Preschool

For a few months now, I have been looking for ideas to start doing preschool activities with Thomas.  He just turned 3 in August and my plan has been to start a more structured learning time with him at three.  A couple of months ago, I was reading Money Saving Mom and she was giving her top 15 picks for home school aids.  One of her top 5 was the Letter of The Week curriculum by Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I clicked over to see what it was all about and after reading some things and looking through some of the material, I was hooked! 

The Letter of The Week curriculum has activities designed for your preschooler for every letter.  A short list of some of the things I have done with Thomas for letters A - E (we are on letter E this week):

• Puzzles
• Lacing Cards
• Magnet Pages
• Floor Numbers
• Do A Dot
• Color Puzzles
• Color by Number
• Cutting
• Graphing
• Patterns
• Letter Matching

There is a wealth of activities and Thomas never gets bored.  Every morning he says, "Mama, are we are going to do school today?"  And when we have finished for the activities for the day (she also has pre-made lesson plans for each week), he usually says, "Mama, can we do just one more?"  What I love most about it is how much he is learning.  His letter and number recognition has improved dramatically (especially numbers) just by playing fun games using numbers.  He is also learning the sound of each letter to prepare him to read. 

This wonderful program only costs $10!!  You download everything and then print out what you want to use (I have used just about everything for each week).  I did buy a Xyron 9" Creative Station on Amazon (I got it really cheap with some gift cards) to laminate most of the material since I plan to use it again with Josiah.  Of course I have had to replace some ink cartridges, but again I got a great deal on a big pack :-). 

Whether you are homeschooling preschoolers or older children, I really think you would enjoy the Confessions blog.  She has tons of resources and I have found so many other things I want to buy to help Thomas learn. I'll try to get some pictures up sometime soon of Thomas working hard!