Preschool Preview

When people ask me if I homeschool, my response is always, “Only preschool!” Since Makenna was about 18 months old, I have done “Mommy and Me” school with her. As Max has got older, it has only been natural that I’ve done school with him as well. But the two kids have been polar opposites when it’s come to school. Makenna has absolutely loved it and she instantly picks up what I’m trying to teach her. I can tell her a new concept once or twice, and she will have it down forever. Max, on the other hand, has really struggled with school-type learning. He really wants to do school and he really wants to learn, but I haven’t yet learned how to reach him! So far we have tried learning games and activities, workbooks, worksheets, flashcards—you name it and we have tried it. One thing we HAVEN’T tried yet is teaching him in a real preschool type setting. And that’s where things will change come September!

This year, while Makenna is away at kindergarten, I will be hosting “Sister Pam’s Preschool.” My preschool will be held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings from 9:30 until 11:30. As of right now, I have five students—Max and four other kids from his Sunbeam class at church. I purchased the preschool curriculum from Starfall and I will be using that plus a few other things to teach the kids. I am REALLY hoping that this finally works with Max and we have him prepared for kindergarten next year!

I have about five weeks until our preschool starts and I have been working nonstop to get things ready! I still have a LONG way to go, but I thought I would post a sneak peak of our school room. This room was formerly our computer room/den, but we have moved all of that out and it will now just be our school room. As I said, I still have so much left to do, but here is what has been done so far.

Oh, and I guess I should probably explain a little more. A big part of our preschool day will be our Learning Centers. We will have eight Learning Centers that the kids will rotate through every day.

The first center is the Dramatic Play center.

This center is actually in the corner of our livingroom. It is like a “pretend” center and it will change every week. Some weeks it will be a doctor’s office. Some weeks it will be a grocery store. One week it is even going to be a space ship! But to start with, it is set up as a home with the toy kitchen, table and chairs, baby doll bed, and so on.

The next center is the Library Center.

As of right now, all I have set up are bookshelves with all of our children’s books. I have all the books arranged alphabetically by title. Then I have our activity books, books on CD, holiday books, etc. pulled out on a separate shelf. I plain on having two baskets by the bookshelves. One will hold books that are based on our theme that week. The other basket will be for the kids to put the books they’ve looked at (for me to reshelf)until they have learned their ABCs well enough to reshelf the books themselves. : )

That board on top of the bookshelf will eventually be our calendar on one side and our weather station on the other side. I just haven’t made it yet! : ) We will also have a bean bag on the floor here and a CD player and headphones. Each week we will read a book and that book will be available in the Library Center for the kids to listen to on CD.

The next center is our Art Center.

Right now I have a table and the easel set up. We will, of course, eventually have a chair at the little table. The medium in the art center will change every week. They will have a chance to paint, color, use stamps, play with play dough, and do many other things. I will have a basket under the easel that will hold the materials the kids will use that week.

Right next to the Art Center will eventually be the Discovery Center. I still need to get another little table and chair for that. In the Discover Center the kids will have a chance to play in sand, water, beans, and rice. They will use magnets and magnifying glasses. The Discover Center will be really fun and let them explore quite a bit. Now I just need to get it all ready! : )

Next to the Discovery Center is the Construction Center.

The kids will use different construction materials (blocks, kinex, Lincoln logs, etc.) to construct different things—farm, dinosaur land, fire station, etc. Every week the task will change!

In the corner next to this station, I have all of my supplies stored. I spent a lot of time this week organizing and labeling everything.

On the next wall I have both our Writing Station and our Math Station. I have one long table that is shared for both stations. These stations are pretty obvious. Each week I will just put out different supplies and they will use those to do assigned writing or math tasks.

I still need to purchase chairs to go at the table (this table will also be used when we have our group work) as well as baskets to hold that week’s supplies (as well as a lot of the supplies, haha. I told you I still have a lot of work to do!).

Our last center is the Computer Center. That’s just the computer desk with the computer set up to Starfall. The kids will have a chance to do different activities on the computer each week.

My desk is actually a mess right now. But come school time, I promise that area will be clean! : )

Now here are just some pictures of the room as a whole.

The boards in the back here are for our Job Chart, Learning Center Rotation Chart, and our Attendance Chart. Once again, I haven’t put them together yet!

On the walls here I have posters that will be used for our different themes, as well as color cards.

On the wall here are an ABC chart, number cards, and sign language poster.

My ABC wall.

And that’s it! I will post again right before school starts when I’m finished with everything!!! I still need to finish my posters, purchase the chairs and bean bag and other supplies, set up my birthday wall, and put down rugs to sit on for story time and circle time. Still so much work left to do in such a short time!