I'm back...and blogging about preschool!

I have found some new motivation to start blogging again. I've been doing a homeschool preschool with Logan. He loves it and is always asking to do "preschool work". I have searched numerous blogs and websites to gather ideas and curriculum. I had no idea until about 2 months ago how much free content there was on the internet. I have been doing a "letter of the week" program that also adds in math, science, Bible stories, memory verses, and art. I recently decided to invest in a curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler http://bit.ly/1RAGPG. For only $10 I have access to over 1500 pages that she has designed. She is also a digital scrapbooker, so I was first attracted to the look of her blog. But, after trying out some of the work she had done with her preschoolers, I decided to purchase the whole curriculum. For anyone who may be interested, you can download almost everything from her website for free. I was spending an awful lot of time creating the lesson plans and searching all over the internet for ideas that I decided many of my other duties were being neglected and opted to purchase the curriculum because it came with the lesson plans and tons of other extras.

So, now I'm going to attempt to blog about Logan's progress through this homeschool preschool thing :) As I said before, I had already started about 2 months ago. So, I didn't start over at the letter A with the new curriculum since Logan already knows all his letters. I would like him to be able to write his letters when we are done, but I don't know how successful I will be in that. He can write an A and E very well. He also likes to scribble and see what letters come out of it. This past week we were on letter G. Here is the link to Confessions of a Homeschooler's letter G site. http://bit.ly/pG1mNB

The number of the week was 5.
The Bible Story of the week was Joshua 6 - The Battle of Jericho.
Our verse for the week was Hebrews 11:30 - By faith, the walls of Jericho fell down.

G collages - Logan stamped green "Gg"s on the pages and glued goldfish and glitter to each one.

G Patterning - I gave Logan pegs from a stacking toy and had him do an two color pattern with the big "G" and and a three color pattern with the little "g".

Lacing card - This week I told him to go up each hole with the lacing string.

Pre-writing practice - Using dry erase markers, he traced the lines and the letters.

G is for Gumball letter sort - There is an uppercase and lowercase page. Logan had to place the letters on the correct circles.

5 Apples - I just realized I uploaded the picture without the apples. Oh well. He colored the picture and then glued 5 apples on the tree.

Poke Page - Using a paperclip, Logan pokes holes along the "G" and "g".

Scavenger Hunt - We looked through the toys to find things that start with G. We came up with glasses, a giraffe, girls, green (marker and crayons), a garbage truck, and a golf ball. Logan came up with the garbage truck by himself. I was pretty impressed since he usually calls it a trash truck.

Color Puzzles - I cut the pictures in half in different ways. He had to put them back together and tell me the colors of the gumball machines. He struggles with some of the puzzles.

Letter search - I read the story to him and then Logan had to find the g's on both pages. We also practiced writing "G" and "g" on the second page.

Number Recognition - Logan counted up the pictures and then circled the correct number.

Color by Number - This is the first color by number he has done at home. He did one in his two-week summer preschool class (he will be starting this in the fall at Lord of Grace) but that time he only colored the numbers - not the whole space the number represented.

Patterning - He had to choose which picture came next.

Number ordering - He had to count the gumballs and then place the cards in order from 1 to 10.

Counting - Placing corresponding number of counting blocks onto the gumball machines.

Fingerpainting - You can't tell from this picture, but Logan was making "G" and "g" in shaving cream. I would make one and then he would trace it or try to make one on his own.

Gumball Building - He was supposed to build a pattern like the one on the paper. He got it pretty close. I helped him later to move the purple and green gumballs to make a triangle.

What "G" week would be complete without reading Goodnight Moon?

Cutting practice - This is not my favorite activity. I'm not sure how to teach the concept of using scissors, apparently. He did okay while I held and turned the paper for him, but definitely struggled on his own.

Roll a gumball - My mom gave me this awesome die with the numbers on it. We rolled it to gather the pieces to then build the gumball machine. Logan definitely enjoyed rolling the die, but not so much on the putting the pieces in order.

Since our Bible story for the week was Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, on our last day of the week we built a wall out of blocks. Then we made kazoos and marched around the wall seven times. Then we blew the horns and the wall "fell down". The kazoos were cardboard rolls that we decorated and had wax paper on one end.

Puzzle - I am so proud of Logan for doing this puzzle. He is great at wood puzzles where the pieces fit into the holes, but he struggles with other kinds. He was able to put this 6 piece puzzle together himself. I talked him through a couple things, but he put all the pieces together himself.

Tracing page

Cut and paste page - I cut out the pictures but he chose the background page and glued them all on by himself.

G is for gumball coloring page

Gumball counting - Placing the correct amount of gumballs into each machine.

G is for gumball magnets - Logan placed pom-pom magnets (don't they look like gumballs?) on the G and in the gumball machine.

Gumball Graphing - He had to count the number of gumballs in each machine and place the corresponding number of pom-pom magnets on the graphing lines
.

Letter Sorting - Placing the capital and lowercase G's where they belong.