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kristinannie
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I sent my son to pre-K at a private Christian preschool and was not at all happy with it. I loved the preschool for 3 year olds and my daughter is doing that. She will be doing two days a week so I would like to supplement with some light homeschooling as well. She is very ready for school and gets really mad when DS is doing schoolwork and she doesn't have books to use. I give her math manipulatives, coloring and she traces letters. Can you think of anything else to keep her busy, but also involve her? I want to do pre-K at home the following year. What do you use and what do you like? Thanks in advance for the suggestions!
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violingirl
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I bought some of the Kumon First Steps books for my 3 1/2 year old for this year- the cutting one, sticker and paste and folding. He really likes having "school" to do while I'm working with his older brother. We also use a lot of Montessori materials and I prepare more cutting work for him on my own because the kid will sit happily with scissors, a glue stick and paper for ages making collages.
He sits in on the reading I do with my Kindergartener and he does some projects along with us in his own way, but I really don't plan much for him beyond an informal "read 3 picture books every day". I suppose I do plan to present new Montessori work to him every once in awhile, but otherwise we just have a lot of art supplies and open ended toys available.
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DominaCaeli
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I have two "preschoolers" this year, one boy and one girl, both 4yo. I'm really trying to delay formal academics, but we do have a "morning basket" time (a la Jennifer!) every day during breakfast: calendar, morning prayers and hymn, saint of the day or other religious reading. Then the kids usually work on art of their own choosing while I read poems until the baby starts fussing.  I would think this whole block would be something your two oldest could do together, which would make your littler one feel involved. (Even my 2yo happily participates in morning basket time most of the time!)
Other than that, our preschool consists of picture books, listening to music and singing, walks and play outside, open-ended toys, chores, time with art supplies, and lots of free play. My daughter is already reading (she taught herself, honest!  ), so she spends some time reading to her siblings. (She would read almost all day if I let her.) My son is eager to "catch up" with her, so I occasionally do a reading lesson with him. But nothing else particularly schooly. 
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Erin
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Kristinannie,
A tricky age in lots of ways, particularly with older siblings.
Lots of great ideas here for 3 year olds. I often re-read for ideas for my little ones of that age.
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JamieCarin
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How about one of those leapfrog pen readers (we have one and have no idea what it is called LOL)? And there are HEAPS of free printables for that age to practice letter writing or cutting and pasting worksheets. I even found one yesterday to make mini books for each letter. Each page is a different worksheet and then it all gets put together into a little book for them. Puzzles? My 3yr old is loving puzzles right now and Memory games and water color coloring books.
I have a similar question about preschool when you DON'T have the issue of older kids doing school. But I will start a new topic for it. I will be interested to see the ideas that come in on this thread.
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Mackfam
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kristinannie wrote:
| I want to do pre-K at home the following year. What do you use and what do you like? |
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Pre-K tends to be a lot of living alongside me. I don't plan a whole lot out:
:: We read together - lots of picture books!!
:: Cook together - little people LOVE to help in the kitchen.
:: Work together.
:: Go outside together.
:: More reading together.
I try to provide some interesting pursuits for the 3yo to explore:
:: Montessori activities
:: Open-ended toys
:: Leapfrog and Little Bear DVD's
:: Puzzles
:: Games - my little person loves Bendomino and Zimbbos.
:: If I have time - simple crafts
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Trinity
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My youngest is almost three and has a fairly unstructured day as far as learning goes.
We read a lot of picture books and Ladybug Magazines. She enjoys "washing" her play dishes in the sink and sweeping with her own little broom. Sometimes I can get her to sort her socks while I fold laundry. She just enjoys helping out and taking part in everything her brother and I do.: )
She also enjoys working with Montessori materials. We do not have a lot of the materials that are available, but what we do have she likes. She uses the sandpaper numbers and letters, moveable alphabet, color boxes and insect and botany puzzles. She sometimes works with the metal insets, but not a lot yet. I also set up trays with some basic activities for her: paper to cut, counting bears or pom poms to sort, etc.
It can be difficult to work one on one with my oldest right now because she always wants to do what he is doing. The one thing that has helped is to give her Play Doh. She will play with that for an hour at a time sometimes!
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Mackfam
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kristinannie wrote:
| Can you think of anything else to keep her busy, but also involve her? |
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Have you checked out Enchanted Learning? There are an amazing number of printables there on every subject under the sun. My little people always really enjoy their printables! When they're still little, but they want to be doing "real school" like the big kids, I just print some of these and either put them in a special notebook or spiral bind them and they love it! It makes them feel like they're getting "big kid work".
Also, the affordable offerings at Montessori For Everyone are always a hit with my little people!! Print what you need and let them work! Do check out the free downloads first!
GuestHollow.com has a number of free offerings.
Jan Brett offers a TON of free stuff - if you and your children enjoy Jan Brett books you'll find these printables charming.
Little people like their own big kid things....so I like to set up a couple of "special" books in their own school basket:
:: A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.
:: Catholic books for littles - one at a time for reading together.
:: Enchanted Learning printables assembled.
:: I periodically gather picture books (from my shelves, but you could use the library) around a science or nature theme and add these to the basket - so little book collections on animals, weather, birds, seasons, flowers, etc.
:: We have enjoyed some of the gentle items CHC offers for the younger set and have collected a few over the years. I might include something from CHC in their basket as well.
:: Coloring books
:: Special crayons and pencils that are ALL THEIRS!
Assemble just as you would for the bigger kids - mine love this! Their own schooltime basket/bag/bin of work!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Mackfam
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Trinity wrote:
| We read a lot of picture books and Ladybug Magazines. |
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Oh - I'm so glad you mentioned these, Trinity! My 3yo loves Babybug and Ladybug magazines! I didn't want to subscribe to either publication so I started looking for old sets someone might be getting rid of. A dear member here sent me her old collection of Babybug after posting a WTB in the Trading Post and it has been such an enormous hit and I have been so grateful!! A few months ago, I decided to see if I could find a collection of the Ladybug magazines (the next step up) for my little one. I found a whole set on ebay for a song and grabbed them!
Just throwing that out as an option for collecting these. They are hit here with my younger crowd.
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Jen Mackintosh
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kristinannie
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Thanks for all of the ideas. I am going to have to wait until naptime to look at them though!
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Becky Parker
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HWOT has some new preschool materials that look nice.
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cathhomeschool
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I did lots of Five in a Row at that age. Their ideas and the supplements on their message board (and here if you search for a particular subject or book title) are great and easily adaptable for younger and older.
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Trinity
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Mackfam wrote:
Trinity wrote:
| We read a lot of picture books and Ladybug Magazines. |
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Oh - I'm so glad you mentioned these, Trinity! My 3yo loves Babybug and Ladybug magazines! I didn't want to subscribe to either publication so I started looking for old sets someone might be getting rid of. A dear member here sent me her old collection of Babybug after posting a WTB in the Trading Post and it has been such an enormous hit and I have been so grateful!! A few months ago, I decided to see if I could find a collection of the Ladybug magazines (the next step up) for my little one. I found a whole set on ebay for a song and grabbed them!
Just throwing that out as an option for collecting these. They are hit here with my younger crowd. |
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They really are wonderful! : )
I love that advertising is so minimal in their magazines. Nothing to distract from the lovely contents. It is also nice that they make ones for each age group. My 3 year old likes Ladybug and my 7 year old enjoys Spider. I do not normally "collect" magazines, but these are ones worth keeping for more than one read and more than one child.
And I agree, Ebay is a great way to get a nice collection for a decent price. I have bought back issues from there before. Libraries often carry these magazines, too. My father kindly purchased subscriptions for both Ladybug and Spider for the children this year. They enjoy getting them in the mail. : )
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setonmom
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What a great idea getting Babybug and Spider on ebay! I didn't discover Babybug until my fourth child was about 3 years old. I loved it so much I wanted to have another baby! Seriously! I love Ladybug and Spider too, but sometimes I feel there is a bit of a "social agenda". I love the effort the publishers go to to make the illustrations beautiful. When I was on bedrest, I spent the money ( because I couldn't get to the library easily) and got the kids a subscription to Spider. Boy did they love it, but it is pricey! I just might go on ebay right now!
setonmom
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setonmom
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Another thing I have done, as time has allowed, is story time at the library. There are usually stories built around a theme, with some fingerplays/songs, and then a theme-related craft. My kids have usually enjoyed it.
setonmom
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graciefaith
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My little one will be turning 4yo in October and she's been itching to have her own *school* time like her sisters.
This website is awesome. I've purchased her packet but it's all free on her website. So far, dd has enjoyed it.
I'm also going to use Before Five in A Row, Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, and sandpaper cursive letters to start off before actually writing on paper. For religion, I'm going to try out Who Am I? by CHC, the pre-k Bible recommended by Mater Amabilis and this interactive Bible set. I have a few books on Saints that might work for her along with the Saint puzzles that another poster shared.
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graciefaith
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Oh and this website has units for 3-4yo as well. Free too.
http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/
And I've found a few things here too.
www.sparklebox.co.uk
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RxLisa
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I also do the Kumon books with my daughter who is about 2.5yrs. There is a TON of stuff free online. Starfall is a good website. I found some cheap flash cards at Walmart, not so much for doing "flash card drills" but as a tool to use to play games to learn shapes/numbers/letters. My mom bought her the "High-5" or something like that, subscription. It's the younger version of Highlights. In all honesty, I think most of it is too advance for preschoolers- certainly for them to do it on their own. Maybe kindergarten would be a better age.
I think sticker books are also a fun way to teach preschool material.
At this age (or earlier even), I think you can teach basic Catholic prayers too. My daughter can say the Our Father, Hail Mary, Angel of God, Glory be and the blessing before meals on her own. She knows most of the prayer to St. Michael the archangel too. Her godfather bought her this children's picture bible: http://catholicfreeshipping.stores.yahoo.net/capibibyrelo.ht ml
and these saint books: http://catholicfreeshipping.stores.yahoo.net/boofsapa5.html
so we read from those sometimes. On feast days, I try to remember to print a coloring page of the feast/saint for her to do, and do an appropriate reading.
This blog has a lot of coloring saint pages:
http://tiredtwang.blogspot.com/p/catholic-coloring-pages.htm l
Also this catholic church's website has some really good catholic coloring pages too, like the rosary, creed, etc.
http://www.sjtbre.org/main.cfm?r1=6.00&ID=22&level=1
Orientaltradingpost.com has a lot of Christian sticker scene activities. I bought a bunch of those on sale.
HTH! I'll have to check out these other websites that were mentioned!
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dolorsofmary
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I did little saints preschool program with my son. It was a lot of fun and my son did not want it to end. He loved it so much. A friend of mine sent her son to preschool and then had trouble with homeschooling him because he wanted to go back to school. But I think they have ironed it out, they talked about the things he missed and she is trying to provide them for him. I try hard to not paint school as a bad place but that our choice is to homeschool. My son so far really likes homeschooling and i hope he always enjoys our choice.
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SusanMc
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I've read this thread a few times just to glean all the good information. With a 4 and 2.5 year old, we're smack dab in the pre-K and younger phase. Last year we were involved in an ecumenical preschool co-op two days a week but I found that it was too simple for my older son. The 3-hour time slots also seemed overly disruptive to our family routine.
We're new to this but I thought I'd share for the sake of others:
My older son is eager to learn to read so we're collecting sight words for his box a la Real Learning and are in the midst of creating a set of lapbooks for each letter from Walking By the Way. Once we're done with the alphabet around late fall (we're currently on K), we'll segeway into CHC phonics and continue with gentle Montessori spelling and reading activities.
This year we'll be starting with RS Math...just got the materials and am thrilled to find a Montessori friendly approach that require less preparation and training on my part. While we'll being doing the A level, I'm interested to see if the pace is too fast for him. Hmmm.
Together with our Catholic playgroup we do a weekly music/faith lesson and playtime using a Making Music Praying Twice styled format. And our Catholic Mosaic library continues to grow.
I'll also being doing CGS with the boys at home this year...SO THRILLED.
While my older son is doing all this (about 1 hour total a day, 4 days a week tops), my little guy will continue to do Practical Life and Sensorial activities or free play.
Of course together we'll continue to do arts and crafts, reading, dramatics, cooking, gardening, hiking, housework, etc.
Gosh that sounds like a ton when I type it all out. We're actually rather child-led around here when it comes to academic pace. We all seem to crave clear space in our schedules...which is why the co-op wasn't working for us.
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: What do you do for pre-K?
