My Approach to Preschool

Yesterday I posted about starting preschool with Connor, all about my freaking out at having to do this.  After my big freak out I started thinking on what all I would need to do this and the different tools that are available to the home schooling mom.  Don't get me wrong, I am not home schooling, as soon as it's time I'm sending him up the road to the elementary school for kindergarten.

 I knew I would need a workbook for him.  I started looking online and found a few that I liked, but being me I didn't want to wait on the shipping.  So one shopping day while I was out with my mom we went into Barnes and Nobles and I found the Comprehensive Curriculum of Basic Skills.  It says for kindergarten, but it had all the colors, shapes, numbers and letters.  Plus concepts like taller, shorter, longer, over, under, top, bottom, left, right, full, empty, etc.  So far it has been great.

But then I got to thinking, that once Connor did these pages, that would be it.  It would be impossible to erase each page if he had to work it again.  How could I make sure he got the most out of this book as he could. My first thought was scanning each page as he did it and printing it out. But that was going to be a lot of work, a lot of ink, and a lot of paper.  That would end up being more expensive than the book.  As I pondered this I found myself in Kroger one day looking at something I had never seen before.

Dry Erase Crayons, I did not know they made these! Then my brain started that whirring and clicking it does when it gets an idea.  Page protector sheets, a notebook, and these crayons! Each page could become a dry erase page.  This way Connor could work each page as many times as he needed to.  This would be perfect for learning the letters, if he had to trace over them more than twice, which is how many times the book had each letter to trace, he could erase it and do it again.  Not only could he work them several times, but I could save the entire book for Kenny.  He'll be ready for this stuff in a few years.

So I started tearing out a few pages each day and putting them in the page protectors.  I only used the amount the came in the pack I got so that we only do so many pages a day.  This lets me time our preschool without having to watch the clock.  The pages that he masters right off I can take out and put in a new page, the pages that he needs more work on I can just leave in.
















As we got into using this on a regular basis, I started thinking about other things I could use to help keep his attention, make each lesson interesting and diversified.  My sister in law was cleaning out her shed one day and ran across some things she had used when she taught her children.  I remember using these in school, and apparently they're still used in school.  They were called Versa tiles when I used them, the ones Connor has is called Think it Through tiles.  Each book has two parts, Connor has to match the tiles, letters to numbers.  If the number one box matches the letter C box, then he puts the 1 tile in the C slot.  On the back of each number tile is part of a pattern.  When he's done, you flip the case over and if your pattern made by the numbers matches the pattern in the corner of the page, you got it right.  Connor loves it and is starting to get the hang of how to do it without my help.

Pinterest has been a great help in preschool ideas.  One idea I've found that I love is the Play Dough mats.  They're pictures you can slip inside page protectors (yay for page protectors!) and put play dough in the patterns, or follow directions like "Put five petals on the flower", "Put carrots in the ground for the rabbit", or "Put a face on the little boy".  Some of these pages were free printables.  But some of them looked kind of boring even for kids.  So I got to thinking how I could make it really fun and unique for Connor.  Those whirrings and clickings started up again and I thought, Spongebob, Connor loves Spongebob.  So I drew out a picture of Spongebob standing beside his stove at the Krusty Krab.  Connor has to help Spongebob make Krabby Patties! I tell him how many patties Spongebob needs and he makes the patties out play dough and puts them on the stove.

Connor had a lot of fun with this! I'm already thinking up more things we can do with things like Cars and Toy Story.






I wanted to do more play dough things today so I took some paper and wrote out some numbers for us to play with.  I'm planning on printing some out to look better with the number word on it so he can start associating the numeral with it's word.

And of course he has his writing tablet that we practice all out letters and numbers in that he learns.  I usually have him write what he learned the previous day while I'm getting the rest of his things ready so he can get used to writing them with a pencil.

So that's what we're using so far, I'm always looking for other tools and ideas, pinterest is a great place to find different things.  Sometimes Connor gives me ideas, and I try never to miss an opportunity for a learning experience.  He loves using different things to learn with.

Preschool with my Preschooler

My four year old son has reached the preschooler age.  Yay me. (Did you hear the sarcasm in that? Did you? It was there.) I checked into getting him into preschool at our elementary school, but they were full.  So instead of going through the hassle of filling out paperwork to see if we qualified financially and having him screened only to wait until kindergarten started, I made the decision to just do preschool at home.  How hard could it be right? It's not like I'm teaching him rocket science, it's just numbers, letters, colors, shapes, and a few concepts such as opposites and directions.  These are things I've been doing very well with since I was a preschooler.  As always, how wrong was I?

My first hurdle was getting past me.  I panicked! What if I didn't teach him good enough and they said he wasn't ready for kindergarten? What if the kids enrolled in preschool learned different stuff from him? What if they all passed him and he got left behind? I called my mom, freaking out that Connor was going to miss all this and be way behind everyone when he started kindergarten next year! She laughed at me! Yes, laughed, didn't try to hide it or nothing, just out and out laughed. Gee thanks, mom! But then she told me to calm down.  She reassured me that Connor was smart, he can learn this stuff as well as all the other kids, she told me I could teach him, I just had to calm down and take it slow.  Okay, so I breathed and finally convinced myself she was right.  Connor was smart.  He had been going around the house for a week spelling his name.

I went to my local Barnes and Nobles and found a workbook for him.  I brought it home and started looking through it.  All the normal preschool stuff was in there, no algebra or rocket science.  So that Monday I sat down with him to start.  I had envisioned us sitting down together, me explaining to him what to do, him doing it with a big smile on his face and then looking at me with wonderment that he was learning! Again, I was wrong.  We worked for five minutes and he started, "I don't want to do this, it's hard!" and "I want to go play".  I would try to tell him what to do and he would just sit there, sometimes telling me no.  So we stopped for the time being and I thought, "It's just the first day, he can't learn to sit still and do this in the first day".  The second day came, and the third, by the fourth day I panicked again.  I was about in tears with frustration because he kept refusing to do the work.  I called my mom again, freaking out.  "he's refusing to work, I beg, I plead, I bribe, I sweet talk, I yell, I threaten, I coerce, nothing is working, he'll never learn it, he'll be in preschool the rest of his life!" What did she do? Yep, she laughed again.  She again told me to calm down.  He's four, it's going to take a while for him to realize what it means to sit down and do school work.  If I can just be patient, he'll learn and then it'll be easy and he'll enjoy it.  At the time, I didn't believe her.

But you know, she was right.  (As usual)  After about a week of doing a little more each day he finally likes it.  He asks me after his nap if we're doing school today.  He lights up when I say we are.  He's picking up on everything so quick and is loving that he's learning.  He can write his first name, his letters A-J, capital and small, his numbers 1-8, he's learning to count and associate the written number with counting.  He's learned all the simple shapes and colors, and I think we're going to start on time soon.  He even surprised me the other day. We had just mastered writing the letter G and I asked him what letter was next.  He said, "I know, H, H is easy, I can write it, watch" and he wrote the capital H.  We had not even gone over H, but he wrote all by himself.  I was stunned.

So preschool at our house went from, "I can't do this, he's going to be behind", to "He won't work, he won't learn" to "Great job, Connor, now let's move on to this".  I'm so happy he likes doing the work and asks to do it.  He can't wait to start school and keeps reminding me that soon he'll be in real school.  I'm sure that'll be another panicky day and I'll be on the phone with my mom and she'll be laughing at me.  But that's still a little ways away.  Right now, I'm going to enjoy teaching him his preschool.

(When Kenny gets to be four, I'm going to get him enrolled in preschool early!)