Home School: Preschool Classroom Set-up

Our space is ready for our new 2018-2019 school year with
Mother Goose Time and Classical Conversations!

Watch this video (11 minutes) to get the the whole low down on how I set up our room.

FROM THE ENTRYWAY:

Bookshelves: Rain gutters screwed to 2x4's which are screwed into studs.

Bookcase: cheap from Walmart

Trunk: given to me from my Banana Republic working days

Rug: Wayfair

Art Display: burlap string with mini and regular sized clothespins to hang work

Magnetic Dry Erase Board: Staples

Table: built by husband

Chairs: donated from the neighbor pediatrician who lives next door

Cart: Pottery Barn Kids (on sale for $25 at Christmas 2 years ago)

OUR READING AREA:

We had a teepee in here for a long time and it was magnificent, but one day as my girl was playing she tripped and landed on one of the wooden poles and broke it.  We just need to replace the pole, but there is some wood work to it and we just haven't had the time lately.

On the blog 1+1+1=1, I read about how she used Quiet Time boxes for her preschooler to do individual work.  My girl is a great napper, but if she naps, she will not fall asleep until 9-10pm, and I just can not deal with that and a 9 month old who still won't sleep through the night.  

Quiet time boxes to the rescue!  I give her one of these, send her to her room, and she stays in there for 1.5 hours playing by herself so I can get things done.  These boxes are less than $4 at Walmart.

BOOKCASES HOLD MORE THAN BOOKS:

This cheap-o bookcase from Walmart was about $25 and has served us well for the last 4 years.
It houses all sorts of things... mostly things other than books, ha! Here is a close up....

Bottom shelf : Magnetic tiles, games, Play doh container, container of Mother Goose Time puzzles 

Shelf above: Book bins $1 each from Dollar Tree, one holds our Classical Conversations stuff and                           the other holds my girl's coloring books.  Also on this shelf: MGT manipulatives and      

                     Adventure Force Sea and Safari Animals; blow up globe from MGT

Middle shelf: Sterillite containers holding sensory bin fillers (rainbow rice, green barley and rice, 

                      dried beans, puffs, unifix cubes, and links; also on shelf Watercolor paper 

Shelf above: Book bins (set of 5- one in my daughter's room) from Walmart for $10- one bin for my 

                     son, one for ABC stuff, one for MGT books, and one for the Story Magnets from MGT; 

                     also there is a bin of card games mostly from the Dollar Spot at Target.  I use these for 

                     her Quiet Time boxes.

OUR WORLD:

I am trying to be more intentional about bringing the outdoors in, so we have a little nature tray which is just a dip tray from Dollar Tree.  The map is great for preschoolers and is from our 

Mother Goose Time Curriculum..  Add a globe and you are set!

CIRCLE TIME:

When my girl hears the Circle Time song, she immediately pulls one of her chairs in front of this board.  Our calendar was on our ugly cabinet (coming up), but she was outgrowing it's placement.  Everything is from Mother Goose Time, but I placed magnetic tape behind our weather cards and her monthly sight words.  I love me some magnetic tape.  In the blank spot under the thematic poster that is on the far left, I will have our letters and numbers of the month.

The clothespin clip at the top is for the day of the week cloud.  My girl will also decide on the weather and place it next to the day of the week cloud clothespin.

Underneath our Circle Time Dry Erase board, I have 2 bins.

One for library books (Sweet Pea is recently OBSESSED with the Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems), and our Morning basket, which houses my Classical Conversations guide, my MGT Teacher Guides, preschool Bible, The Ology book, glue and calendar cards in a baggie.

THE UGLY YET FUNCTIONAL CABINET:

Sooooo ugly.

I gotta paint this thing.   I think I said that last year.

The very top houses extra papers, stamps, and craft items.  In the middle, are my girl's containers of crayons, chalk, markers and other manipulatives.  But inside this ugly cabinet, I can hide things I do not want her digging in, like our monthly MGT curriculum box, and liquid watercolors.

CHEF'S SPACE:

Toy Kitchen: dontated from a friend who was getting rid of it.

Trays: from Oriental Trading

Cart: Pottery Barn Kids (on sale for $25 at Christmas 2 years ago)

In last year's monthly boxes from MGT, we received a shape each month which I just sticky tacked to the wall.  I do not know what happened to the circle.  No clue. 

This is what the room looked like about 1 hour after taking pictures this morning. :)

How have your organized your space?
Is there something you just could not do homeschool without?  I'd love to hear!
Please comment with your thoughts and I hope yall have so much fun learning this school yeat!

Paul Bunyan Fun for Preschoolers

This past week we studied the Tall Tales of Paul Bunyan with our
Mother Goose Time Fables and Folktales Unit.

MGT did not disappoint in the activity department either. 
\Here's just a few of the activities we did this week....

Literary Activities:

Each day we had a story in our bag complete with colored cardstock puppets to cut out and play with.  My girl's favorite was Bessie the Cow and Babe the Ox.  She's had all sorts of imaginary adventures with those picture puppets.

My girl also received a new I Can Read Book: Babe and Bessie along with 3 sight words: "likes", "the" and "is". During our Morning Calendar Time, we go over her sight words that I made into magnets and place on our magnetic dray erase board. You can read how I did that here.

Math Activities:

Did you know that Paul Bunyan was a towering lumberjack?

One activity had us using a measurement tree and leaves to record how tall things were.  We measured Sweet Pea, her cart, brother, baby doll, and Farmer Eddie (from Little People, haha!)

On the day that we learned about Paul's cooking companions, we played with our tangrams and sorted the shapes- pretending they were pancakes and placing them on a paper plate that had that shape on it.  She really loved this, and we did this activity over and over and over...because #preschoolers. 

Creative Arts Activities:

Besides the drama of playing with puppets and acting out our Paul Bunyan stories, 

we had quite a few fine art activities.

On our Paul Bunyan baby day, my girl drew this lovely self portrait of when she was just 3 weeks old, complete with a pink bow and blue eyes.  It is totally okay to LOL at this picture!  Not only did I laugh and laugh at this picture, but I framed it and will treasure it FOREVER! 

Those mountains at the very bottom of her drawing are toes yall! hahahaha!

The day we learned about Bessie and Babe, we did an Invitation to Create that also incorporated science as we discovered what happens when blue and yellow paint mix.

And of course, it ended up being a finger painting because ... #preschoolers.

However, she did realize that using the handle end of her paintbrush created some fun lines in her painting as well.  I also framed this and hung it in her playroom.

Our week ended with us watching the animated classic of Paul Bunyan.

You know... the Disney version?

I am so thankful for YouTube!  I mean where on earth would I be able to find that without the internet and YouTube?  

Well, I hope this post inspired you to have fun with your preschoolers and check us out next week as I give you a tour of our recently updated schoolroom! 

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Preschool Science: Volume and Water Displacement

I get so tickled when my preschooler does things that I used to teach in 4th and 6th grade.

Understanding VOLUME is a huge concept in both grade levels.

This month with our preschool curriculum we are studying Fables and Folktales; one being 

The Crow and the Pitcher- an Aesop fable.

The story goes that there once was a crow who was so thirsty on a dry, hot, summer day and the only water that could be found was in a pitcher.  However try as he might, his beak could not reach the water.  Using his brain, he determined to drop pebbles in the pitcher causing the water to rise to where he could get drink.  Smart smart crow.

After reading the fable, we did the STEAM experiment that Mother Goose Time suggested in the teacher guide. 

We used a beaker from when we did the Science Lab unit from Mother Goose Time, and a bunch of plastic gems that MGT sent with this unit.  We drew a line with a dry erase marker at the water level and then watched it rise as my girl put more and more beads in the beaker.

"Momma, look!  It's getting higher and higher!"

As the water reached the top of the beaker, my girl tried to take a sip and she could fully understand how the crow was able to drink.  We emptied the beads and did the experiment again, 

and again, and again.

Because preschoolers...and science.  You have to do many tests to make sure the conclusion is valid. 

If I was teaching my 4th and 6th graders, this would be an excellent Engage lesson (5 E Lesson plan)

Using a beaker or graduated cylinder, kids could actually find the volume of a pebble or bead by subtracting the starting volume (water level) from the water level volume after the bead was placed inside. 

My little girl.... already doing big things in science.  Big concepts start early.

Storytelling with a Sensory Bin

It's a new month, and you know that means-- a new unit with our preschool curriculum from Mother Goose Time.  This month it is all about Fables and Folktales, and we just spent the whole first week reading from Aesop's Fables.

One of those fables happened to be about the Ants and the Grasshopper which inspired our monthly sensory bin.  I have been working with my just turned 4 preschooler on how to retell stories, 

and yall.... the struggle is real.
We practiced retelling at home, so that when Daddy came home, my girl could tell him the story about what she learned.  Yall, she could remember the climax, but anything leading to that point, she left out.  She did this with the Lion and the Mouse story, and the Bundle of Sticks story, and still struggled retelling the Ant and Grasshopper on our 3rd day.

I had to make a change to help her retell.

So I decided I would try to make her sensory bin become a retelling bin this month.

What you need:
-rice
-food coloring or liquid watercolors
-ziploc bag
-large dish pan or container to set up sensory bin
-plastic ants (we used some from last month's box)
-plastic grasshopper (we had from some bugs I bought at the dollar store a while ago)
-buttons or anything to represent food
-blocks for ant hill and grasshopper

A good shaking gets the green water color to spread out.

Now you have "grass"!  Lay it out flat to dry and place in the sun for a few minutes.  It was completely dry by the time I finished gathering all the rest of my supplies.

My husband cut some wood blocks for the kiddos a few months ago as he got his lumberjack on and took down a few trees in the back yard.  They are perfect for our sensory box!

We combined efforts and retold the story in the video below.
However this box could easily be adapted to be any Aesop fable or book!
Add a mirror, a toy dog, and paper bone and retell the story of the Greedy Dog and His Bone.
Add a toy lion, a toy mouse, and some cloth to be a net and retell the Lion and the Mouse.
Add some frogs, blue rice, and few small pebbles, and retell the story of the Boys and the Frogs.
Add a rabbit and a turtle toy, and maybe some popsicle sticks to create a path to retell the story of the Tortoise and the Hare.

The possibilities are endless.
We will definitely change our bin throughout the month as we retell the stories we learn.


Happy learning friends!

Writing with Shaving Cream

I'll never forget my 3rd grade Language Arts teacher, Mrs. Carrier.

It was in her class that we practiced our spelling words every week with shaving cream.

I think it was on Wednesdays... could have been Tuesdays.  I might have forgotten the day,
but never what we did.

Today I had the privledge of watching my girl practice her letters in shaving cream.

I wonder if she will remember today 20+ years later.

Maybe.  I sure hope so.

Because we were studying reflections while studying the Aesop Fable of 

"The Dog and His Reflection", Mother Goose Time (our preschool curriculum) suggested putting a mirror or aluminum foil down then placing a layer or shaving cream in order to write some Reflective Letters.

I bought these cardstock mirrors a few years ago off Amazon,  I have to admit I forgot I had them, and when I saw this activity, I went and dug them out.  They worked perfectly!

I separated some ABC cards I had into 4 groups based on how the capital letter is formed:

Vertical and horizontal lines only, 

Verticals with curves, 

Slants,

Curved Letters

By only practicing a group at a time, it helped keep my girl's finger moving in the same motion for a while.  So where she struggled, she was able to practice more and more since the next letter has the same type of lines.  This definitely helped limit frustrations- on both hers and my parts.

 

This activity took us at least 30 minutes if not longer.

She had a fantastic time playing in the cream, and so did I.

After we had completed our letter practice, she decided her dinosaur needed to be
"camouflaged" by the shaving cream.

I wonder if she will remember all our Mother Goose Time moments.
Even if she doesn't, I am so glad I have them recorded here.