Seamus's Pre-K work this year is going to be a rich combination of Montessori, Real Learning, and Unit Studies! He is very excited to embark on his first very own unit that we're working on right now. Please see "Catch a Tiger by it's Tail"! I have been very intrigued by all the beautiful and doable ideas I have gleaned from the discussions in the Montessori forum at 4Real Learning, and I have discovered many home educating moms like myself are choosing to incorporate Montessori ideals into their home schools as well!
We will be reading many wonderful Picture Books and expanding on their themes using resources like Catholic Mosaic, FIAR, Sonlight Pre-K preshcool themed schedules and Little Saints Preschool materials.
Here are some of the activities that we are already using and more that we want to explore for a lovely year of discovery and learning in The Preschool Corner!
- Puzzle Pairs - Matching Game & Language Development
- Writing Tray with cornmeal for letter and number practice
- Easel/chalkboard
- Sandpaper Letters/Numbers
- Pencil Sharpening Activity - Small Motor Skills and Care of Sketching/Writing tools (The older kids love this too!)
- Color Matching Fabrics & Mystery Bag Fabrics - Sensorial and Color discrimination (Violet is making these for Seamus!)
- Pouring & Transferring Activities (Various mediums: rice, sand, water, beans, juice, milk, etc.)
- Practical Life Activities including (but not limited to) Window Washing, Kitchen Helper
Sweeping, Mopping, Furniture Polishing, Laundry Sorting/Folding, Washing Doll Clothes
- Building with Blocks
- Development of Math Skills using - Pattern Blocks, Size Discrimination, Abacus Beads, Counters (of ALL kinds) Number Recognition, Counting to 100, Adding +1, Dice, Dominoes, and Online Math Drills (We Love these!)
- Learning and Living the Faith with COGS materials as well as Catholic Mosaic, Our Daily Prayers & Devotions, Bible Stories, Rosary, Mass
- Arts & Crafts (Look for upcoming post)
- Art & Music Appreciation (Ditto: post coming)
- Discovering the Natural World: Nature Study and Science (Ditto again: post coming)
It seems I could go on forever about Preschool!! I Love this early learning and development stage and I'm so excited to have a VERY enthusiastic preschooler this year to learn along with ME!! I imagine he'll be teaching me more than I will teach him ;o)
I hope you may find this useful in your home schools as well! My God Bless You in your day!
Seamus sounds like he is going to have such fun, Meredith! I hope you have a wonderful year together!
Posted by: Rebecca B. | Thursday, August 31, 2006 at 07:44 PM
This looks like so fun! Montessori fun, that is! Oh.. can we come over and play with Seamus? *grinz*
Posted by: Genevieve | Friday, September 01, 2006 at 04:03 AM
awesome
Posted by: joyce | Sunday, March 04, 2012 at 12:22 AM