Week 1

And off we go! Here is my lesson plan (so far) for Week 1. (I am planning on running through Week 38 if you are curious.)  Next week I will blog a separate post to show how things went!
Note: These item are not set in stone, they are flexible. No four year old is going to want to do one thing for an extended amount of time. Arrange the activities to give your child variety in their school day - I will!

This months' focus areas:

- Scripture Story: Adam & Eve

- Song of the month: ABC song

This week's focus areas:

- Color of the Week: Red

- Shape of the Week: Circle

- Letter of the Week: Intro to the ABCs

- Sound of the Week: /ck/ (as in clock)

- Number of the Week: Intro to Numbers

- Book of the Week: "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie", L. Numeroff

- Country of the Week: USA

- Animal of the Week: Dog

- Spelling Words: am, an, as, at, ax

- Sight Words: the, of, and, a, to, in

MONDAY
- First 6 + song of the month
- Writing: name, letter (ABC chart), number (Numbers 1-10)
- Read: Weekly Sight Words, Book of the Week
- Animal (Special Focus): Color Animal letter sheet, go for a walk with our dogs
- Other: 1st day of school crown
- Snack: Animals crackers
 
TUESDAY
- First 6 + song of the month
- Writing: name, letter, number, spelling words
- Read: Scripture Story, sight words
- Country (Special Focus): color flag & map, work on USA puzzle
- Other: paper plate clock craft (Sound of the week tie-in)
- Snack: "circle" snacks (Oreos, cherry tomatoes, round fruit snacks & Ritz crackers)

WEDNESDAY
- First 6 + song of the month
- Writing: name, letter, number, sight words
- Read: Book of the Week, sight words
- Science Experiment (Special Focus): Humming bird feeders (fill & hang)
- Other: Go to Library, Lorax Number Worksheet
- Snack: Lorax snack

THURSDAY
- First 6 + song of the month
- Writing: name, letter, number, spelling words
- Read:Scripture story, sight words
- Craft (Special Focus): Pre-K book
- Other: Dog pattern recognition, Sight word circles
- Snack: "red" snacks

FRIDAY
- First 6 + song of the month
- Writing: name, letter, number, sight words
- Read: Book of the Week, sight words
-  Movie (Special Focus): Cars
- Other: Dog number/number word matching
- Snack: Popcorn


How did we do?
Check back for our experience!

A Few things First...

Here are some basics I did before starting school. I think they will be helpful and keep us on track.

1. Bulletin Board: I made a bulletin board for our "First 6" time at the start of each class session. It has a calendar, weather chart, and small white boards (laminated squares) that tell our focus areas for that week/month, such as the color/shape of the week, etc. The calendar has velcro dots to make changing the calendar a little easier.

2. Planner: I bought a school-year planner from Target to schedule our school year. I went through the whole year in advance and wrote the following for each week on it's proper pages.

Letter of the Week

Book of the Week

Country of the Week

Weekly Spelling Words

Weekly Sight Words

Number of the Week

Sound of the Week

Color of the Week

Shape of the Week

Animal of the Week

Then in the "Notes" area at the beginning of each month I wrote our "First 6" routine, the monthly Scripture Stories and the Song of the month. I will also write in field trip plans for the month, if any. I am planning on filling in the weekly plans a couple of weeks before hand, in case something isn't working I won't have to white-out the entire remainder of the book!

3. Worked out a daily/weekly schedule. I worked out a general schedule for daily activities and weekly activities from a list of things I wanted to do with Evan in preschool. Every day we start with our "First 6" at our bulletin board. Here are the things we go over:

First 6

- Calendar/Weather (Add today's date on the calendar, count up to today's date, change the weather arrow)

- Color of the week/Shape of the week

- Number of the week

- Letter of the week/Sound of the week

- Animal of the week

- Country of the week

 This is meant to be a quick overview, not an in-depth discussion of any one thing. Feel welcome to change things as you feel the desire.

4. Supplies: Some supplies I have found helpful for setting up our preschool.

Laminator

Bulletin Board

Paper cutter (small)

White-out
File box
Bin for supplies

The PreSchool Experiment

My third son (we have four) is four this year. Both of his older brothers will be in school full-time, starting this coming Monday (August 27th). He was so excited to go to preschool this year, but we ran into a problem. The preschool at our local elementary school is great (both of our older boys went there), but out of our budget since they lost their Title One funding. It is the same for private preschools in our area - out of the budget. I checked with the local HeadStart preschool, but we don't qualify. So, what to do with my four-year old who is so excited about getting to go to school? The answer, for us, was to do it ourselves (by "ourselves" I mean me and him). So, this is our journey. Hopefully we can find things that work for us and that he enjoys, so he has fun learning. And if it is a success, he has a little brother who will get to do the program in a year or two!
Now for the disclaimer. I am not, nor ever have been, a school teacher. I have taught a Primary class before, but a 5-day a week teaching job will be new for me. Evan already knows his ABCs, numbers, colors, shapes, etc. So, the focus won't be so much on those. I am hoping to work on reading, writing, counting and spelling. I am also going to highlight a different animal, country, and book each week. There will be at least one craft project and science experiment each week, along with lots of coloring. We will focus on two different scripture stories each month, and have a monthly song and a movie & popcorn day every Friday. I am hoping to start after lunch, around 12, each day and be done before the older boys come home from school at 3 so they can all have their after school snack together. The schedule may change along the way, but hopefully I can post each week's plan in advance if you want to join us. I will try to post all of my sources as well.
Come along on our Preschool Experiment!