Preschool Activities Site

I am working hard towards completing my preschool activities everyday site. I am still under construction, but I am working hard to getting it done this weekend. It is a lot of work compiling activities and directions for those activities.

The section I have completed is the kindergarten readiness checklist. If you want to get your preschooler ready for kindergarten, you can see what is expected from them when they start kindergarten. Of course, requirements vary from state to state and school to school, especially if you are going to one of those "college prep" kindergartens :). And please remember, these are goals for those entering kindergarten, not for 4 year olds!

Keeping checking out my new site and see how it turns out. I know it will be a great resource for parents of preschoolers!

Music and The Preschooler

Preschoolers love music. They are predictable, enjoyable, and repeatable. Singing with your child is a great pre-reading skill. They are learning about rhyming, rhythm , and patterning, all skills that are needed for reading.

Make sure you sing with your child. Old McDonald Had a Farm, Mary Had A Little Lamb, or even Row, Row, Row Your Boat are great starters. You can also get music CD with nursery rhymes, worship and praise, and newer versions of old songs are fun to have in the car and house.

Don't forget, if you have satellite TV or radio, there are special stations just for kids.

Keep Your Preschooler Busy

Author Belinda Moody wrote a nice article on keeping your preschooler busy using simple things around the house.

You do not have to buy expensive toys (what did they do in the "old days"?) to entertain your child. As we know, the box is always more exciting than the toy. Take the time to give your child a simple household item- some pans and spoons, plastic dishes, a clean fly swatter (and paint if you are adventurous), some small shovels and a bucket, water and a paint brush... and see what they do. They do not need instruction, just give it to them. Keeping a preschooler busy is more about innovativeness than amount of money spent. My kids love "painting" the house and their playset. I get the cheap foam brushes from Walmart and give them a cup of water (I used to do this with my preschool class years ago in the hot days of summer school). They love it and it keeps them entertained as long as I keep filling up the cup!

So think outside the box--- or give them a box! You never know what they will come up with!

Enjoy The World Around Us

Tonight (early evening) as we were driving home, there was a beautiful rainbow going all the way across the sky. Since we were in the car and moving, it was hard for me to point out to my son. So I pulled over and angled the car so he could see it. You should have seen his face light up. In a few more minutes, we got home and got out of the car. We stayed outside until dark, even though it faded away about 20 minutes before.

We always need to take time to enjoy the world around us!

Teaching Your Child About Worship

In our family, worship is an important part of our lives. We attend church regularly, even though you would never know from the reaction of my 4 year old. He has gone to the nursery since he was 6 weeks old, hardly missing a week! This morning, he cried when we dropped him off! 4 years later, and he still cries.

Every week when we are getting ready, he says he does not want to go. Every week, we tell him this is what our family does... we worship God on Sundays. He still tries to talk us out of going.

My little girl, on the other hand, loves going and visiting her teacher, Mrs. Dee. She says very few understandable words, but she says "Mrs. Dee." Most days, she runs in excited to see her teacher and her friends.

Since my children do not go to school, this is there opportunity to be away from mommy and daddy, learn to sit and listen, and learn about God. My son comes home each week and tells me the story he has learned.

These lessons not only teach your children about worship, but teach them about the values and traditions your family believes are important.

So matter how your family worships or teaches values, make sure you teach them beginning at the earliest of ages.

Pictures Tell The Story

After a week long vacation at the beach, there are plenty of memories to recall. If you took pictures, they can be a great way to talk about the wonderful event to secure those memories. You can also use them to make a personalized book for your child to read and improve word recognition. Snapfish is a great website to help you create a simple book.

Pictures are great to encourage self-esteem and help with memory. There are many ways to use your pictures to help your preschooler.

One way is to make a book. I used Snapfish to make a small 4 x 6 spiral bound book of my son's birthday party. You can add backgrounds and captions under each picture. If you use simple captions with names, words to label the major object, or places, your child will begin to associate the picture with the word. Try not to write too many words if you are using it for reading recognition. This is to encourage reading, but not "teach" reading.

If you are interested in trying it out, here is a way to get free prints. The book is a different purchase, but it all works together.

Special Promo: 30 FREE prints plus free shipping with coupon code SNAPYFRSH07

Vacations Improve Reading!

Vacations are always a good idea- for relaxation, for exploration, and for information. Vacations can be elaborate or simple. Whenever you leave the town or city you live in, no matter how big or how small, you are giving your child's brain more to absorb. This is particularly important in reading. When children read a story, they have to connect it to something they already know. The technical word for this is "schema." If you hardly ever leave your house, your neighborhood, or you town or city (especially if you live in a small or rural area), your child will be a less likely to put words to pictures of ideas that are new to him.

Vacationing helps build new ideas and new discoveries. If you cannot afford a long or far away vacation, take a trip to the nearest city (driving distance) to you, even if it is smaller than yours. Small towns are good to teach big city kids about rural life so they know why country mouse was different than city mouse.

So try to take a vacation. Find a relative to visit. Find a new place to explore.

And on that note, I will be vacationing for a few days at the beach!