Our Relaxed Preschool Part 1

 Our Relaxed Preschool

Preschool at our house is a mixture of things, but relaxed is the best word I can use to describe it. No rigid schedule, no expensive curriculum. A library card, some craft supplies and you are all set. Access to the internet and a printer is an added bonus but not necessary. I will add here that this is how I do preschool with my kiddos. This is not the only way, the best way, the "right" way (there isn't one). Everyone's family looks different and that is how God intended it, but I enjoy getting glimpses of how others find success and take what I can use from it to help my own family. In that spirit, I will share parts of our homeschool with you.

It's all about the books. Reading to my kids is a priority for me and using literature as the basis for our school time started many years ago. When my oldest boys were young I found a simple and inexpensive curriculum called Five In A Row www.fiveinarow.com. They chose some classic children's picture books and brought out the meat found in them. I recommend looking at their booklists for reading ideas even if you don't buy the guides. Some of my favorites have been found here! The character lessons linked with Scripture, the social/familial relationships, the artwork, science and math, and of course language. All these are accomplished while curled up on the couch with a book in our laps through simple discussions. Now, having a houseful of mostly boys, I have had to let go of my fantasies of quietly sitting under a blanket. It has been replaced by kids hanging upside down off the couch, or jumping on the mini-trampoline, or playing with legos while I read. But still I read. And I shush them when they are too loud, and I get frustrated when they don't seem to be listening, but I read.

I have fond memories of my oldest acting out many of these stories. I can remember them going down in the basement in the dark with only a flashlight looking for "clams" like in Very Last First Time https://www.amazon.com/Very-Last-First-Time-Andrews/dp/088899043X.  Sitting on the floor, Japanese Style, for dinner and making fruit roll-up sushi after reading A Pair of Red Clogs. Needing to go to the park and feed the ducks after Make Way for Ducklings. 

I love adding many of these books to our home library. An inexpensive way to do it is through used book sites such as https://www.abebooks.com. I have purchased many gently used books for 3 or 4 dollars each that still have a lot of life left. Of course, the library carries some of these too, but I have recently discovered that YouTube has videos of people reading aloud a lot of the books that I can't seem to find. I just search by title or theme, such as Valentine's Day books for kids.

In the pictures above, we had just read Corduroy. If you go to pinterest and search the book title of MANY children's books, you can usually find some art projects, printables, or other activities to go with your selection. So for this project, I cut out the shapes for the bear and he assembled it, following my directions. He practiced shape recognition, spatial recognition, memory (recalling parts of the story) and following directions and he just thought he was having fun!

I tie a letter of the alphabet to each book and pick up library books to go along with the themes of the book. We are preparing to read Curious George, so along with books on monkeys, I am looking for books on Africa, boats, sinking and floating, water safety and transportation. Another favorite resource of mine is www.homeschoolshare.com. There are free, printable lapbooks and unit studies for preschool through elementary (and one for Curious George).

In my next post I will share our calendar binder, other places to find booklists, and some other resources we have used.