Lil' Miss and I have been doing school at home together this fall. I have to confess that I haven't been quite as enthusiastic in my planning as I was in September, but we're still chugging along. I thought I'd post about a few learning activities that have been a hit.
(If you don't have a preschooler and you're not my mom, this might not be a super interesting post for you to read. ;)
1.) PAINTING - Lil' Miss loveslovesloves paint. Here she is working on one of her masterpieces. (Yes, we occasionally do school in our pjs around here. One of the joys of homeschool preschool.)
This paint has been a huge hit and has lasted a long time. It's definitely worth the $4,97 that it costs at W*lmart.
It has worked well for us to use a paper plate as a paint tray. Lil' Miss picks three or four colors, and I squeeze a little blob of each onto a paper plate. I give her a brush for each color to keep her from ending up with a giant brownish puddle (which isn't always effective as you can see in the first picture above ;). She likes to coordinate the color of the brush handle with the paint color, but this is totally unnecessary if your child isn't as OCD as mine. (No idea where she got that!)
I bought a pack of white 12X18 posterboard. It has been perfect for painting. It's pretty inexpensive, and it's thick enough to work well with paint. Lil' Miss loves having such a big "canvas", and one sheet keeps her entertained for quite a while. (She actually worked on a painting while Jer's mom and I painted a bedroom. I think two papers = three walls done.)
2.) Making Letters - Lil' Miss is just beginning to write some letters. She's not super excited about tracing letters with a pencil over and over (I don't think I would be either!), so we've tried some other creative ways to make letters. The biggest hit has been using a cookie sheet filled with rice for tracing letters. I keep the rice in a plastic baggie so it can be reused. She's also enjoyed making letters with assorted objects (sticks, ribbon, strips of paper, etc.) and tracing letters in shaving cream. F*amily Fun magazine had a great idea that I want to try soon: using yarn on sandpaper to make letters.
3.) Computer Games - I'm not a huge fan of letting Lil' Miss use the computer for long periods of time, but there are some great learning games out there. She especially likes the PBS K*ds site. I'm very impressed with the Sup*r Why games. They focus on literacy skills (letter recognition, phonemic awareness, etc.). And we love that show around here. (TV show that teaches literacy is a fun, fresh way at dinner time = happy mama!)
4.) Kum*n Workbooks - A friend recommended these after trying them with her preschooler. I'm not a huge workbook fan, but these are fun. They practice preschool skills that are important but aren't always the first that come to mind (tracing, cutting, pasting, etc.). Also, they increase in difficulty incrementally, so the preschool-level books can be followed by more advanced books in each skill area. Lil' Miss has loved the Easy Maze book. She just finished it and is ready for the next mazes book. You can find these on a certain very popular shopping website that begins with an A or a giant bookstore near you.
Lil' Miss's love for crafts has even inspired her very non-artsy mama to try a Christmas project. Check out my primitive Nativity set.
This craft was way easy (or I couldn't have made it - trust me!). It did require me to wrangle some power tools, but all my extremities survived. :) You can find the directions here. (No, I didn't just pull this idea out of the corner of my brilliant mind between Christmas shopping and wrapping presents.)
I'm off to cuddle on the couch with my two favorite people. Gotta' love Sunday afternoons! Hope all of you are having a wonderful weekend and enjoying the Christmas season.
No comments:
Post a Comment