The Preschool Homeschool

Magnetic boards are a great idea for a preschool homeschool. These boards come in all shapes and sizes, with and without added materials. The most common type of magnetic board is the magnetic whiteboard. These are great because you can use them for felt stories, to stick craft examples up, to write on and to encourage creativity by letting your child draw all over them with dry erase markers. They also make a great clay board so clay doesn’t get stuck on your floors.

Smaller magnetic boards are sold at discount and dollar stores and work great with magnetic letters and numbers. I managed to find a couple of magnetic boards at Wal-mart this summer for only $2 each. One was letters and the other numbers. The boards are very flat, more like a folder type size and come with numbers, letters, shapes, and picture magnets. My daughter absolutely loves these. Here’s a couple pics of her working with her magnet materials and a pic of the two magnetic boards:

We use the small magnetic shapes for counting, sorting, adding and subtracting lessons, which is what she’s doing in the pictures. If you can’t find magnetic boards in your area, order some magnetic letters, numbers, shapes and pictures and use your fridge.

If one of your homeschooling goals for this month is to teach your preschooler a Thanksgiving Day blessing, try teaching them the one below. This blessing is sung to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” which make it easy to memorize. I’ll be posting more Thanksgiving activities over the next few days. Unfortunately, my daughter dropped and broke my camera, so I can’t include any pictures. But I’ll do my best to convey interesting activities and recipes.

Thanksgiving Blessing

Let’s be thankful for this day

For our friends and for our play

Let’s be thankful, let’s be glad

For the food and things we have

Let’s give thanks for you and me

And our home and family

October is a great time to get a jump-start on a seed unit. While spring is the ideal time, letting all those pumpkin seeds go to waste is a shame. We carved up two jack-o-lanterns today and the kids really enjoyed taking all the stuff out of the pumpkin. Well my daughter enjoyed separating the seeds from the pulp, while my son enjoyed digging it all out. Opening a pumpkin is a great opportunity to teach kids how things grow from seeds, and show them how something so large can come from something so small.

We have eight pumpkins this year that we grew ourselves. So the kids took extra pride in carving their jack-o-lantern, knowing they planted and cared for this pumpkin when it was just a blossom. After we cleaned out the pumpkin, the kids and I washed and dried the seeds. Then I toasted them in the oven for about an hour and let the kids try them. They were both interested in trying them, but neither cared for the taste. After adding some sugar and pumpkin pie spice, my daughter liked them.

They learned that not only do seeds grow things, but they’re nutritious and tasty too.  Here are some ideas for a pumpkin seed unit:

Have your child pull seeds out of a pumpkin, wash them, dry them, and toast them in the oven.

Let your child help season them with salt, sugar or spices.

Print out a pumpkin picture. Let your child glue dried pumpkin seeds onto the pumpkin.

Make a chart that shows all the different things a pumpkin seed does. It provides pumpkins, is useful for crafts, can be eaten by people and animals and grows a large plant from just one seed.

Use pumpkin seeds for counting and sorting activities.

Use clay to show the life cycle of a pumpkin seed. Start by sticking a pumpkin seed into green clay to resemble the ground. Then do another green piece with the seed sprouting. Use paper and other craft materials to make a plant come from the seed. Then hollow out an orange clay ball and fill it with pumpkin seeds. Make another orange ball, fill it with seeds, then have your child clean the pumpkin out. Lastly, let them make pumpkin seeds out of white clay and pretend to toast and season them.

Have fun!

I use a variety of websites for printing out activities and getting craft ideas. I also use websites for listening to stories and giving her activities to do. Here is a list of some of our favorite preschool homeschooling websites.

All About Coloring - This website has coloring pages for pretty much all subjects. These are great to use for coloring time or just for fun.

First-School - I use this website for our printable alphabet. I color in the sheets and put them on the wall and then give her a sheet to either color or decorate with seeds, paper, macaroni, etc…

DLTK-Kids - This site has great crafts and ideas for teaching various subjects.

Starfall - This is a well-known site amongst homeschoolers and teachers. I let her get on here and just play until her heart’s content. We do the letters together, and then she play independently.

Santa Clara City Library - This site lets people use the Tumblebooks option. These are e-storybooks, and they actually offer a wide selection. Just look on the left sidebar for the Tumblebooks link.

The Best Kids Book Site - This is my absolute FAVORITE website. I use it almost everyday. It’s so chock full of good stuff, that I haven’t even navigated everything it offers.

Well that’s our list for our most used homeschooling websites. I hope some of them help you homeschool your preschooler.

If you’re part of a homeschooling co-op that doesn’t have a kids cooking club, consider starting one. My daughter loves to cook, so I thought that having a monthly activity where her and her friends can get together and cook would be fun and educational. My cooking club is called “Little Chefs” and we meet one Friday a month.

I plan recipes based on a theme and keep my limit to 10 kids. I’ve never had fewer than 10 show up, so far. The kids LOVE the cooking club. My first theme was apples and this month’s theme was pumpkins and popcorn. Next month we’re doing a theme called Turkey Tracks. All the recipes are age appropriate and most are done independently of the parents. A cooking club teaches kids cooperation as they wait for each kid to stir or add an ingredient. It also teaches that different foods, when combined together, can make a tasty dish. If your co-op doesn’t have a cooking club, get together and plan one. You can read more in-depth blogs about the cooking club and the recipes at my other blog, Cooking Kids/

Preschoolers are fine-tuning their fine motor skills during these years. When homeschooling, it’s important that you remember to use activities that help your child sharpen their fine motor skills. While many of us focus on writing and reading, cutting is also an important skill. When kids learn to control scissors and follow a pattern, they’re learning to control their hands and building their muscles.

There are books on the market full of cutting activities. Kumon is one publisher that puts out a cutting book geared at preschoolers. We just picked up one published by Mead, called “Snip It!” I chose this book because it’s not your typical workbook. I’ve said before we aren’t workbook people, but this book is fun! It includes a handful of black and white sheets in the front that have peel off parts. When you peel it off, the picture is then sticky. Your child then cuts out the corresponding color shapes in the back of the book and sticks it to the picture. This book works on more than just cutting, and that’s why I chose it over a simple book that only has cutting. It reinforces colors, matching skills and cutting.

If your preschooler needs some practice with their cutting skills, print out some from Enchanted Learning. Enchanted Learning Cutting Sheets

If you want to add religion to your preschool curriculum, take advantage of an AWANA program. AWANA takes place usually at a Baptist church on Wed. nights. Our program runs from 7-8:15, but all churches do their times differently. This is my daughter’s first year and she loves it. It just started after school picked up in August, and it will end shortly before school ends. It’s not a program that runs through the summertime. AWANA goes up to 12 years, I believe. If you don’t belong to a church, or belong to a church that doesn’t host AWANA, don’t worry. We neither belong, nor go to the church where my daughter goes for AWANA. I just drop her off on Wed. nights and pick her up when it’s over. I did the same thing with my son. While most of the kids’ parents are at the church, I’m not the only parent that does a drop-off, pick-up situation. I don’t feel any pressure from the church where she goes to become a member or attend services. They are happy to have her as part of their AWANA program and that’s it.

She gets a workbook to practice her verses and do activities, a vest that she earns patches for and they teach them games and songs. We practice the verse a little each day when we sit down for our craft project. So if you’ve been looking for something that teaches your kids about Christianity and gives your kids a little time around other kids, then AWANA is a positive choice. We paid 9.00 total for the program, and that cost covers the vest and patches. I think AWANA is more affordable and more enriching than a prepackaged christian curriculum. If you want more information, including how to find a program in your area, check out www.awana.org