Our first day of “preschool”! I have been looking and trying to put together some kind of structured preschool-type schedule with the boys and came across this totally perfect and awesome website:
It is seriously a match made in Heaven. It is structured so that each week focuses on a letter of the alphabet, and each day of that week is a different topic. For instance: this first week is, of course, “A” week. And our first day of A week was Ants! For each day, she has a huge list of games, books, crafts, snacks, and activities centered around the topic of the day. She has lots of links to printables and resource ideas. So great. Since about August, I have been going through the schedule, making our own calendar with the activities from her lists that I feel like are the most age-appropriate for both boys, getting supplies, looking for books at the library, etc.
On Ant day we:
1. Made a journal page for “A a” and the word “Ants”
2. Read lots of Ants books (I found some of the books she lists on the website, and also searched our library for the subject “Ants” in the children’s books to find a few more)
3. Made playdoh ants
4. Made an “ant restaurant”
5. Went on a walk to search for ants
6. Did some “ant math” using dice and a printable
7. Colored an ant picture
I had everything prepped ahead of time. So on Monday morning we just kind of went through the list of activities. We took little breaks here and there as the boys got distracted, but the whole thing was great. Nice and low-key, non-stressful and enjoyable.
The boys making ants. (Obviously the t-rex was needed for assistance). Thatcher mostly jammed google-eyes into a clump of playdoh, and dumped toothpicks out of the little dispenser and put them back in, but I figured that had great age-appropriate value also. Thad, of course, took his ant-building quite seriously. I made the playdoh with a simple recipe that you can find a billion times over on pinterest, and added some black gel food coloring.
Thad doing some ant math. Thatcher had another copy of this picture that he was coloring while Thad and I did some adding. After we were done with the math, Thad colored his ant.
Here he is getting mad that he colored outside the lines. He got so upset that I ended up printing him a new copy (and therefore feeding into his OCD….nice work mom)
The finished product; his ant picture and his journal page
Thatcher thought he should have his picture taken too
The ant restaurant! How gross is that! We put some spoonfuls of different food on a plate and put it out in the garden. We checked on it a few hours later and holy smokes. We have an ant problem. The ants were eating everything, but check out the hoard around the peanut butter! Gross. But the boys were SO intrigued by the ants! It was one of the highlights of the day for sure.
Thatcher had to investigate further with his magnifying glass :)
So, next up on the list: Apples!
Successful first day of Crossland-style “Preschool” for both my sweet boys.
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