Summer & Preschool Plans

I'm so excited that Summer is just around the corner - despite the chilly weather we're having! 

This summer is shaping up to be a full one! The exciting part is our Holiday to visit all our East Coast family.  This is the highlight of our summer and we are looking forward to it more than I can say.  The kids know Rick's parents well and are super excited to see them, visit their house and see their cousins. We're expecting another niece or nephew to join the family soon!! So we'll get to meet the baby on this trip too.  After we get back, we'll have a little down time, Vacation Bible School, then a little Camp through our community.   Blink ~ The summer is over and School starts.     They say that the years go by faster once your kids get in school.....Seriously, I can't even imagine, but it will happen this year!

Turbo turns 4 this year and it is very customary in our area to send them to preschool. We picked a great one where Turbo would go 3x per week for 2.5hrs per day.  We enrolled, paid a deposit and on some frustrating days, I found myself counting the days until he'd go!  However, once it came time to turn in all the final paperwork, Rick and I decided it wasn't the best strategy for Turbo or our family.

So we're not sending him to traditional Preschool, but will do it together instead. While it was a difficult decision at first, I'm THRILLED about it now. I'm looking forward to our continued freedom to go and do as we'd like instead of being tied down to the school year when the kids are so little.  With the kids at 4 & 2, we'll be able to spend much time on adventures and exploring. 

So I'm in the process of planning away.  While we won't be heavy on the academics, I want to provide him with material that keeps him a bit challenged and interested. We'll be doing lapbooks, TONS of outings, art projects, and lots of other learning through fun stuff.  

So that's it for now.  No pictures again ~ I know. It's the biggest challenge in why I haven't been blogging.  So many have suggested Windows Live Writer that I will look at it over the summer and see if that makes it easier to blog. I really want to blog weekly once we start school. It was awesome to look back over these past 18 months and relive such fun moments. 

Ok, I found a couple to post! Here are soem from our Dirt Park riding adventures earlier this month. You can be sure we'll be doing this often. The kids had a blast. Turbo was amazing on the big hills. Sweetie just wanted to be on his bike with Daddy pushing her.  Cute!

Calendar Time

Here's our calendar routine for this preschool year.  While we have a large home, we have very limited wall space.  So it had to be compact and easy to put away.

It's simple and has the key pieces. Most importantly it is quick!

 The background is a white foam board. The colored pocket holders came in a pack of 10 from the dollar store. The small one is just a larger one trimmed. 


Calendar
The calendar frame is printed on 11x17 paper. I created it in MS Word.
The month and number pieces are from Childcareland in their free printables section.
We attach the numbers with tape. At the beginning of the next month, I'll put up another calendar frame.

First thing we do is Pledge of Allegiance. Yep, we say it every time. Turbo has learned to be still and respectful during the pledge - as I take this very seriously.  The great printable came from Homeschool Creations.

Everything else below are printables from Carisa at 1+1+1=1. I printed them out, laminated, cut and attached velcro dots where needed. 
Weather - Turbo LOVES this part.  He runs over to the door to check if there are clouds and picks the right card and puts it on the velcro dot.  (see main board picture). Then we sing the song.

The Date - This is when we put the new calendar number on the calendar. Then we sing all the songs that follow.

Months of the Year -

 Days of the Week

Every Week

That's it! Short, sweet and space saving!

My Approach for 3 year old Preschool

Last year was my first year doing this sort of thing. I have to admit, it does not come easy to me. Despite that I used others pre-created things and ideas, it took me A LONG TIME to pull it all together. I was over-thinking what we should be doing; Learning myself about how/what to prepare and teach; etc.  There are so many great ideas, things to learn, activities to do.... It was a bit overwhelming in that I wanted to do and teach it all.

This year, I'm doing things differently. I've assessed my goals. Turbo turned 3 at the end of June. This very well maybe my last year with him full time. Next year, he'll likely go to a local Preschool, then it's off to Kindergarten and then....well, the time just flies.  *sniff* I get a little sad just thinking of it. 

So my goals for this year are very simple, but keep me grounded in my planning.

1. Have Fun!
2. Explore
3. Learn New Things
4. Play Outside  *note: we play outside everyday, but I'm talking about taking the learning outside and playing in different ways and places then we would normally.

That's it. No goals for him to write his name, count to 100 or anything like that. I'll work that into our learning of course and he likely will do that, but really it's not my main focus.

Main Elements of our Preschool
We're doing Themes and I'm super EXCITED about it!  There are so many things Turbo is interested in doing and learning. This is a great way to explore these areas in more depth. 

- Activites - Our Preschool time will be interactive with a lot of hands-on type activities. We'll touch it, take it apart, put it together, make it, break it etc.  He's that kind of a boy!

- Outings - We will do outings related to the theme we're doing.  (This is my favorite part!)

The Second key element are what I call the Weekly Extras - These are the tray type activities that we'll work in when we have time or he needs something to do and I'm otherwise busy.  I'm planning 6 trays per week - they'll be letter of the week worksheets, Playdough, word games, puzzels etc.

Lastly, we'll play a different game for several days each week. These could be board games, card games and such.

There are other things I want to incorporate - like country studies, Raising Rock Stars Preschool, Artist studies and more. If I have time, we'll work them in. If not, then no worries, I have the basics planned!

There you have it! My approach for the year.   I'm planning less things (although it still takes me a long time) and allowing more time to complete them. What if we get it all done early? Then we'll do them again! Preschoolers love repetition!

Overwhelmed and making adjustments

I've been a bit overwhelmed with Rick's seemingly non-stop travel and the added responsibilities of the new baby. It has been challenging to work in all the daily duties, our classes, playgroups, playdates and our tot-school activities. An extra pair of parental hands helps so much and I miss it when they're gone. My heart goes out to the military wives who have husbands deployed. They are true heroes in my book.

Until a class ended last week, we've only had 1 morning a week open. That quickly got filled with errands and such.  There just hasn't been enough time to do all the things I wanted to with Turbo and Sweet Pea. It's funny how just one short activity outside the house can require an additional hour or more for getting ready, commuting to and from, then getting settled at home again. Mornings are golden hours for learning and they've been disappearing during the week.

I've learned so much from all my TotSchool peers here in bloggy-land that I'm more confident than ever in my ability to teach and productivly play with my kids. I no longer feel like I need to have several classes to keep my kid(s) occupied. I know I can do that myself!  2010 is going to be a terrific year.

That being said, I've decided to cut back on outside activities next year. We won't be doing Mommy and Me preschool since the class wasn't well managed and the activities required so much parental involvement - I ended up doing several myself (and I'm ALL for the openness of art.).  We have two playgroups each week and I'll have to see how it works out. At this point I think I'll skip one playgroup day(each) per month. I'm sad to say I will likely drop MOPS this time around too. That will give us at 2 or 3 open mornings each week.  Music Together is the only class we're keeping, because Turbo absolutely loves it. In addition, it's the only class that is targeted for ages 0 - 5 in the same class - and actually works well!  

I'm excited about our upcoming TotSchool week. I have a lot on our plan and hope to accomplish most of it.  When we first started TotSchool, I was doing a letter of the week. We're getting back to that with the letter R  ~ inspired by a Rainbow we saw on Friday.

Stay tuned for some fun posts this week. I have several coming up....including a little gift sent our way!!!!

Are you adjusting your schedule in the new year? What changes are you making?