Monday, January 24, 2011

Preschool Daily Themes

In my last post I mentioned that I have been doing daily themes.  This helps both my son and I try to maintain a healthy routine in each day.  He really responds well to it. I also see a general comfort and happiness in us doing all these things together. Even though he is an independent personality and enjoys playing by himself, he also naturally needs a healthy dose of "togetherness" that, I believe, is programmed into us as people.

By no means am I as structured as I should be. It really is not my bent to have the same routine every day.  Pushing toward being disciplined and on some sort of healthy routine for B's sake is challenging. There is a real sense of accomplishment, though, when I see him responding so positively to these things.

Here is a list of our current daily themes, but are subject to change if I feel one is not working quite as well.

Music Monday - Mainly just giving general emphasis on music in each activity/game/craft and perhaps making up songs as we go.  This is also a day for learning about different musical instruments.

Truck Tuesday -  We us his transportation toys to talk about them and what they do. We also talk about jobs like firemen, policemen, etc.. Just being casual with it and having fun.  This day also includes getting out the hot wheels track and crashing and doing mini monster truck rallies. All in a days work! 

Water Wednesday -  While I see great potential for this day we do lack a lot of water world/oceanic type toys, but there are tons of water games online. I still haven't quite thought through my general purpose of this day, but I don't think it really has to have a specific purpose. What matters, at his age, is that he is seeing new things and learning. Plus, I don't need to over analyze these themes anymore than I already have!

Animal Thursday - Sorry for the break in the fun alliteration. I could not think of another good T word that could be broadly applied. Any ideas?  This is just an animal exploration day. We have lots of fun books and many games to choose from. Not to mention "Go, Diego, Go" is a great resource for learning animals!
 
Fun Friday-  This is really just a miscellaneous do whatever we want day. If I think of anything he would like to learn during the week then I'll throw it in here.  It's also an opportunity for us to kind of just take it easy because our weekends tend to be so busy.

The results I am hoping to see from this is B getting a good grasp of the days of the week and to introduce him to "school time" in our mornings. We need to transition to this routine as we prepare for homeschooling and mom needs to learn this just as much as he does!

 Here are some books I am interested in. There are so many great ideas out there! I don't know how I will ever choose. Maybe I should see which books are at the library first. (especially the expensive ones. What's up with the one that costs $200? I suppose if your seriuos into your homeschooling curriculum that's not a bad price. That is only if it is worth it)


 

1 comment:

  1. Water Weds could also include playing in the snow - snow = water. ;) Sounds like fun. As for the preschool curriculums, I ended up collecting quite a few books and spent lots of time looking for the perfect one, while forgetting that I just need to pick one and DO it. lol! I ended up with a shelf full of good books with plenty of ideas, but then didn't DO them as much as I could have.

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