We started doing preschool this week and so far we are off to a good start.  Caroline is excited each morning to come down and see what is planned.

I have to say that none of these ideas are original to me. I’ve done a lot of surfing, looking for ideas that I thought would work well for us.  And I am keeping it pretty low-key to start with.  My main goal is to get off to a fun start with this.  Yes, Caroline will be learning as well.  But given her personality, my biggest goal is to get her hooked on learning and finding it enjoyable.

So here is what we are doing…

We set up a corner in the dining room for our school area.  There is absolutely nowhere else in the house to do it. I would dearly love to have a separate room, but that just isn’t meant to be.  I have literally an entire room’s worth of stuff in our basement from my teaching days and since having Caroline.  It’s frustrating, but I’m just trying to make the best of the situation.

So we purchased a table and chairs which we love.  (That’s Caroline above sitting at it the first day we bought it, trying it out with a coloring page.) Bought it at Toys’RUs and it is great!  It should fit Caroline for at least a few years.  We also purchased a small bookcase. (We already had twelve in various sizes in the house, but they were all being used…) And a palm tree.  (More on that later.)

The rolling cart is an idea I got from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I am also using her Letter of the Week Preschoool Curriculum.  It was only $10 and it is worth every penny just for how it has so many ideas I can quickly use and print off.  The curriculum is written to be used with one new letter a week.  We’ll probably do two a week only because one a week will be dragging it out too much for Caroline.  Some of the activities are too easy for Caroline, but there is plenty there to give me a good foundation on which to plan around.

So the rolling cart.  If you go to her post The Workbox System, you will see some examples of how she organizes her children’s work each day. Since Caroline and I are both a sucker for anything organizational I knew this would totally appeal to both of us.  I wish I had had the video camera on when we set up the rolling cart (before it was even filled).  Her eyes got big and she could hardly wait to start pulling the drawers open and rolling it around.  Now the first thing she does every morning when we come downstairs is open all the drawers to see what is in there!

Ok, so the palm tree now residing in my formal dining room… Yes, it is a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree.  We’ll be adding a letter each time we learn about it.  Caroline and David made coconuts and Caroline was more than proud of them.

We’ll be using Chicka Chicka Boom Boom along with the Letter of the Week Curriculum. We’re making a lapbook and I’ll post about that shortly as well.

Let’s see… What else…

Oh, we are making these adorable little foam letters.  This is where I am really grateful for David.  I could never cut these out and make them look anything remotely like the picture.  I just gather the supplies, print out the picture from the internet, hand the stuff to him, and he cuts all the pieces that I need.  Gotta love being married to an artist!

So here is Caroline proudly showing off her alligator!

Well, there are a number of other neat little ideas I plan on sharing, but work is calling me so I should stop here.  I definitely won’t be posting pictures of everything we do, but I will share some of the ideas I find in case anyone else would like to use them.

So far I’m pleased with how things have gone.  One thing I know for sure.  Anything that uses a dry erase marker or scissors and glue will be a big hit.  She loves them both.  And I’m also pretty sure that Caroline is going to be a lefty. She goes back and forth, but she almost always writes with her left hand now and cuts with her right.  So I’ll have the added challenge of trying to teach a southpaw how to write!

I recently wrote an article highlighting three favorite pictures books that teach children about courage.  Each one presents the idea of courage in a slightly different way.  Each book is very different from the others in terms of writing and illustrations so there is sure to be something to interest someone!

Brave Irene is a cute story about a little girl who battles a raging blizzard to help her mother keep a promise.

The Empty Pot is a lovely story about Ping, a young boy faced with a difficult decision.   This book ranks very high on my list of picture books.

When Jessie Came Across the Sea is a gorgeously illustrated book about an older girl/young woman who is selected to come to the United States and what happens after she arrives.

All three are favorites that have a permanent space on my bookshelf and all come highly recommended!

Enjoy!

Caroline received this DVD for Christmas from my parents and it is all the rage right now.

It’s long (74 minutes) so we only let her watch it once a day, but I think she would watch it a couple of times a day if we would let her. 

The narrator is Sebastian Cabot and it had been years and years since I had heard his voice. (Did anyone else watch Family Affair when they were growing up?  I remember seeing it on reruns.)

Anyway, highly recommended.  I love the way it goes from the book to the movie. Very cute video that has made Caroline laugh out loud many times. 

When I was a teacher, I was the Laminator Queen. I laminated EVERYTHING.  I love how it looks and I love how it lasts.  It is great now especially because so many things I laminated as a teacher are still in beautiful shape and I can use them with Caroline.

Since I can’t justify buying a big, professional laminating machine for just using at home, I purchased a smaller one to use with various craft and learning activities with Caroline.  We’ve done all kinds of things with it and I plan on using it to make some little Christmas presents as well.  I also anticipate the laminator will get lots of use when we start getting into pocket charts such as this:

and this:

Oh, pocket charts!  There’s another post!  LOL!

Love it! 

I can officially call this a big hit with Caroline.

Now that I know she likes it, I’ll look into the other related ones as well.  Thanks very much for the recommendations! I’ll be checking out some of the others soon!

I also purchased the LeapFrog Word Whammer Fridge Phonics today.

We already had the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Alphabet Set and it helped Caroline learn her letters very early on.  But she has shown such an interest in words and spellings lately that I knew it was time to move her along to something more challenging.