Share Wildflower Ramblings!

We had fun with ducks and dolphins this week. But mostly, we have been spending a lot of time reading and enjoying the outdoors. Not too much to share, but I still think I’ll continue with updates. We are still incorporating Reggio-inspired learning into our home and preschool. You can read more at these posts:

If, throughout the day, we read together, we call the day a success. We read and we play. And we try to fit in the planned stuff too, but if we don’t, I postpone or just forget it, and that’s okay. John has continued to be anti-printable/writing/coloring. And that’s okay. I am following his lead and trying to connect to my son the best I can.

We try to do the morning routine (below!) because John still loves it (surprise!), and it’s a wonderful time of togetherness. Singing, reading, reciting, it is my favorite part of the day!

You can see full details of our Preschool Plans here. Below is our schedule, and at the bottom of this post are all of the materials that we use. We don’t use all of the listed materials for every letter, but we rotate around the curriculums and supplements.

{This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclosure policy.}

Our Schedule

1. Music, Movement, Dance Time

In the mornings, we sing songs and dance to fun children’s or Bible music. (I created free printables to our Sing the Word From A to Z and our Play a Little Bible Songs — these I keep in a ring binder.)

2. Bible Time

We try to read our Bible. We are trying to go through only one (the Preschool Hands-On Bible — you can check out my post on this wonderful Bible and how we create a page each day in our Bible Notebook). But, often, the kids will want to read more, so we will pick and choose between our many Bibles (you can check out our Preschool Bible Resources to read about all of the Bibles we love!)

3. Recitation Time

Next, we move through our above chart (here is a similar one). All of the items on it are free (with the exception of our Montessori sandpaper alphabet cards)! Home preschool does not have to mean high cost! We don’t do a Calendar Chart — it would be lost on him — we will probably do one in our next round of ABCs :)

We follow the following sequence for morning time:

What is the letter of the week?
Can you feel the letter? (We feel each sandpaper letter — putting our finger on the big D as you’d write it and the little d as you’d write it.)
What vehicle begins with the letter Cc? (We are using the Zoomin’ Movin’ Alphabet curriculum from Royal Baloo.)
What else begins with the letter Cc? (We are also using the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.)
Let’s read our Bible verse together!
What is the color of the week?
Let’s put ___ (green) objects in the basket! May and John, take turns! (Or a color hunt!)
What is the number of the week?
Can you put (1, 2, etc) Legos in the basket? (John runs to get 3 Legos, and places them in a little basket, with the number three inside.)
Can you put the clothespin on the little letter?
Let’s read our little book together!
Let’s count from 1 to 30!
Let’s count by 10s!
Let’s count by 5s!
What month is it?
(We are beginning to sometimes sing the “Month Song” and the “Days of the Week Song” too.)
What is our poem of the month? (We recite a poem from my 24 Monthly Preschool Chants.)
What is our poem of the week? (We recite a poem from my 12 Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.)
Let’s sing the Alphabet Song!

4. Letter Work Time

This time is devoted to alphabet letter recognition and phonics sounds through various activities, games, and objects from our curriculums. I focus on hands-on learning activities versus “worksheets.” (Cutting, gluing, making the letter with various manipulatives (resources are at the bottom of this post) occasionally coloring.)

We were creating “stations,” that is, putting out about six activities at once, for him to cycle through, which he loved for the last several months, but recently he has not been enthused. Time to change it up! It is about knowing our children and their passions — you can read more at Connecting with my son and how he learns.

5. Craft, Sensory, or Practical Life Time

This time is often done with my younger daughter. We make sure to make our ABC Felt Animal and our Preschool Alphabet page for the week. We also try to do another sensory fun activity and a practical life activity. I am trying to stay very low key about this portion of our Preschool plans. John is not a craft little boy or a messy painty boy, but he does love sensory “clean play” (likes beans or water play) and playdough if I have him on the right day. So we will continue with these and enjoy the summer months.

6. We read books and enjoy one another.

We spent time with our Baby Einstein animal vocabulary cards.

Then we sang a sweet “Five Little Ducks” song — these duck printables are from Picklebums and they are adorable — the kids loved singing the sweet song most days.
We also did a floating and sinking experiment about water displacement — these float and sink printables are free from Spell Outloud. {Yes, that’s Peter Pan you see, in every picture, on every day….}

We downloaded these wonderful matching ocean animals vocabulary printables from Memorizing the Moments — these match perfectly for the Ocean Toobs!!

I put the Ocean Toobs and some beautiful sea shells on a blue blanket and the kids loved exploring them! John loved matching them all.
{Yes, that’s still Peter Pan you see.}

Preschool Alphabet Notebook

We are making an alphabet book with uppercase letters. I save these and will put them in a “book” — probably just with three pieces of yarn — for him to remember each letter! We are using printables from The Unlikely Homeschool. This is simple — just decorate your letter with something related to that letter.

Dd is for Do A Dot Dog Prints :) May colored this!

ABC Felt Animal

Our felt animal this week was D is for Dolphin! You can check out all of our ABC Felt Animals here.

ABC Preschool Books to Read

I am starting a new collection of Preschool Books to read for each letter. Here is our collection for Letter Dd.

Our Chosen Materials & Activities:

Zoomin’ Movin’ Alphabet curriculum from Royal Baloo

Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler

The Preschool Journey by Teaching Mama. There are many wonderful ideas for crafts and activities for each letter in this eBook. We will pick and choose different activities according to my son’s interests.

My First Hands-On Bible: Reading through the Bible with our Preschool Bible Notebook. I adore this Bible and could not recommend it more highly. I devoted a whole post to “why” here.