I’m so thankful I get to spend time with my children for their preschool years. First, I share our curriculum choices and why we use them. Keep reading to find out how we explored the Letter J. Finally, at the bottom, we list our favorite supplies for the preschool years.
PRESCHOOL CURRICULUM
SUPPORTS AMPLE NATURE TIME
- The Peaceful Preschool – The schedule is amazing because it sets aside one day per week for field trips
- Exploring Nature with Children – This works well for my family because it is centered around being outdoors (HINT: If you click this link, make sure you click “Preview” at the top right corner!)
- The Abundant Gardener – We are learning more about gardening together so this will naturally provide chances to visit gardens, plant stores, and be outside on our land
THE PEACEFUL PRESCHOOL
We currently follow the Peaceful Preschool curriculum by Jennifer Pepito and we love it! The content is full of rich literature, therefore it is a perfect fit for my book-loving family. We read through many rich, classic stories. We also complete playful projects to go with the literature theme or letter. Download Unit A for free to try it out with your littles to see if you like it.
The community she has created is such a beautiful resource and I’m grateful to be a part of it. Jennifer has included a wonderful preschool e-book which helps you prepare to guide your child in early learning. We have found her curriculum perfect for our homeschool preschool. The curriculum is comprised of Read Aloud, Phonics, Counting Skills, Fine Motor Skills, Large Motor Skills, Practical Life Skills, and Art Skills. Also, here is how we enjoyed the letter A unit. Feel free to explore all of our letter units!
LETTER K REVIEW
The focus books for letter K are A Kiss for Little Bear and The Emperor and the Kite. I also added Katy No Pocket since we all cherish read aloud time, and I already had the story from my childhood on hand. We also read Katy and the Big Snow, which was not a suggested book on the curriculum, but one we all enjoy very much. Finally, we read through B is for Bear, a beautiful nature alphabet book, however, any alphabet book would be perfect to review your letters. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is another one of our favorite alphabet books to read together.
First, we created glitter glue letters. The Peaceful Preschool recommends glitter glue in order to create the finishing touches on sensory, alphabet flashcards. We have used them with all of the letters so far. My children are always excited to make a new glitter glue letter.
K IS FOR KISS
Do your kiddos love to kiss and hug you? My youngest especially loves to be affectionate to us, and we are grateful for his little personality. I already had A Kiss for Little Bear from my childhood and we read this book together a few times throughout the week. We love the illustrations and drawings in the sweet story.
We gathered animals from around the house that were in the story and drew a picture to give to our family (which is something Little Bear is working on in the story).
K IS FOR KINGDOM
The Peaceful Preschool recommends to read through “My Kingdom” by Robert Louis Stevenson but since my littles are just three and five, they didn’t want to still to listen to the poem very well! I’m trying to be better about reading short poems but so far, they aren’t that interested in the. I know this is something we need to work on! So, we moved onto the next activity!
ALPHABET BOOKS
Our favorite alphabet books so far are: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Eating the Alphabet, the Usborne Alphabet Picture Book, and my favorites are B is for Bear and Animalia. The Peaceful Preschool curriculum often recommends to review an alphabet book once during the week with your littles so its nice to have a few different options to read through.
COUNTING PRACTICE
So far, my boys have done math almost all organically. We may randomly ask, “if you have three and you add four, how many does that make?” and they both will answer. They are doing simple addition and subtraction without much prompting from us. So because of this, I don’t take them through a formal math curriculum just yet.
For the first time the other day, I put it into a story problem form: “If I have four red balls, and I give away two red balls, how many red balls do I have left?” Big pause…and they my oldest said, “two red balls?” I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to witness their learning.
AUDITORY NUMBER SEQUENCES
We covered up three random numbers with a kitchen towel, and the boys took turns remembering the numbers in the order under the towel. We worked up to four numbers.
These small wooden number cards have been fun to practice with. I really love how this curriculum seems to pull from different styles of education: Charlotte Mason, Montessori and Waldorf because it makes a lot of sense to me to pull from different learning styles. These are Montessori numbers and we have enjoyed taking them out every now and then to practice numbers.
PHONICS PRACTICE
Once again, since I had Katy No-Pocket from my childhood, we read this book during our letter K unit. My boys love the sweet story which is about a kangaroo mama who doesn’t have a pouch to hold her Joey son.
Also, we brought out all of the upper and lower case tactile letters we have worked on so far (A-K). These particular letters in the photo below, have probably been our most used so far! They are inexpensive, sturdy, and tactile so the boys can practice tracing the letters. I highly recommend them!
First, we shuffled all of the letters so they were out of order. Then, the boys took turns drawing one and then making the sound of the letter. If they got it right, they drew an action card. After I read the action word, they got to do the action. I believe they could have played this game for much longer had I had enough stamina to keep going!
K IS FOR KATY
Have you read the Virginia Lee Burton books? I feel like everything I have read from her has been such a gem! This story, Katy and the Big Snow, is perfect for my construction-loving boys. They want to know about all of the details on the page (and there is quite a bit of detail)! They want to know all about the tractor and its various tools. My oldest son selected these left over paints from an older art project and after I drew Katy, he colored her in.
K IS FOR KITE
I found a simple construction paper kite template on Pinterest and my sons glued the kite, string, letter K, and bow pieces together. My oldest son decided he wanted to add more bows to the string so he independently cut more bows out and glued them onto the string to finish the kite project.
We colored in our large letter K template with chalk pastels (another one of my son’s favorites medium choices)!
I drew a shape of a kite on printer paper and card stock, and the boys watercolored them in. I love how everyone came up with something a little different!
K IS FOR THE EMPEROR AND THE KITE
The Emperor and the Kite is such a beautiful book. I was so inspired by the beautiful colors and illustrations. I love how it exposes the kiddos to a new culture.
Looking back over our letter K studies, I realized we heavily focused on art projects! I used these beautiful oil pastels to create the kite from the story. We mixed washable black tempura paints with dish soap to paint over the entire painting.
My youngest son had fun paining over it in black. Then, we let the paint dry for the rest of the day. Finally, we took a quarter and scratched through to reveal the kite picture below. We had a tough time scratching through, so I’m not sure if I used the correct paints or maybe the measurements were off!
SUPPLIES
The Emperor and the Kite
Katy and the Big Snow
Wooden Number Cards
Tactile Letters
Chalk Pastels
Oil Pastels
Black Tempura Paints
OUR PICKS
Here is how we enjoyed the letter A unit. We had so much fun with letter A and can’t wait to share the next letter with you!
