The beginning of a new school year

Summer is over, and we’re back in the school routine.  We had a busy summer filled with lots of fun memories.  In the midst of all of the craziness, I also did a lot of brainstorming ideas of what and how I would teach my girls this school year.  Brooklyn is now 3 (she will not be 4 until the spring), and Madelyn is 19 months.  With Madelyn no longer taking a morning nap, I have had to be creative in coming up with activities to occupy her while I focus on teaching Brooklyn.  This has been one of my greatest challenges!  I’ve decided to do school only 3 days per week this year so that we still have time to get out and visit museums, play at the park, and hang out with our friends without the pressure of doing school every single day.  Below I’m going to share how I’ve decided to structure our school times this year; but first, here are the different components that make up our days.  

First day of school picture

I’m using a curriculum called Before Five In a Row as a part of our school time each day.  Basically, you read a children’s book five days in a row (in our case 6 days in a row as we are spreading each book over a two week period) and then learn and do activities based on that book.  So far, I have loved the simplicity of this curriculum - of course I also love researching and coming up with crafts and other ideas to add to the ideas given in the book.  Before Five In a Row is recommended for 2-4 years olds, but Madelyn loves listening in as I read the book each day.  Occasionally, she will join us on an easy craft or activity, but most days I’ll pull something out of her activity basket for her to play with while I help Brooklyn (more on that below).  

Madelyn wanted to join Brooklyn in the picture

Another area that I knew I wanted to focus on this year is character traits.  I began researching for a good curriculum to help me with this but decided to pull from a few websites (and a little of my own knowledge) and come up with my own. Basically, we focus on one character trait per month.  Each month, Brooklyn will learn a memory verse, definition, song, and several Bible stories that all go along with the character trait for that month.  In order to make this extra fun, I bought these little popsicle stick figures (which I colored) to use as puppets.  I used a shoebox to create a little house.  Every month I introduce my girls to a new little boy or girl who helps teach us about our character trait each day.  I decided to use our character traits to name the puppets.  Brooklyn and Madelyn absolutely love seeing Obedience (our September character trait) every morning!  This definitely has helped keep their attention during our Bible time.  I also made an obedience chart for this month.  Every time I notice Brooklyn being obedient on her own (which means: being a good listener; listening right away and with a happy heart), I give her a sticker on her chart.  I plan to do this each month with each new character trait.  

In addition to the BFIAR (Before Five In a Row) curriculum and character traits, I knew there were some other things I wanted Brooklyn to work on this year.  Some of these things I included in our circle time each morning (such as counting; days of the week; months of the year; yesterday, today, tomorrow; and the weather).  But I also wanted her to work on writing her letters and numbers, getting a better grasp on phonics, practicing basic math skills (simple addition, subtraction, recognizing all of the numbers, measuring, etc.), working on her gross motor skills, and doing art projects.  I have decided to focus on a few letters and one number each month.  I am using a variety of activities to help Brooklyn practice writing (writing letters in salt, painting with water over chalk letters on a chalkboard, tracing letters in a dry erase book, forming letters with playdough, etc.)  Brooklyn’s favorite way to practice letters so far has been to make rainbow letters.  I printed out large block letters.  I then made a dot inside the letter which is the starting point and explained the correct way to form the letter.  Brooklyn then writes the letter correctly with her choice color of marker and repeats over and over with lots of colorful markers until she has a rainbow letter.  All of these skills are practiced during the last 20 minutes of our school day.  We do two different activities, for 10 minutes each, to finish up each day.

Madelyn’s activity basket consists of random toddler activities that I’ve put together.  I usually pull one of these out while I help Brooklyn with her craft/learning activity for BFIAR.  I try to spend at least a few minutes teaching or playing with Madelyn once I get Brooklyn working on her activity.  This gives me a chance to help Madelyn with her colors, shapes, letters, and words as well as her fine motor skills.  Here is a link to my current, but always growing, list of activities.  So far, one of her favorites has been pushing straws through a Parmesan cheese lid!

Now here’s how our day is structured:

10:00 - 10:20  -  Circle Time  

We sing songs and learn basic calendar skills.  I dump out our drum full of musical instruments and let the kids make music as we sing and learn.  Madelyn usually sits still for at least part of this and enjoys playing the instruments with us.  At the end, we practice counting.  In September we are counting to 30 each day; in October we will count to 40 and so on until we reach 100 at the end of the school year.

*I bought this really cool Melissa and Doug calendar which we update each school day as we go through our circle time routine.  

*(Click the link to see the songs/lyrics that we use during our circle time)

10:20 - 10:30  -  Character Trait Puppets/Bible Story

At the end of circle time, we put away all of the instruments and get out our character trait puppets.  The girls love knocking on the window to help wake up Obedience so she will come out and talk to them.  We always review the character traits definition, our theme Bible verse (several times), and previous Bible stories.  We usually end our time by singing our song and reviewing our verse one more time.  

*I am planning to blog about each character trait each month as we go along.  

10:30 - 10:45  -  Snack Time

10:45 - 10:55  -  Storytime - Read the BFIAR Book

10:55 - 11:15  -  BFIAR Discussion/Activity/Craft

*This is the time I get out one of Madelyn’s activities.

11:15 - 11:25  -  Activity 1 (see schedule below)

Day 1 - Writing Letters

Day 2 - Writing Numbers

Day 3 - Phonics

*I change up the writing activity each day to add variety.  Sometimes the Phonics activity will go along with our BFIAR book.

11:25 - 11:35  -  Activity 2 (see schedule below)

Day 1 - Math Skills

Day 2 - Gross Motor Skills

Day 3 - Art Project

*Sometimes the math skill will go along with our BFIAR book.  The gross motor skill activity can be anything from skipping, jumping, hopping on one foot, tossing and catching a ball, running, pretending to be an animal, etc.  The art projects are often times either a seasonal craft or a type of process art.  

Wow, that was a lot of typing!  I hope this helps someone who is trying to teach their children at home like me.  I really enjoy planning all of this and teaching my children.  I think for now I am planning to just write a blog entry each month on the character trait for that month.  I will be happy to share my BFIAR lesson plans and art projects too if anyone is interested (and if I can find some extra time in my life! :) )