How to Start Your Own Preschool

School is underway, and maybe you've thought about starting your own preschool with your child/children in your home. 

I have a few ideas to get you started!

1. Create a Specific Space

If you have an empty room, use that, or just have it in the same place every day.  Create a place for your child to sit.  In our preschool co-op we use cloth place mats. It helps them learn how a school setting works, and makes them feel like they are in school!

2. Decorate Your "School Space"

Nothing will make them feel like they are really going to school more then by making your "school space" look like school.  A great place to go for items to create your school space is All a Dollar, they have tons of school posters and signs!

3. Create Curriculum Centered Around Your Child

Yay! This is the most fun part! This is the only time in their life (if you send them to traditional school) that you can focus on their strengths and interests and cater to that.  And, because they're your kids an added bonus is often that their strengths will be the same as your strengths!  If your child loves fairy tales and stories, then focus on story telling through puppets, dress ups, re-telling stories, and creating their own stories. If your child loves animals, nature, and the world around them, focus on non-fiction and learning facts about the things they love.

Here is a link to a mock calendar I created to give you some ideas!

Just remember, it's not about creating a genius, it's about enriching your child's education. If you push your child too hard at first, they will not have a fun experience.  Just take it slow and let them go at their own pace, and then if you see they need to be more challenged, give them more!

4. Stock up on Craft Supplies

I like having some supplies on hand.  That way, if we read a library book togethe, and I have an idea how to make the book come to life, I can do it without a lot of stress.  Here is a post on what I personally like to have on hand. {Scroll to the bottom.}

5. Go on Field Trips to Erich Your Curriculum

Go to story time at your local library, check out seasonal events in your area, visit local shops like pet shops, grocery stores, and bakeries as field trips. You can take what you are learning and turn it into real life in your children's minds.  For example, if you go to a local farm to pick berries you can read the classic book Blackberries for Sal.  Or, if you are learning about Jack-o-Lanterns, go to a local pumpkin patch and pick a pumpkin and go home and measure it and weigh it.

6. Don't Re-create the Wheel

If you are stumped, or looking for an activity, search online!  There are tons of sites already doing the leg work for you.  Some of my favorites are Preschool Daze, Teach Preschool, and Strong Start. They aren't too over the top, but they have great ideas.

Here are my favorite sites for free printables (You have probably already noticed I use these sites a lot!).  Confessions of a Homeschooler and 1+1+1=1 have some of the best free resources, as well as curriculum ideas to help you.

7. Have Fun!

This is the most important!  Use your strengths and make it fun. Make memories with your child and it will all be worth it!

Top Educational Websites for Kids

Technology is pretty amazing!  There are lots of wonderful ways to help our child practice the skills they are learning in school.  Often times with some of these great educational sites our children don't even know that they are learning at the same time!

It's also a great way to motivate kids to do their homework,

have them do their reading and math first and for a reward they can play an educational game...tricky!

A friend of mine asked me for some recommendations on some other educational websites,

so you know me, I went crazy and found a bunch.

I spent many hours digging through cyberspace to find and test out the following educational game sites.  I spent about an hour a site digging and finding the best parts. Also I have spent time teaching grades K-6 so I have used my knowledge to determine the validity the games on these great sites.

Just bookmark this page, and every time you want to use a new site you can come here to find it quickly.

1. Starfall.com 

This site has lots of great language arts games. It takes a fun game like this snowman game and has words that it helps your child sound out. There are lots of seasonal games as well as early reading, phonics, as well as reading practice for 1st and 2nd graders.

2. PBSkids.org  

Hello! Don't you just love this site! There is SO much on here.  Your child can pick his/her favorite show and play a bunch of learning games for that show.  Right now M. loves playing the Curious George games, although the T.V. show is a little young for her, the games are right on her level. (I wish I would have known more about this site when I was a teacher, there are very specific games you could play and coordinate with the theme you are learning.) The game shown is called Present Time, you choose a gift, go to the store, decorate the wrapping paper, and give it away, it's great!  We also love the SuperWhy Spelling games, they are too difficult for her to do on her own, but they are well done and give lots of helps and rewards.

3. ABCya.com

Here's a wonderful site c/o one of my readers! This site is great because it's split up into grades K-5 so there's no guess work there! I spent a lot of time on this site trying to find the best games to tell you about.  I think my favorite K game would be the Pirate Marble game which is great for learning addition, and connect the dots. For 1st grade it would be the foul shot where you can practice math facts to earn basketballs to shoot a foul shot, the math can go up to a 4th or 5th grade level. There are also telling time games and learning coin games as well. For 2nd grade my favorite would be the fun typing game here too! 3rd grade fave would be Pop the Words which letters fall and you can make words out of them to pop the letters. My 4th grade fave is division drag race which you race others in dividing numbers and go faster when you answer them correctly.  My 5th grade fave is the U.S. Map and World Map puzzles.  There are also fun seasonal and holiday games for each grade level when you scroll to the bottom of each grade levels page.  Too much info?? Sorry, this site was just really fun to explore!

4. Cookie.com

Well after I posted this list on Monday I found an phenomenal site on Wednesday!  I can't believe I've never been to this site.  It has hundreds of educational games, for literacy, math and science.  It also has learning videos on subjects like the plant life cycle, frog life cycle, the 5 senses, and more with review games you can play afterward. It has lesson plans, tons of free printable worksheets, arts and crafts coloring pages, and a cute blog.  What a great resource!  My only complaint would be that the games are all narrated with a robotic voice, but other than that it's golden!

5. Scholastic.com

Wo this is another great site.  It has games from books like The Magic School Bus (which is oozing with science fun!), Clifford, WordGirl and more.  This site is has games for kids ages 3-7 and another section for kids ages 8-12.
Fun fun fun!

6. Funschool.com

There is also a lot to this site as well. Pictured here are the ABC games which are for practicing letter recognition. There are also lots of other harder games that are also educational. Check it out it's a pretty good site.


7. Sheppardsoftware.com

Thanks to Jane and the Jitterbugs for telling me about this site! I am so excited about it! This site has lots of learning games for kids of ALL ages.  It's very tutorial centered which is good for learning a new concept. I also love the Kids Corner which you can explore lots of science centered ideas, such as the Four Seasons (as shown in the picture).  You can paint using movable parts like rain clouds which are actually raining!  Fun fun fun site!

8. NationalGeographic.com

I know I'm crazy but I keep finding more and more sites! This site has a bunch of games that are all science related.  They are all pretty fun.  Some of them like Animal Jam require an e-mail address and some personal info about your child, just FYI. They also have a bunch of geography games, adventure games,  action games, puzzles and quizzes, games for young children, and all of the games really are science related.  They also have science experiments, videos, and interactive information about animals and countries. The more I kept digging, the more I found that was well done and educational. I thought this was a pretty cool site, and had tons of educational value!

9. Highlightskids.com

Here's another new great site that I found.  I feel like I'm on a treasure hunt!  Highlights is a classic magazine that has been around for years. They are very well known for their hidden puzzles in their magazines. On their site for kids they have stories that you can have read to you and tons of games, their specialty is hidden picture games which you can click and the hidden image appears.  This is another great site if you are learning a theme for the week and you would like to practice newly learned skills.


10. Funbrain.com

There are reading games on here as well as fun simple counting games. There also some difficult reading and math games on the main game page. There is a lot to choose from on this site.


11. Qubo.com

This site has a bunch of educational games that are also quite fun for kids. It has games for Babar, Jane and the Dragon, Zoola Patrol (great science games), and Vitamix.

12. Shnoozles.com 

Shnoozles has lots of fun and simple preschool games, this main page would be fun for kids to navigate on.

13. Jayzeebear.com

This site is a little old school but it is still really fun for preschoolers.

14.Weatherchannel.com

This has some puzzles, word searches, and mazes for older children. It seems like they stop putting money into this site, because it has an add for Clouding with a Chance of Meatballs in 2009. But it is an alright resource.

15. KidsKnowIt.com
This site has some good science and nature games.

16. Switchzoo.com
This site has some fun animal games that you can switch animals around to look silly.

17. Exploratorium.com
This site has some fun games that explore expressions, proportions, and emotions.

18. Juliasrainbowcorner.com  This site is is also a little old school but it has some fun games for young children.

Well I hope that gives you some new ideas! 
Do you know about a cool and educational website for kids?
Let me know and I'll add it to this growing list!
P.S. I'm not endorsed in any way by any of these websites.

Five Senses Field Trip

For preschool, we went to the Sweet's Candy Factory

for a guided tour!

To explore our five senses.

They had us wear these adorable hair nets!

Baby H. had a conniption trying to keep his on.

They checked our purses and camera's.

So I didn't get any real life shots,

(Which I probably wouldn't have been possible any way since I was holding baby H.'s hands down from ripping his hair net off his head.) 

 The tour took us through many exciting parts of candy making.

We got to see them stretching a thick roll of taffy.

This picture is from the online Sweets Factory Tour.

 

I think one of the most exciting parts was to see them making the jelly beans and throwing in sugar, colors, and flavors into a huge vat.  They let us try the unpolished jelly beans. Yum!

This picture is from the online tour.

This is also the place that they make the orange sticks.

We got to watch them cover the orange in chocolate.

(It was from a very long distance, but it smelled divine!)

This picture is from the online tour.

You wouldn't believe how many samples they give you.

Baby H. who has a sweet tooth, loved this!

At the conclusion of the tour they give you even more free samples and lead you into the Sweets store.
Dreams are made of this store!

Needless to say we bought loads of candy,

and I threw my diet out the window!

Here are all of my posts on the Five Senses:

Sight:

Smell:

Hearing:

Touch:

Taste:

V is for Volcanoes

Today we learned all about the letter V.

Here are our upside down V volcanoes.

We painted the V with brown paint,

and the hot lava with gel paint.

Last night I prepared a little volcano science experiment.

The best way to spice up school is with science.

I used 1/3 c. Baking Soda

and reserved 1/3 c. white vinegar (and red food coloring) for the experiment.

Ready, aim, blast off!! 

 For the five seconds that it was happening,

it was totally worth it!

We watched a you tube video of a real volcano erupting,

and we went upstairs to make our own edible volcano.

This idea comes from Craft Interrupted

We did it the same way.

Put chocolate pudding into an ice cream cone,

flipped it over fast,

put pudding around it a little bit,

then made the molten lava flow from it,

we used jelly belly brand cherry ice cream topping.

We also put dinosaur gummy bears on it,

(To link into our unit on animals)

Delicious and nutritious.

Um maybe not so much nutritious.

We then made our own human volcano.

The all had red, yellow, and orange scarves,

and pretended they were lava.

They hid under the blanket

(giggling)

until I said, "The volcano is erupting!"

And erupt it did!

And the lava filled the whole room.

 

We did it about three times,

because it was so fun and silly. 

{And educational, but don't tell them that!} 

Next we read a dinosaur book,

and did some dinosaur math.

The printable is found here.

Because their minds were so excited about volcanoes,

and dinosaurs,

they thought this was the best activity ever. 

 

I paired two children together,

an older one and a younger one,

so they could work on their numbers together.

This was great for team work, one on one correspondence,

fine motor skills, and thematic integration.

Then they played in the sand table with dinosaurs.

For more letter v ideas check out my pin board here.

Letter W Week (Watermeon and Witches)

Today we did some more Ww work.

We read the book "My Ww Sound Box" by Moncure.

I love these sweet old books!

I was so excited to find the whole set at a thrift store!

In this book little w dresses up like a witch,

so we all dressed up like witches and wizards!

Although it was unseasonal, we had fun!

Luckily I could raid both grandma's costume closets to find enough costumes.

I made little wands for them to use during our morning work.

The liked the variety very much!

They are tracing the numbers here while listening to Dr. Jean's number song.

We also made some wands,

I had them trace around them on one side,

and the other side they drew a picture of their favorite thing that started with Ww.

We stood up with our wands and wrote the letter Ww in the air.

FUN!



We went upstairs for our watermelon snack,

which was also out of season,

but beloved by all!

I stuck these toothpicks in them so they could hopefully make the connection between the snack and the letter.

In preschool we are going for recognition, not mastery.

After our snack and playtime we did watermelon counting.

I let them have playtime at first to count the black beans,

then I held up numbers and had them put that many seeds on their melon.

We went up to ten and did some number work

Like put three seeds on one side and three on the other, how many do you have?

And, make sure you have four seeds, now add one more, how many do you have?

Things like that to help them to do higher level thinking.

If you ever do this idea, the cookie sheets or using a tray is a MUST!

It kept the seeds in one place much better.

Happy watermeloning!