Preschool - Week of November 24

This was a good school week for us. Crumpet ran to the 'school room' every morning and was generally excited about the projects I had ready for him.

McRuffy Science:

We worked on the first couple of lessons in the curriculum this week. It was all about organizing by size. I set up lots of activities having to do with this subject. We sorted Bob the Builder trucks into small, medium, and large piles. I found this activity at Tired, Need Sleep. You can download the pictures here. We lined up school buses in order from smallest to largest. I found these at File Folder Fun. I traced and cut out pairs of shoes belonging to each member of our family (this idea is from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready). We talked about pairs and matched up the shoes. Then we lined them up in order of size and guessed who owned each pair. We lined up pictures of animals after talking about how big each animal is in real life. We stacked and nested cups and blocks. Of course, we then flew planes into the stacks to get the bad guys hiding inside!Phew. Lots of sequencing. And Crumpet is really good at it now!

Number Recognition:

We reviewed the numbers 1-6 which we had worked on last week. Crumpet remembered them all, so we did the trash toss game with numbers. I set out lots of papers with numbers written on them. I called out a number and Crumpet had to find it quickly, crumple it up, and toss it in the pot. Having the cat sitting on half the numbers (she's a BIG cat) just added to the challenge! Crumpet LOVES this game and did really well.

Phonics:
I decided to pull out our phonics book to see if Crumpet was ready for it yet. We talked about the letters a and b and the sounds they make. I set out groups of objects and had him hand me things that start with the letter b.

I had him trace sandpaper letters with his finger while saying the sounds. This is a Montessori concept and I found the templates here. Then he drew the letters in a pool of fingerpaint. And then I drew the letters on construction paper and let him trace them with his cars which had been dipped in paint. This was a big hit!

Crumpet knows his letters, and he knows the sounds they make. In the end, though, it's clear that he can't yet hear the sounds when they are part of words. He has started to rhyme, so I'm guessing that we'll get to phonics soon. But for now, we're putting the books away, and we'll continue to play word and listening games.

Fine Motor Skills:
We worked on cutting, which is something I've really neglected. Crumpet has a lot of trouble holding the scissors correctly, and he gets very frustrated with the whole thing. I drew straight lines on small sheets of paper and had him cut apart one sheet of paper per day. He's making progress, and when we break down tasks into simple parts, he does much better. Slowly, but surely, we'll get there.

We worked on a couple of vehicle puzzles. He seems to be starting to understand the concept of edge pieces... (This was his standard photo pose of the week!)

Nature Study:

I made a chart with pictures of things we might find on a nature hike. I laminated it and brought it along on our walk so we could do a little scavenger hunt. When Crumpet saw something on the chart, he circled it. This was a lot of fun, and we found everything except a squirrel. We are very LOUD ALL THE TIME, so I'm guessing the squirrels ran for cover!

We even found something that wasn't on our list - very social ducks! They came right up to us hoping for snacks, and Crumpet could almost touch them. He was thrilled, and has been quacking all day...

Socialization:

We went to a preschool gym class at a local community center. This is so much fun, and the teacher runs the kids 'til they drop! We also babysat for a couple of friends and neighbors so Crumpet had lots of social interaction AND practice sharing his toys this week. He had a great time. Here he is making goofy faces with a friend who spent the night:

You can find other preschool corner posts here. For some reason, I'm having a terrible time attaching buttons to my posts right now...

I hope you all had a good week too! Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!