic requirement listed.
The fun part, is I use many resources for teaching Lil' Man. I will expound more on this in another post. Today, I just wanted to share information with how to get started if you were not going with a curriculum. I would suggest your first step be in researching through the various curriculums available to see if one of them is right for you. If you are not finding quite what you are needing, then I would think about constructing your own curriculum based on your state's REQUIRED standards. Remember, these are only the minimum requirements.
Here are links to some preschool curriculum sites:
A Beka
Bob Jones University
Sonlight
Hands On Homeschooling
My Father's World
Horizons
I am currently planning out a week at a time. I sit down and plan Friday afternoons for the next week. I go through and mark off standards as he masters them, I also write the date next to the standard so I can see when I taught something. This is a quick way to reference what I am doing and when. I also write the standard in my lesson plan book for a reference as well.
There are some things we focus on that may be extensions of a standard or may not even be listed on the list of standards. These are more or less the "enrichment" lessons we do together. I do this when I feel Lil' Man needs to go above and beyond the basic requirement listed.
The fun part, is I use many resources for teaching Lil' Man. I will expound more on this in another post. Today, I just wanted to share information with how to get started if you were not going with a curriculum. I would suggest your first step be in researching through the various curriculums available to see if one of them is right for you. If you are not finding quite what you are needing, then I would think about constructing your own curriculum based on your state's REQUIRED standards. Remember, these are only the minimum requirements.
Here are links to some preschool curriculum sites:
A Beka
Bob Jones University
Sonlight
Hands On Homeschooling
My Father's World
Horizons
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