It’s official - I’m teaching preschool!

I finished Logan’s workbox set up last week and he was so excited about it that I decided we are going to start school… right now.  So this morning we woke up, got ready for our day, and started preschool!   I am mixing Montessori and traditional preschool with the workboxes… I wasn’t sure how that was going to work, but I have to tell you I honestly think they compliment each other really well!  I wanted to let you know the resources I am using along with the workboxes because it seems like it’s going to be a wonderful system!

Box #1

This is a print out from a curriculum I purchased from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I have already found this curriculum well worth what I paid for it.  It filled in a lot of the little holes that I wasn’t sure what to do with and has lots of great activities and printouts to play with!

Box #2 is a pick up game with tongs. 

Not strictly Montessori, but pretty darn close.  You roll the die and whatever number is up you put that number of bananas into the monkey’s mouth with the tongs.  Apparently this is the funniest game EVER!  Lots of laughter and giggling.  And it wasn’t a ‘work with mom’… so the giggling was loud enough I heard it from changing the sheets in the bedroom.  (I have made this same activity with bamboo tongs from World Market, two bowls, and cotton balls or marshmallows.  Monkeys are not required… just fun!)

Box #3 was a cutting activity.

Very simple, but for his first activity of this kind I made it a ‘work with mom’.  (monkey scissors added fun, but not required.)

Box #4 was a matching activity. I don’t remember where I got it as it was months ago… but if I do, I will edit this.

Matching and sequencing are such an intricate part of learning to read, so activities like this bird matching game are going to be a running theme in my teaching for the next 26 weeks.  When we first started this activity I only gave him half the birds (one sheet of paper) and now he is up to matching all 20 birds at once in about 4 minutes. 

Box #5 was a sequencing activity.  This also came from the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  The theme this week is the numbers 1-9 and the letter Aa.  So this week we will see a lot of apples.  ;)

Box #6 was a number matching activity.  This is one I made up.

It’s super simple.  I just bought a set of clothes pins and wrote on them in sharpie marker the numbers 1 - 9.  Then I made a table and printed out the numbers on a sheet of cardstock.  Cut them out and have the kiddo match them up.  Today I only did four numbers.

Box #7 was another matching activity.  I got this the same day as the bird one.  Once again, if I find where I got it, I’ll edit this post.

It is a matching game with uppercase letters and lowercase letters, but I just had him match the pictures.  With a mention of the letter Aa and the apple that it was associated with, we moved on.

Box #8 was a coin matching game.

The coins had been scanned on the scanner and then the page laminated.  The real coins were put in a small Tupperware and kept with the sheet.  You just have to have the kid match them up.  These all happened to be coins from other places, but you could just as easily do this with American currency. 

I added in some extra fun by throwing two chocolate coins in there for him to eat when he was finished with the activity.

Box #9 was an activity from Homeschool Share’s ABC notebook file.  (More on the ABC notebook later)

We added 9 red ‘baby apples’ to the big apple on his A page with glue.  He LOVED being able to use my glue!

Box #10 I put in his playdough and playdough mats. 

I also added in the best playdough toy ever!

And that was our first day of preschool.  The whole thing took about two hours and he giggled through it all.