First Week of Pre-K 4

This was our first week of Pre-K 4 for Lexy and "Tot School" for Josiah. I will do a seperate post for Tot School. They were both very excited about starting our new school year. This was the best first day of school picture that I was able to get...silly kids! Our Sensory Tub:

I switched up the sensory tub to a Fall theme. It is full of leaves, pinecones, hickory nuts, walnuts, acorns, and 2 magnifying glasses.

Lexy's School Day:

We start our mornings with calendar, prayer/song, breakfast, devotions, and chores. After that, we do a few planned activities with Josiah for tot school. If I have some things planned for the theme of the week that they can both participate in, we do these in the morning. However, most of Lexy's schooling is done during Josiah's nap time. We spend about an hour of planned school each day.

Lexy begins by completing a few pages in her phonics book (Get Set for the Code). Then we begin on her workboxes for the week. To read more about our workbox system, check out this post.

This week, she worked on the letter s and n in her phonics book. Then, these are some pictures of her working on workboxes (which she was very excited about).

1. Forming "S's" out of playdough


2. Making and completing apple patterns. She really enjoys making patterns!

3. Our Science theme right now is Apples. Her Science workbox included a book about Apples, an apple, and apple sequencing cards. We read the apple book and completed the experiments in the book with her apple. These included, locating the 5 parts of the apple, predicting/couting the number of seeds in her apple, predicting if it would sink or float, and tasting it!

4. Apple Numbers- For Math, we reviewed the numbers 1-20. Here, she put the numbers in order.

5. Muffin Match from Happy Phonics. We reviewed matching capital and lower case letters. Lexy does not enjoy feeling "quizzed." So, to add a little fun to it, I threw in a chef's hat, apron, mitt, and mixing spoon.

Other workboxes included:

6. Music - She practiced her home assignment from music class.

7. Language Arts - Story Bags

8. Fine Motor Skills - She punched holes in apples and used pipe cleaners as worms.

9. Game - Again reviewing numbers 1-20, we drew a number and placed the correct number of apples (red pom poms) on the apple tree.

All in all, the workbox system, as we have it set up, seems to be working very well for us. It forces me to be more organized in my planning, and Lexy enjoys choosing her activities for each day. I like having a weekly system rather than a daily system for our needs. It takes the pressure off of me for having to fill them each night, and it gives her more freedom to choose what she wants each day. After all the boxes are completed for the week, she can choose her favorite ones to repeat.

After workboxes, she likes to use her pointer on our 100 chart. She points to each number as she counts to 100.

Geography:

We located Washington on the United States map. Washington grows the most apples out of all the states. We placed an apple on the state to remind us of this. (Okay, really it's a cherry, but it's all I had).

Field Trip:

We took a trip to the apple orchard. Lexy was very excited to pick her own apples! They also enjoyed apple cider slushies...yummy!

Apple Painting:

We used apple halves to paint one evening. We used only two colors, red and yellow, so that they could see that red and yellow mixed together create orange. Of course, using the apples only lasted for several minutes before they decided to use their hands, arms, feet and everything else! It was straight to the bathtub after this activity!

Homemade Apple Sauce:

Ever since Lexy saw an episode of Sid the Science kid where he made applesauce, she has been begging to do it. We finally got around to doing it. She was able to tell me how to do it and helped with it all. She loved the process, but was not crazy about the taste. It wasn't as smooth as store bought apple sauce.

Our Tadpoles:

We brought back tadpoles from the cabin several weeks ago. We're still waiting to see the transformation.

We had a great first week of preschool. To see what other preschoolers are up to, check out the Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations. And, be sure to check back in a few days to see Josiah's Tot School post!