Homeschool - Our first week!

This is Noelle's first official week as a home-schooled preschooler! I've been teaching her each day through games, printables, books, flashcards, etc but I finally got serious about getting a curriculum together and setting up a "classroom."

Her playroom/classroom:


I can't believe my baby is going to be 3 years old!

Preschool starts at 9am. I ring a little bell as we walk into her playroom/classroom. We start the day with the pledge of allegiance, then we do the calendar, weather, and read/repeat the bible verse for the week.

The curriculum I purchased from Confessions of a Homeschooler has the preschooler do one letter a week, so on Sunday night I prepared all of the material for the rest of the week and set out what we would do on Monday. Well, she blew through all of the material for the entire week in an hour. She knows most of the alphabet and numbers 1-10 so several of the lessons weren't challenging for her. Instead of going 5 days on one lesson we repeated all of the material on Tuesday and Wednesday and will now move on to letter E - vowels first, then the rest of the alphabet.
The work included:

Tracing letter A
Color page
patterns, recognizing a pattern and finishing the pattern
counting 1-10
smallest to biggest
lacing
puzzle game
cut and paste
pre-writing practice (tracing)
read a book to the preschooler
bible verse

My goal for her by the end of this course work is to:  recognize letters A-Z and know their sounds, write her name, count beyond 20, know the days of the week and months of the year, use scissors. Then we will move on to K4 curriculum.

Fun we've had learning this week:

Finishing patterns - her first time doing this and she thought it was really fun.

Gluing - one of her favorite things to do. Not a challenge but she loves it and I love watching her meticulously spread glue on the pieces and find the "good spot" for them to go.

 Tracing Letters A & B and a & b - a good challenge and great practice.

Tracing designs - challenging for her. I had to keep saying "go slower and follow each dot."

Lines were easy.

First time using scissors!
It took about 10 minutes for her to get the hang of it but she only wanted to cut around the piece of paper and not follow the dot pattern. No problem here. I thought it was great that she was so determined. It's so hard for her little hands to open and close the scissors.

Counting apple seeds and finding the number - easy for her.

Matching big A's and little A's - easy for her.

On Wednesday she cut, glued, or colored on each of the activities and we put them in her ABC binder. This activity is a magnet tracing game using a cookie sheet, but instead I dug out some Tinkerbell stickers (from her sticker obsession days) and had her "trace" the big A with the stickers. She loved it.

I stepped out of the room for about 5 minutes to tend to baby brother and Noelle surprised me by putting this puzzle together and gluing it to the paper all by herself! I was so proud.

 Lacing - I don't remember doing this in school but it is great fine motor skills practice for her. I'm not sure of the best way to teach her how to thread the yarn through the holes, I tried "over and under" but "up and down" seemed to work better.

Our last activity was to go around the house and find things that start with the letter A and put them in the Scavenger Hunt box. Kids love putting things in boxes so Noelle thought this was awesome, although not too many things around our house start with A!

The first thing to go in - Ariel, of course! 

I should have really played up Ariel for these lessons but I didn't think about it until Wednesday. Noelle adores Ariel even though she's never seen The Little Mermaid. She also found an alligator, which she first called an "ah-crocodile" - I laughed so hard! Then a box of alphabet cards, a pig (animal), another Ariel and an apple.

I'm excited to share her progress and the fun things we do "at school." If you're wondering where Noah is during all of this, he naps from 9am-11am. And Mr. G coaches water polo from 8-10 so there are no distractions for her. It's great to have one-on-one time with her, teaching her, loving her, and talking to her about God. She calls me "mommy-teacher" and my heart smiles.


Letter A Bible verse:
"All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23