Preschool Adventures

Last spring I signed AL up for preschool for this fall. As the summer wore on I started to get a bit stressed over the fact that she wasn't yet potty trained and that it had turned into the hugest battle imaginable. I reluctantly withdrew her from preschool due to this huge potty training snag (sometimes you can have the best plans but life gets in the way!). Anyway, I realized that AL is young for her age with an October birthday and would have next year for preschool. I signed her up for dance and swimming lessons to help fill the void of social interaction with other kids and she has been loving it.
Last month AL and I spent JA's nap time working on crafts and planning my nursery lessons for church etc. As I sat with her every afternoon teaching her new skills and concepts I was struck with the impression that I should just teach her a form of preschool myself. After all I am an elementary teacher so I should be able to figure this one out too! I mentioned the idea to a few friends and they wanted in on the fun too.
This morning was our first day of our little at home preschool and it was a huge success! There are 4 little girls involved which is the perfect amount to have some fun and not big enough to be difficult to handle (these girls are so well behaved too which is a bonus). We are doing our preschool one morning a week for an hour and a half and we are taking turns hosting/teaching. This way I really only teach once every 4 weeks so it makes it so easy to put a lot of time into it and do a good job. I have set out monthly themes with weekly sub themes and then I have tired to establish a bit of routine (no matter who is teaching) with circle time at the start for a welcome song, calendar, weather, etc. The rest of the time will be filled with a variety of lesson time, craft time, story time, music time, wiggle time, snack time, science time, activity time,etc and finally finished with a good bit of play time. The girls seemed to just love it and it ran so smoothly this morning.
I wish I had some pictures to share but I will admit that I was BUSY and didn't even glance over at my camera until they were off playing at the end!

Here is a picture of AL waiting excitedly for her friends to arrive at "school".


The Calendar board that will be transported between houses each week.


Our theme this month is "Seasons" and the sub theme I taught today was "Fall". Here is a picture of their potato stamp fall leaf pictures.


One of the parts that really made me laugh was when we were talking about the different holidays that take place in fall and I showed them a turkey for Thanksgiving. One of the little girls piped up and said, "A turkey....that is what my Mom always calls my Grandma!". Gotta love kids; as a school teacher I will tell you it is amazing what kids love to tell the class about what their parents do and say at home!
I'm looking forward to a great year. I'm sure I will put AL in official preschool next year but JA has a December birthday so I am sure I will get a chance to use my lessons again with him! In the mean time I am loving this opportunity to get my brain thinking like a real teacher again.