Well, Allen's back to school. His classes started last Thursday. We miss having him home, but are hopeful this year will be better than last. He doesn't have classes at all on Mondays, which is pretty cool, but gets creamed with four classes on Tuesdays. I'm hoping that he is able to be home for dinner some nights... this summer really sucked with Allen being gone three night a week. But somehow we survived!
With everyone going back to school, I started thinking about preschool for Riley. He is such an active, fun loving kid, and loves to learn, that I want to be able to simulate his active mind... So, I started looking into the cost of preschool. UGH! We can't afford to send him to preschool... Everywhere was so expensive, and I was just looking for 2-3 days a week, half days! LOL. So, as Riley says, I decided to "do it myself!"
Now this isn't bragging, but Riley already knows most of his alphabet, can say his numbers to 20, can count to 10, and loves to read books, we are currently reading an abridged version of Huckleberry Finn...This version has a picture on each page, with paragraphs of words on the other page... and he can sit through a whole chapter, generally asking for more.
So, I got out my preschool curriculum guide and began to plan. I bought the guide last year, hoping to find some activities for Riley to do. It worked OK last year... he wasn't quite ready, and I didn't follow through very well. But I believe it will be just the thing for us now. The guide I'm using is The Complete Daily Curriculum for Early Childhood by Pam Schiller and Pat Phipps.
I really like how they don't assume you know anything. LOL Half the book is the appendix which has song words, rhymes, games, instructions for craft projects, patterns for puppets, coloring pages and activities. For each lesson they have included a list of books to go along with the theme for the lesson. Each lesson is laid out so easily, anyone could do it! lol, so hopefully I can too.
Well, I called up my mom to get advice on where to start. Mom taught preschool back when I was a preschooler and is currently a high school teacher. More than that, my crazy mom is in the middle of getting her doctorate... it was going to be curriculum design, but I think she changed to leadership... This made her the perfect person to go to for advice. She instructed me to decide on an overall year goal: what I want Riley to be able to do at the end of the school year (e.g. can recognize simple words). Then figure out how many days a week we were going to do lessons, following that, divide my themes (from the curriculum guide I have), and begin to plan activities to get us to the big goal.
Anyway, I set up a curriculum map (yay for typing so many of them for my mommy!) with classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday. did my lesson plans (again, go me, I learned something typing up all those things for Mom!), and went through the things I already have, what I need, what I want, etc...
This week we are learning about trains! This is something I know Riley really enjoys. Yesterday, we started out with using the Alphabet letters he has on his floor to spell the word TRAIN. Riley was so good! He's now pointing out the word TRAIN everywhere. Then we read 3 of the train stories we have in our library. I helped him point out the word train in each book and make train sounds. The we became the train and walked around the house with our toilet paper train whistle making train noise.
Then we all got into the van, and drove over to the Springs Preserve. There is a cute playground there (free by the way, for anyone interested you have to pay to go into the museums, but you can go to the playground, walking trails, and library for free) that has a train you can play on! It was really hot, but I know Riley had fun. We then went into the Origin museum and found all the trains that were there.
Yes, Emma has grown, and grown and GROWN... She barely fitting into her 9 month clothes anymore! She's in such a hurry, she can't walk yet, but bear crawls around!
I've also made Riley an engineer's outfit. It was my first pair of pants and if I do say so myself, they turned out really good! Riley really likes then, they have train buttons on the straps. I'm planning on making Emmaline a jumper with the same material and buttons.
It's kind of hard to tell in the lighting, but Riley is holding a plaster train that we made (and he decorated!)
So, my first lesson turned out well. Wish me luck for tomorrow...
Well, Allen's back to school. His classes started last Thursday. We miss having him home, but are hopeful this year will be better than last. He doesn't have classes at all on Mondays, which is pretty cool, but gets creamed with four classes on Tuesdays. I'm hoping that he is able to be home for dinner some nights... this summer really sucked with Allen being gone three night a week. But somehow we survived!
With everyone going back to school, I started thinking about preschool for Riley. He is such an active, fun loving kid, and loves to learn, that I want to be able to simulate his active mind... So, I started looking into the cost of preschool. UGH! We can't afford to send him to preschool... Everywhere was so expensive, and I was just looking for 2-3 days a week, half days! LOL. So, as Riley says, I decided to "do it myself!"
Now this isn't bragging, but Riley already knows most of his alphabet, can say his numbers to 20, can count to 10, and loves to read books, we are currently reading an abridged version of Huckleberry Finn...This version has a picture on each page, with paragraphs of words on the other page... and he can sit through a whole chapter, generally asking for more.
So, I got out my preschool curriculum guide and began to plan. I bought the guide last year, hoping to find some activities for Riley to do. It worked OK last year... he wasn't quite ready, and I didn't follow through very well. But I believe it will be just the thing for us now. The guide I'm using is The Complete Daily Curriculum for Early Childhood by Pam Schiller and Pat Phipps.
I really like how they don't assume you know anything. LOL Half the book is the appendix which has song words, rhymes, games, instructions for craft projects, patterns for puppets, coloring pages and activities. For each lesson they have included a list of books to go along with the theme for the lesson. Each lesson is laid out so easily, anyone could do it! lol, so hopefully I can too.
Well, I called up my mom to get advice on where to start. Mom taught preschool back when I was a preschooler and is currently a high school teacher. More than that, my crazy mom is in the middle of getting her doctorate... it was going to be curriculum design, but I think she changed to leadership... This made her the perfect person to go to for advice. She instructed me to decide on an overall year goal: what I want Riley to be able to do at the end of the school year (e.g. can recognize simple words). Then figure out how many days a week we were going to do lessons, following that, divide my themes (from the curriculum guide I have), and begin to plan activities to get us to the big goal.
Anyway, I set up a curriculum map (yay for typing so many of them for my mommy!) with classes Monday, Wednesday, Friday. did my lesson plans (again, go me, I learned something typing up all those things for Mom!), and went through the things I already have, what I need, what I want, etc...
This week we are learning about trains! This is something I know Riley really enjoys. Yesterday, we started out with using the Alphabet letters he has on his floor to spell the word TRAIN. Riley was so good! He's now pointing out the word TRAIN everywhere. Then we read 3 of the train stories we have in our library. I helped him point out the word train in each book and make train sounds. The we became the train and walked around the house with our toilet paper train whistle making train noise.
Then we all got into the van, and drove over to the Springs Preserve. There is a cute playground there (free by the way, for anyone interested you have to pay to go into the museums, but you can go to the playground, walking trails, and library for free) that has a train you can play on! It was really hot, but I know Riley had fun. We then went into the Origin museum and found all the trains that were there.
Yes, Emma has grown, and grown and GROWN... She barely fitting into her 9 month clothes anymore! She's in such a hurry, she can't walk yet, but bear crawls around!
I've also made Riley an engineer's outfit. It was my first pair of pants and if I do say so myself, they turned out really good! Riley really likes then, they have train buttons on the straps. I'm planning on making Emmaline a jumper with the same material and buttons.
It's kind of hard to tell in the lighting, but Riley is holding a plaster train that we made (and he decorated!)
So, my first lesson turned out well. Wish me luck for tomorrow...
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