Homeschool Preschool

So, I've started a very relaxed, very low key PRE-preschool with Dominic. The fact is that we were totally not being productive (this we means me :() and we were watching too much SpongeBob (this we means the boys...I was usually reading or something else not actively engaging all the time). So I needed some direction, a little bit of a schedule.

[caption id="attachment_662" align="aligncenter" width="300"] This is our schedule, I write it out each week (week 2 right now)[/caption]

This is not to say that we always follow it, or that it has our time blocked out. We spend about 10-15 minutes doing each task, and we don't do them in the order they're written necessarily. Basically it's a few ideas for us to direct our day.  This was where we started with our first week:

Week 1
Color: blue
Stack all blue toys
Color with blue crayons and chalk
Find blue items
Letters: D and C
Find things that start with D and C
Learn sounds
Draw the letters
Numbers: 1-5
Counting toys, snacks
Shapes: Circle
Find all circle toys
Draw circles
Body Parts: Arms
Go over parts
Color pictures
Religion: Sign of the cross
Practice before all prayers
Go to Church and practice
Animals: Duck
Find all ducks
Noise

I was going to write this up new every week, but basically I am just changing the color, the letters, body parts, animals and religion aspect each week, so I will keep this as sort of our template. Then I spread out these tasks during the day/week.

[caption id="attachment_668" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Our wall in the "school room" (dining area)[/caption]

When the boys do something like coloring, I put it up on our wall, and they've actually enjoyed going over to look at it later. :) Actually Dominic's obsessed with his this week and he wants to hold it a lot.

[caption id="attachment_666" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Can you guess why he loves it? Yes, I drew SpongeBob for him[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_664" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Christopher doesn't really do much yet, but he loves coloring[/caption]

Our animal this week is the frog and the color is yellow; our letters this week are S & P. If my choice of letters seems odd and random, well it is. Last week I chose D & C  because that's the boys' initials and we say their names a lot in the day. Obviously Dominic is not going to be reading at the end of our preschool year so I wanted to do something that was pre-phonics that would help him. We're focusing a lot on sounds and what words begin with those sounds. S & P I chose because, as I mentioned before, SpongeBob is a big deal in our house. And Patrick is his best friend. Today we were talking about 's' sounds and trying to find toys that started with those sounds. I was finding the SpongeBob and Patrick toys, really emphasizing the "sssss" and "puhpuhpuh" noises, and Dominic came over and asked for Squidward. It might be they just connect for him, but he doesn't have a Squidward toy anymore and we don't talk about him a lot. So, I think maybe he was making a connection??

[caption id="attachment_667" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Practicing Hail Mary this week[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_663" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Advent calendar[/caption]

Our religion this week is about the Hail Mary. I have the book My Jesus and I for the boys and I read the Hail Mary to Dominic while we looked at the pictures. We read through it twice and then I wrote it out in four parts to practice with. I wrote it on the yellow paper of course. And put up one of the prayer cards we have of Our Lady of Grace. We will continue to practice things like the Sign of the Cross, which he seems to try doing before meal prayers but sort of looks like he's dancing. It's obviously very adorable. :-D

Then in the midst of these tasks I have some chores listed for us to do. "Daily" chores a couple of times a day and one "weekly" chore. Sometimes Dominic helps me, and other times he just plays. He likes helping with the dishes, and both boys really like sweeping. But other things they haven't caught on to yet.

So, this is how we're doing preschool. Do you do anything specific with your kiddos?