One of my biggest goals for this year is to get back into the swing of things with homeschooling. Drew is getting close to VPK age, and even though we aren't going to be sending him to a traditional school for this program I want him to stay on track with his peers. He has some of the basics down, so it is time to expand on them.
Right now he can count to 10 with no problems, to 20 and only skipping 14, but once he gets to 20 he can count to about 50 or so until he gets bored. He can do some simple math like under 10 addition and subtraction, but in truth it is still more counting because he needs to see it in fingers or objects to get it. He does understand the concept of zero, which honestly is one that surprises me. Drew has his basic shapes and colors down pat, AJ has been working on some more complicated shapes with him like rhombus. He can recognize almost all of his letters, though some still confuse him on signs because they look like numbers, especially Z into a 2. He will identify letters when we are out and about until he gets bored with the game and just starts messing things up to annoy me. Boredom is going to be my biggest challenge with him.
We kicked things back off in earnest with Valentine's Day. It seemed like a good starting point because there are a lot of good activities and preschool printable packs for it.
We started with stringing Fruit Loops on to pipe cleaners and making them into hearts. It gave us a chance to work on counting large numbers, stringing in patterns, and fine motor skills. There was also lots of snacking on them and using them as lightsabers until they were made into hearts.
We made Valentine's to take to our playgroup's party. I was hoping we could work on writing his name, but he wasn't interested in it at all that day, but he did work on the letters in his first and last name and what it looked like put together. That was a new skill for him. He also started understanding the concept of a first name and a last name. It was fun to see him get that AJ, Humma, Humpa, Mamie, and me all have the same last name as him.
At the party the kids got to decorate heart cookies and then eat them. It gave me a good idea to let him practice with a knife more often.
Later in the week we worked with the letter V for Valentine and H for heart. Some of the things we did were use V stamps to fill in the letter V, the letter H to fill in the H, and worksheets to practice handwriting, identifying what is different, and patterning.
I want to get in the habit of posting his work so that I can look back and see where he is improving. I have a hard time judging that on the day in day out basis. It should also get me in the habit of documenting and keeping a portfolio of his work for when he starts kindergarten.
Most of the sheets we used this week were from www.overthemoon.com Valentine's Day preschool pack. We used some from Living Life by Learning, www.giftodcuriosity.com, and PreKinders.com
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