reading

🎶🌞Oh Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun
Please shine down on meeeee.🌞🎶

I seriously love teaching preschoolers. I love the relaxed curriculum while learning big things through play. Before being a mom I taught infants to 4 year olds for almost five years on top of babysitting most of my teen years and helping my mom in her daycare out of our house in my middle school and elementary years. Needless to say, if there is one thing I confidently know, it is children. I know some of you are lost when it comes to preschoolers. What do you teach them? How do you teach them? Where? When? Do they ever stop moving? (No!) Is everything messy? (Yes!) Do they have to sit still forever, because I don’t know how long they will last if they have to sit. I will admit, I am not scared of a mess. I don’t like it when they make them but it is just a part of life these days

We use unit study themes for our house at this age (Mermaid is 2 years and 2 months) because it gives them a long time to work within a theme and continue working on the same skills and knowledge. Repetition is key for children. But so is fun and engaging learning through play and reading! I will pull these out to keep her busy for 10-20 minutes so that I can work with her brothers on their school work, clean something up, or get dinner going. When she is done, we clean it up and move on. While she is playing, even if I am not right next to her, I will still be talking with her about what she is doing and experiencing.

Our pillars of learning:
1- Reading- A basket of books relating to the topic. These are always accessible for her and we read them at least once a day. Maybe not all the way through if she is being busy but we will read as long as she will sit.
2- Sensory- Sensory play is SO important for cognitive development. It helps with emotional responses, it helps with problem solving, language skills, aids in memory development, and encourages motor skill development.
3- Motor skill work- Gross and fine motor skills are the building blocks to almost any kind of movement your child will ever do. When thinking about motor skills you want them to focus on the big muscles (GROSS: think legs, arms, back) and the small muscles (FINE: think fingers, hands, and feet).
4- Art- Fun exploration of different mediums encourages them to find creative ways to model the world around them.

So each month we will focus on these things and will switch them our daily, weekly, or monthly depending on the activity:

Weather Reading: (Switched out monthly based on theme)
Our book basket this month includes:
The Sunny Day- Anna Milbourne
The Windy Day- Anna Milbourne
Lift the Flap Questions and Answers: Weather- Katie Daynes
Oh Say, Can you Say What’s the Weather Today?- Tish Rabe

Other Titles I suggest are found here:

If you buy from this site, I am an independent consultant and will earn a commission from the sale.

Sensory: (Switched out weekly but played with daily; Could also be prepped and allow them to choose which one they want to do each day)

Bin #1: Stormy weather: Black Beans, Cotton Balls, Pipe Cleaner Lightning

Bin #2: Snowy weather: Floof and mini snowman pieces (these pieces are choking hazards so please monitor your children)

Bin #3: Rainbow dyed rice, pom poms, tongs, and color sorting cups

Bin #4: Blue water beads with Ivory soap clouds (this was really fun to do with my 7 and 9 year old and then use it for Mermaid’s sensory bin

Microwave Ivory soap for 1 minute. Remove what expanded and do it again for 1 minute

Motor Skills: At least one of these is done daily. If she chooses to do more, we will do one but that is also why they are pretty easy prep and mostly easy to clean

Puddle Jumping– Construction paper “puddles” and jump from one to another. (Older kids, add letters of their name or numbers and have them jump in order)

Sponge cloud: Use a dropper to pull up water and then drip it on a sponge. How much water is needed before the sponge starts “raining”

Rainbow Color mixing– Put sizable dabs of paint in a zipper storage bag. (Red and yellow, red and blue, blue and yellow, red blue and yellow) Seal the tops. Allow children to use their hands, rollers, etc to mix the colors together. What new colors are they making?

Cloud writing: This can be a pre writing or writing activity. Use lines, curves and angles for pre writing, or use letter and number to develop writing skills. Use shaving cream, whipped cream, or similar and put on a plate. Have them use their fingers, paintbrush, cotton swab, or other utensil to write the same letter/shape that is on an index card. Spread the cream back out and start a new one! (Be careful of some shaving creams and the menthol level, it can burn some children and watch for food allergies if using whipped cream or other food based product)

Make and decorate a rain stick– Using a paper towel tube, glue a few cotton balls at different intervals inside the tube. On one end create and glue on a cap from card stock. Secure with a piece of ribbon glued around the edge to get a better finish. Fill 1/4 with beans or rice. Create a cap and secure the other end. Allow to dry and then paint and decorate.

Art: This is done just a couple times a week (No you do not have to keep everything your child ever makes. Put them on the fridge for the week they did them until they do something different and then, in the words of Elsa, “LET IT GO!” Some of our art projects this month:

Cotton ball clouds glued to paper
Paper Kite
Solar Prints on Constructions paper
Rolling Pin Rainbow
Water Drop Printing
Rainbow Milk Jug Wind Sock
Paper Plate Sun
Wind Painting

So that is it. That is the type of things we do on a daily basis. It probably wouldn’t even take an hour to do all of it at one time but that rarely happens. I hope you enjoy the weather activities. If you want to see where I got most of the ideas you can check out my Pinterest Board for Tot School: Weather here. I will always change mine up a bit from what they do though because that is just who I am.

If you want to follow along with some of our activities, you can also join my group on Facebook. I will be reading one of the books live for story-time each week on Tuesday at 10am (EST) and I will be sharing recipes, going live and doing other activities!

Want to get these ideas in more detail? Sign up for my email list and get a monthly email with more in depth activities lists and instructions.

Until next time…

Yep. I did. I signed up for ANOTHER Direct Sales company. I know, I know.

BUT you already are part of one! (Yes, but I do that for me. Sales were never my primary goal and honestly, I wasn’t passionate about it)

BUT you already run a business! (Yep! and I will continue to craft to my heart’s content and continue growing that business because I LOVE it and it is my baby)

BUT you don’t need to work (You’re right, my husband and I are blessed and he has worked really hard to make sure that I can stay home and raise and homeschool our kids. But I still like to contribute financially because that is just who I am)

BUT you have never been successful before, what makes you think this is any different? (First off, whoa! Don’t judge me. LOL. Second, you’re absolutely right but this time it IS different)

Here’s why…

I get asked probably weekly, how I get/got my kids to be readers. They (mainly Monkey) devour books almost as quickly as they do food. I can’t keep books in the house because they will get read. I have to hide books if I want them to be saved for something like vacation or a holiday.

So how did I get them to that point? It started before I ever had kids. I am an AVID reader. I have learned of places, and people, and events I could have only dreamed of all because of books. During certain times in my life, books were my way of escaping and living a life I thought was better than what I was dealing with in reality. Because of the things I have learned, books have been so important to me. Reading became the most important skill in my life. I wanted to pass that on to my children. My husband was/is similar and also believes in the power of reading.

So when we had kids, reading to them was natural and constant and non-negotiable. It started early. I mean within days of them being born, early! I didn’t care if they were looking at the pictures or already asleep. I didn’t care if they were playing on the floor or in my lap snuggling. We have books in practically every room in our house. They are always at a level where the kids can reach them. If they ask me to read a story, I usually will stop what I am doing and read to them. If they asked to buy a book, I rarely, if ever, said no. Bedtime stories are a daily ritual. I don’t care how tired I am. I don’t care if it takes us 2 minutes or 10 minutes or 30 minutes. We read SOMETHING before bed. And we are surrounded by people who feed their appetite for learning and reading by giving them books and who feed their curiosity for learning.

Monkey started Kindergarten in 2016. Well, technically we delayed his formal schooling for a year in 2016 and I decided to take that year to focus with him on a strong foundation of reading and math. We had a lot of other things going on, so I didn’t want to stress him with all the other subjects. We used a book called Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. He and Monster both used this and I will use it for Mermaid and I will recommend it to ANYONE who wants to teach their child to read. There were days where it was hard. There were days that we stopped in the middle of a lesson. But then all of the sudden around lesson 80, it clicked. And I haven’t gotten them to stop reading since. (Not that I am complaining).

So many new books from the party I hosted! This wasn’t even a quarter of the ones I got!

Books, obviously still remain an important part of our lives. They are still as accessible to my children as they always have been. We have 8 bookshelves in our house. Bins of books in our basement. Almost all of them have been read multiple times by at least one of us. This is where that direct sales company comes in. I “went” to a party in December that a friend was hosting and remembered how much we love their books. Then I hosted a party last month. I signed up the next day. This one is already different. I love my kids reading. I love books. I love helping other people’s children have access to incredible books. I love helping others build their libraries. I love that Monster, finished a series of 4 books in about 3 weeks and since then his confidence in his reading has gone through the roof and he is reading things he wouldn’t have even picked up a month ago. I love that now I have a reason to talk about reading. I love that I get to share a true passion with others. Usborne Book & More is giving me the ability to get books into the house, make some money, and help others fall in love with reading. I can’t think of anything more perfect!

(Disclaimer: If you click on any link it will direct you to my Usborne website and I will make a commission off of any sale made)

Tag: reading

April Preschool Activities: Weather

I did it… Again…