Teaching My Preschooler | A Relaxed Approach

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I know that it seems that I have slacked on this series, but, truth be told, Ian's learning has looked a lot different over the last few weeks than it has in the weeks prior.

 

Our learning time on some days has involved a lot of coloring, reading stories, and listening in on what Addie is learning. 

On other days, our learning has revolved around making crafts and painting (a huge hit with my little man).

Some days our learning consists of reading a book along with a CD and then playing some games with the manipulatives that have come with the story. We loved the Brown Bear book and CD storytime set for activities like this.

 

My other approach lately has been to just make up pages in his composition notebook. We have traced his right hand and left hand, I've drawn out numbers and letters for him to color and add stickers to based on the number or letter we are talking about, and some pages are dedicated to practicing letter formation.

Life has been beautifully busy recently, but we have managed to maintain a loose learning time for Ian. I prefer this to a strict "learning time" for him because lifelong learners are developed when they do not see learning as fitting into a specific time slot, but as a natural ongoing flow to life. 

Teaching My Preschooler | Weeks 2-4 | Ian's Homeschool Adventure

School has continued as usual, although my blogging time has been cut short a bit. Ian has an intentional learning time 2-3 times a week based on how much learning he actually wants to do. After all, he will turn 3 this Sunday, and school is not a requirement at his age.

Here is what Ian and I have done over the last three weeks.

Week 2:

Monday: 

We worked on p.7 of Numbers and Skills with Button Bear which focused on the  number 2. We read our stories from last week (which are listed below), and we also worked on P.7 in Letters and Sounds for 3's which focused on the letter "B."

Wednesday: 

We read stories and colored the letter B.

Thursday: 

We did p. 9 in both our Letters and Numbers books and then made "B" characters based on what we found at this website.

(Note: I did have a writing practice page for him for each day in our composition book for the letter B, but he was totally not interested. He has "mastered" the letter "A" and only wanted to write A's. So he did.)

Week 3:

Wednesday: 

Letters and Numbers books  p.11 (letter "C and review of numbers 1 and 2) and we read stories. Letter writing practice in his composition book.

Thursday:

Letters and Numbers books p. 13 and more stories. Letter writing practice in his composition book.

(Note: Because of the holiday weekend, and Ian being so used to not having our normal structure because Daddy had a 5 day weekend- which we totally loved!- we eased ourselves back into our "schedule" with Bud. He enjoyed writing his "C" way better than he enjoyed being shown how to draw a "B.")

Week 4:

Monday: 

Letters and Numbers books p. 15 (letter C and number 2) and lots of stories

Wednesday: 

Just stories- lots of them!

Friday:

Letters and numbers books p. 17. We traced his hands in his composition book and he colored them. We lightly touched on the fact that he has a right hand and a left hand.

(Note: Small children can learn just as much if not more by being read to.... and they learn to sit attentively for a reasonable amount of time. And you can't beat the snuggles that you get from that!)

Week 1- Ian's K3 Adventure

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I have never seen someone so excited about learning!

I don't know if it has anything to do with the fact that he has watched his sister learn for the last almost 3 years or that there is a lot of coloring involved or that he has his own Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles folder, but what I do know is that when I say that it is time to learn, he gets very excited!

As promised, I will be sharing with you what we did on a weekly basis.



 



Monday:

I drew out (freehand) a capital A and a lowercase a and had him color while we said the sound that the A makes. (We are specifically working on the short vowel sounds right now.)

I purchased a composition book for Ian and made four sections on each page. In each section we practiced writing the capital and lowercase A's. I held his had and guided him in the writing. We did not focus on writing "on the lines." We focused on the hand movements of writing the letters while chanting "line, line, SMILE" for the capital A, and "circle, LINE" for the lowercase.

We did page 1 in our Numbers and Skills with Button Bear from Abeka books. We also read Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3 (Chicka Chicka Book, A) and Five Little Ducks (Raffi Songs to Read).

Tuesday:

We did page 3 (first page) in our Letters and Sounds for 3's from Abeka books.Again, we practiced writing the letter A in our composition book and we read A, my name is--.

For math we read Chicka Chicka 123 and Five Little Ducks again.

Wednesday:

He had fun gluing cereal to the letter A on page 5 of the Letters and Sounds for 3's book. We practiced writing our letter A's and we read A, My Name Is--, Chicka Chicka 123, and Five Little Ducks again.

Thursday:
No school for Ian. However, we began learning his Bible verse for Cubbies (Awana program).

Friday:
We made letter A crafts that I found on this website. We practiced writing out A's, and we did page 5 in Numbers and Skills with Button Bear. We did not read stories.












Learning for Ian is centering around fun more than academics. I do not want his day to revolve around "school." I want his day to be about fun and play. I love that he is asking to do "chores"- what he calls his learning time for some reason. Videos are a part of our day. He loves LeapFrog: Letter Factory and LeapFrog: Talking Words Factory, and I am all for using resources that help make my job easier.

This week, we are working on the letter B. Tune in next week to see what we did to learn all about the B and the number 2.