Deer

We started a new theme for December with Experience Early Learning.  This moth we're using the Experience Preschool curriculum, which is sights and sounds of winter.  Day 1 was spent learning about deer.  

Ronan practiced tracing his name, which at this point is just scribbling on paper.  He's getting better at holding markers (her preferred choice of writing implement) the correct way.  Every monthly box from Experience Preschool comes with new name tags to practice this skill.  

Ronan and Elli made deer headbands.  Ronan can't cut well with scissors yet so I cut out his hand prints for him.  He used the scissors to practises cutting the scraps.  I worked with him on keeping his thumb up and opening/closing the scissors.  These are good fine motor skills to practice with any preschool curriculum.

Elli and Ronan played spotted fawn.  They took turns rolling the pocket cube and putting the same number of cotton ball spots on the deer.  Ronan is working on counting, and can get to 6 by himself so far.  These games are good at reinforcing 1-1 counting correspondence.  I love that Experience Preschool comes with educational games that the kids think are fun.  It's a great preschool curriculum with fun and engaging lessons.  

The suggested book of the day was Stranger in the Woods, which the kids loved.  We also found another book in the library, Where Snowflakes Fall, which is about animals in winter.  

This Little Piggy

This month with Experience Early Learning we have been given the chance to review their new Experience Toddler curriculum.  It comes with 4 weekly themes, and just like their preschool curriculum everything is included.  Last weeks book was This Little Piggy, and all the activities for the week centered around this book.  Every day we reread the story, plus we also listen to it being read on the monthly CD.

The first day we read the book Ronan had to find where the pig was on every page.  He's just learning English so having him repeat words while matching them to pictures at the same time is helpful.

The Experience Toddler curriculum comes with 4 activity cards for each day.  One of the activities was using the 5 little pig stickers to retell the story.  Ronan worked on pulling the stickers off the sheet, which is a good fine motor activity, and then he colored the paper.  We listened to the story being told on the CD while he worked on this.  On of the great things about using Experience Early Learning as a preschool curriculum is that there are different curriculum levels to choose from.  There is one for babies, toddler, and preschoolers.  There is also a literacy/math workbook you can get for prek kids, a toy box option, and a Christian based curriculum.  It's nice having so many options in a preschool curriculum.

Ronan had to sort pink foam triangles into a pink cup, and yellow ones into the yellow cup.  I had to show him what to do quite a few times before he understood the colors needed separated, but once he understood it he easily sorted them out.  He even started saying yellow.  He really liked doing this and dumped them out a bunch of times and resorted them.  

We used the same triangles that were included in the Experience Toddler curriculum to work on pattern mats.  After that we danced to songs on the CD.  Ronan loves music so he always enjoys when songs are playing.  

Toddler Curriculum

We've been using the new Experience Toddler curriculum this month.  It's set up a bit differently from the Experience Preschool curriculum, but it's still really easy to use.  Each week focuses on a different book and has activities that go along with it.  It's a great preschool curriculum for younger kids.

The week we focused on a forest friends book about resourcefulness.  The Experience Preschool curriculum also comes with he same forest friend book so you can easily use both preschool curriculum with multiple ages at the same time.  

We started by learning the sign for fall, then we read the book.  Every time I said fall/fell/fallen the kids would drop a pom pom into a bowl to make it fall.  Ronan loved using the pom poms and after we were done with the story he continued to drop them into the bowl and dump them out and start over.  One of the nice things about the Experience Toddler program is that it comes with a monthly CD with all 4 stories recorded as a read aloud.  While we worked on the rest of the activities we listened to the CD and got to hear the story again.  

Ronan worked on building bridges with popsicle sticks in play dough.  This is good fine motor practice and he loves using play dough.  

While Ronan worked with play dough Elli used the play money from the preschool curriculum to do math problems.

She made a wallet to keep her play money in.  

While Elli was designing her wallet Ronan got to sponge paint a triangle tree.  Triangle is the shape of the month and it is reinforced with games, crafts, math work, etc.  

Experience Toddler

This month we have been given the chance to review the Experience Toddler curriculum.  It's set up a little bit differently than Experience Preschool, but just as easy to use.  It's still a complete preschool curriculum in a box.  Instead of a lesson plan book with daily bags you get activity cards and weekly bags.  There is a suggested order to use the different bags, each of which comes with a book.  There are 20 cards in each weekly bag, you just match up 4 of the same number (we started with one) and you have the whole days lesson.  

We started off by reading the book that was provided in the preschool curriculum, "Bella and the Umbrella."  This was a long book and I wasn't sure if Ronan would listen to the whole thing, but I think the big colorful pictures really helped hold his attention.  After we finished it he said book and flipped it back to the beginning to read again, but I told him we'd have to wait and read it later.  One of the things I love about Experience Toddler is that the books are included as read alouds on the included CD.  My 6 year old is just starting to read and later sat and listened to the book while following along.  Of course Ronan heard the story playing and came in to listen to it again.  

There was a sticker sheet with a scene that went along with the weekly book.  Ronan worked on his pincer skills trying to get the stickers off and put them o his paper.  He ripped a few of them trying to get them off the sheet, but was getting better by the end.  

There was also an included double sided play dough mat.  Ronan practiced rolling play dough into balls and counting to 4.  He loves play dough and I like that the mat keeps the play dough from getting all over everything.  Our last activity was dancing to and holding up a yellow piece of paper (we used a yellow egg) when we heard the word yellow.  Each monthly box from Experience Toddler comes with a monthly CD that is a great addition to have with a preschool curriculum.  Ronan loves music so we wound up listening to all the songs.  Our first day was a success and I think this simplified preschool curriculum is a better fit for where Ronan is developmentally at this point. 

Weeding

We just finished up our Down on the Farm theme with Experience Preschool, which offers a complete preschool curriculum.  Each month is a different theme.

We spent a day learning about weeding.  Ronan, like most preschoolers, loves play dough.  We "planted" straws and pipe cleaners, both of which were provided in our monthly preschool curriculum box from Experience Preschool, and then Ronan "Weeded" them out of the play dough.  He really enjoyed putting them in and pulling them out, and it's a great fine motor exercise.  

We moved onto bigger weeds.  I threaded dish cloths through our laundry basket, a suggested activity from Experience Preschool, and Ronan had to pull them out.  Ronan is receiving physical/occupational therapy to help improve his gross and fine motor skills.  This activity was a great way for him to work on some of the bigger arm muscles as well as his finger and hand muscles, plus he thought it was fun.  

One of the great things about Experience Preschool is that it is a complete preschool curriculum in a box.  Everything you need (minus a few basics like paint and play dough) is included.  We looked at a picture of a plowed field, and then Ronan used a comb to drag paint over paper.  Then he added some sand to give it texture.  He loves to paint.  There was another suggested activity for the day that we didn't get to.  It was a little too advanced for Ronan so we read some extra books and played a bit longer with the play dough.  Experience Early Learning just came out with a new Experience Toddler curriculum this year, which I am excited to have been given a chance to use next month.  

Preschool Curriculum-Corn

This month with Experience Preschool, formerly Mother Goose Time, we're learning about farms.  We spent week 1 learning about farm animals, week 2 was about farms, and week 3 is about food from a farm.  

We spent the day learning about corn with Experience Preschool.  We started by using a sheet to make a parachute and crumpled up balls of paper to throw on it.  We pretended the paper was popcorn and shook the sheet to make them pop off.  All kids love playing parachute.  

The complete preschool curriculum from Experience Preschool comes with all the materials you need  for crafts, minus basic things like glue, scissors, markers, paint.  The kids used bubble wrap to dip in paint and make corn kernels on the corn cutouts that were provided.  There was also green paper to use to make the husks and corn stalks.  Ronan loves to paint and after he finished his corn he painted the newspaper.  

All good preschool curriculum come with math activities.  Right now Ronan is just learning to count, so far he can count to 5 in English.  He used the pig manipulatives to work on one to one counting.  Elli did the harder math problems that were included on the story math cards this month.  She was very proud that she didn't even need to use the pig counters to get the answers.  After math, Ronan and Elli played with the pigs for a while, along with some other farm animal counters we have.  I love that Experience Preschool sends new manipulatives in every monthly box.  The pigs were a big hit, even though we already had a set of them.  

Ronan and Elli worked together to color a mini book about corn.  Elli used the book to practice her reading, and Ronan was able to practice holding crayons the right way.  

We finished up with some farm books.  Experience Preschool gives recommended books for every day, that are great if you're doing a farm themed preschool curriculum.  Unfortunately our very tiny library rarely has the recommended books, but I've food lots of farm books that we're reading this month.  

Chickens

We just started a new month with Mother Goose Time, which means a new theme.  This month is down on the farm, and we started day one with chickens.

Every month starts with a new name tag.  Ronan can't write his name, or even trace it at this point.  I write his name on the name tag and hopefully that will help him with recognizing it later.  He's working on holding crayons and pencils the right way which is what we practice on the name tags.  Elli likes to help Ronan "do school" so she used her white board to write her name and draw a barn with animals.

The kids played a game where they took turns rolling the pocket cube and moving a baby chick around the game board to the coop.  If they rolled the fox before the chick made it home then they had to start over.  The girls really liked playing this game with their little brother and helping him move the piece and roll.

Ronan was given an egg that he could use to paint a picture, but instead wound up finger painting the egg and his paper.  He LOVED the paint and was quite happy getting his hands dirty with it.  

We finished up by reading Blue Chicken.