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Preschooling in 2011

So, we're back finally!  We've actually been back from our California trip for a while, but we've had company and then my husband left for a business trip for a week!  We still have some Christmas decorations up, and life is slowly but surely getting back to normal.  In the course of these events, doing any sort of preschool activities has been put on the backburner.  We've enjoyed our busyness, but I'll be glad to start being intentional with my boys again.

Another reason we haven't been doing much here on this blog is that I've been at a loss for what to do with Little Buddy in terms of preschool.  My original plan was to do a lot of what we did before, but add on a letter of the week curriculum so that he could learn his letters and their sounds.  Then, unexpectedly, he learned them all from the LeapFrog Letter Factory DVD, leaving me confused on what to teach him next.  He's not yet ready for writing, and I'm not sure how ambitious I feel about teaching him to read.

So, after a lot of thought, I've come up with an idea that I think will work well for Little Buddy.  He's still SOOO excited about letters and talks about them all the time.  I've been eyeing the Letter of the Week Curriculum by Confessions of a Homeschooler for a while now, and I think it will be a good fit.  Yes, there is a lot in it that Little Buddy already knows, but there are also some math activities and pre-writing activities that I think will be good for him.  We'll be getting books from the library to supplement the letters.

We will also be using the playdough mats by Homeschool Creations.  Little Buddy LOVES playdough, and shaping them into letters will make him super excited!

Our Bible for this Spring will come from 1+1+1=1, using her printables to go along with the book My ABC Verses by Susan Hunt.

We will continue doing our art study and composer of the month.  We will still have MOPs every week, but we've dropped his traditional preschool program although we are thinking about enrolling him in some fun community type classes (like soccer or gymnastics).

Finally, we'll be getting our science by checking out books from the library from the Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Series.  I'm sure, though, that Daddy will want to continue doing some science experiments from time to time.

Besides the above, I know that we will do a little bit of trying to sound out words together and learning sight words.  So far, he recognizes and can spell - Mommy, Daddy, his and Button's real names, Pizza, Jesus, and Stop.  We've been really enjoying his doodle board to work with him on this.  We also just got the Dick and Jane books for sight words and the Bob books for phonetics.

Well, that's about it for now.  I'll be posting soon about week one on our new plan!

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