preschool – The Schoolin' Swag Blog

Play Smart Brain Boosters (3+)

This book contains over 60 pages of picture puzzles, drawing projects, and number games for children ages three and up. In addition, it includes over 100 stickers and a wipe-clean activity mat that allows children to draw different ears on two animal pictures, wipe it clean, and start again.
The activities range in type and style. There are activities with correct answers and others that are more creative. For example, in some activities, the child matches shapes to pictures. In another activity, the child begins with the basic shape drawn and creates a picture of whatever they wish to draw.

Play Smart Skill Builders Challenging (Ages 2-3)

The activities in this book are a bit simpler than those in the brain booster book. There are lots of mazes and different tracing activities. This book also contains over 90 stickers and a wipe-clean activity board maze. Each page is colorful and engaging, with pictures of various animals, flowers, and scenery. The child simply needs a crayon or pencil to complete each activity page.

These would work well as a quiet activity for a parent and child to work on together. The activities promote fine motor skills, pattern recognition, and knowledge of colors and animals.

Play Smart Animal Picture Puzzlers (2+)

In this full-color workbook, children will work on tracing, drawing, sorting, and matching. They will trace lines in different pictures, including straight lines, curved lines, spirals, and loops. They will also work on counting and recognizing the numbers 1, 2, and 3.
In addition to the over 60 pages of single-use activities, there is a wipe-clean page at the end of the book that assists the student in learning how to write the numbers 1, 2, and 3.

Overall, these Play Smart Workbooks are a great quiet-time activity for preschool students. They promote fine motor skills, matching, patterns, and number recognition. They are bright and engaging and would work well for younger children to do with an adult. Older preschool students could work on activities independently for a few minutes. These are also perfect for those preschoolers who want to ‘do school’ like their older brothers and sisters.
You can learn more about it or purchase your set from Timberdoodle. They are also included in the Timberdoodle Preschool kit.

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Children learn through play and living out real life with their family and those around them. Young children do not need a formal curriculum to learn and grow. I firmly believe that, but I also have a four-year-old that wants to ‘do school’ like his big brothers and sister.

Since he wants to do school, I have gathered various materials to use with him and arranged our day so that I can spend twenty or thirty minutes a day working with him. I will not force the issue if he decides he does not want to do school on any given day.

What Are We Learning?

When I asked my four-year-old what he wanted to learn in school, he told me he wanted to learn his letters and all about the weather.

Science

So I logged into my handy SchoolhouseTeachers.com subscription and found a fun Charlotte Mason Preschool course with a unit that covered weather. It also has bird and insect units which will tie in nicely with my eight-year-olds science course this year.

He will also join us on our nature walks and listen in as I do nature study work with my older children.

Language Arts/ Math

I created these fun alphabet activities for my older son, so we will use them and some other fun alphabet printables. Of course, we love reading together, and I will continue reading a variety of books to him and listening to audiobooks in the car and while he is resting at home.

We are using unifix cubes, pattern blocks, and other fun math manipulatives to work on basic number sense and math skills. There are also some great fun math lessons on the SchoolhouseTeachers.com preschool playground that we can incorporate.

Art/Music

He is using our You Are an Artist Clubhouse Membership for art. He loves sitting alongside my older children and doing the chalk pastel lessons. He will also do some of his art from their preschool courses. Of course, he will have plenty of time just to be creative and access to a wide variety of art and craft materials for independent exploration.

He listens to music during our morning routine with our hymn and fine arts studies. He has been asking to start violin lessons with Practice Monkeys. However, for now, I am letting my daughter start working with him on the violin to determine if he is ready for actual lessons.

Foreign Language

I am also having him watch the Whistlefritz and Salsa Spanish videos for a simple, low-pressure introduction to Spanish. We aren’t doing formal studies, but the low-key introduction will hopefully help him learn some of the language more naturally.

How Long Will This Take?

When I list it all out like that, it may seem like a very full load, but in reality, I will spend twenty to thirty minutes a day doing ‘school’ with him, not counting our extra reading aloud and nature walks. I am looking forward to a fun, no-pressure, play-filled, and active introduction to school days with him. I think he will enjoy the focused time and attention, and his inquisitive mind will soak up all of the science.

Do you do preschool in your homeschool? What are your favorite resources?

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