We love Preschool!

A few weeks ago, after much thought and preparation, we started Preschool at home with Arthur!

We decided to do a 'letter of the week' style curriculum and so far we have really loved it! Arthur knows most of the alphabet, or has known it off and on, but it is fun to start studying the letters with more of an emphasis on 'pre-reading'. Arthur now constantly asks me what letter words start with as he sounds them out! The other thing that I love about this curriculum is how organized it is, since we learn about so much more than just the alphabet we get to tackle subjects one letter at a time. For instance, each week we introduce a new letter and the sound it makes and everyday we go over our 'theme words' (five words that start with that week's letter) and memorize a scripture that also features that letter, learn the ASL sign and sing silly songs and rhymes. Then we add in science, social studies, music, math, and scripture study as the week goes on. So for our letter A week we learned all about Astronauts, Africa, played addition games, baked applesauce muffins, and painted great works of art! We also looked up alligators and albatrosses in our animal encyclopedia!

Arthur the artist!

Stella enjoys being a part of preschool time as well!

Apple muffins!

The letter B took us to studying butterflies and birds, we built with blocks, made banana bread, talked about 'before' (as in numbers, what comes before 3?), studied all about Brazil and did lots of activities and games to continue developing skills in counting, writing, and critical thinking.

We took a special trip to the Aviary in Salt Lake to visit some of the birds we had been learning about in preschool.

Arthur had a really good time!

We even got to attend the story time at the Aviary where we heard a story about a bird and then got up close to meet it!

Homemade butterflies fluttered around the house all week!

(You can see our pocket wall calendar behind Arthur where we keep track of the days and talk about the seasons and months of the year.)

Arthur loved this game called Block Buddies, (like unto tan grams) where you choose a card and then build the shape with blocks.

Our finished fridge at the end of the week! You can see some of the activities that we did that week with color matching and writing. We always include some counting and Arthur is getting pretty good with his numbers! I have learned that instead of asking Arthur to complete a certain activity (which he usually gets bored of in about 10 seconds) I make it into an imaginary situation where we both have roles to play and I am amazed at how well Arthur does and how much he knows!!

This week we begin the letter C with lots of cupcakes, cookies, and card making for Valentines day...oh and of course a little something about Cupid!