Preschool Co-op Style

Last Spring I heard from another mom whose child was in Joshua's kindergarten class about a co-op preschool opportunity in the neighborhood. She had done it before but wasn't going to this year and thought she would just pass on the info, knowing I had a preschooler. I thought it would be a good idea for Abigail, since she was disappointed when she found out that, no, she couldn't have Mrs. Eckhardt as her kindergarten teacher like Joshua because she would never be going to kindergarten. I hoped this would fulfill her desire for school.  Looking at things now, I think she would be fine without it, but it's too late because we already had the first week and I hosted. We'd been having playgroups twice a month during the summer in order to get to know each other and actually see the homes where we would soon be sending our kids. Three of the moms are in the neighboring stake (for those who aren't Mormon who read the blog, a stake is just a geographic boundary to organize groups of congregations) and then there is my friend Melanie and me. Here are some photos with a little explanation. I wont have to host again until mid-October so there probably wont be many posts like this.

I think because we started at our house, Abigail didn't really understand the concept of preschool. We do school everyday, so what's the difference? But I made a big deal of it and picked out her clothes and did her hair and we took "first day of school" photos by the front door, like I had done with Joshua. All the sudden she was very excited. Then we waited for the kids to come and that's when things got really... busy.

Each week we have a different weekly theme, sound/letter, number, and nursery rhyme. Week one's theme was the sun, the letter S, the number 1, and the Itsy Bitsy Spider. Technically there is a lesson plan, but I think the number one rule is that the kids have fun, and the number two rule is flexibility, so we kind of just do what we want. 

So for the first 20 minutes the kids just get to play. On day one they were a little shy but one day two I pulled out a few of our story books and we read together and that was a little more fun. Then we have circle time where we go over our theme, letter, number, nursery rhyme. We also have a weather owl that we have to dress according to the weather outside.

On day one, and sorry there are more words than photos on this post, we talked about how we all knew the number one and I had them show me one finger, one knee, one elbow, one eye, etc. to illustrate how smart we already were. Then we took turns and all the kids got to pull something out of their backpacks that started with the sound of the week. We did this both days and we got spoons, seeds, spiders, snakes, skateboards, string, seashells, soap, and a story. On day one we read a story featuring the letter S and each time the children heard an S they were to raise their hand and Joshua went around and gave out little sun stickers for those with their hand raised. At the end of the page I would ask them which word they heard that started with S and they all said, "sssssssss." Umm... oh well.  Also I read to them "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" which is a cute book because the author goes beyond the water spout and the spider has lots of adventures all to the rhythm and rhyme of the original song.

Then we made some itsy bitsy spiders of our own.  onstruction paper, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, crayons, and tape and glue. Done.

Time for snack - just graham cracker peanut butter sandwiches and apple wedges.

Then back downstairs for our next activity. We drew pictures of our itsy bitsy spiders and I went around to all the kids and they narrated something for me to write about their spider. I compiled these all together and made copies for the kids so they would have a book of all of our spiders to take home on day two. Then play time again until the parents came to pick up their kids. Success.

On day two, we had a little story time instead of play time, circle time again, but this time we read some stories about the sun. These were probably a little over the heads of the kids and it would have made more sense if I had a globe and could demonstrate (I remember doing this with my kids a couple years ago and Joshua seemed to get it), but they seemed interested even if they don't quite understand the concept of orbiting planets. 

Then we listed all the food we could think of that started with an S. I got "ants on a log" as a suggestion and that was about it. I suggested, snickerdoodle cookies and they all said "YEAH!!!" so we went upstairs and made cookies. They were very good during baking and that was a relief. You never know, 5 four-year-olds and a 2-year old in the kitchen don't always equate to culinary masterpieces or clean floors. But they were very good. One boy insisted on cracking the egg and he actually did a pretty good job although it scared him when it broke open. Then he smiled big and said, "That was the first time I ever did that!"

Of course, snickerdoodles were our snack. Afterwards we went downstairs again to work on our poem. I forgot to mention during circle time we started working on a poem I made up the other night while planning for pre-school. We worked on it throughout the cookie making and eating process as well. But for this activity we made little suns and stars on sticks to help us as visuals for our poem. We didn't end up with enough time to put glitter on their visuals and the kids were disappointed, (but my mom doesn't let me use glitter at home!) but I was a little relieved. This activity took us right up to the end of preschool and the parents came to get their kids. I sent the kids home today with a spider book, a poem, two poem visuals, and a stack of three cookies. They were pretty happy. It wasn't that hard, but I'm happy it's over. Our next preschool assignment is Dinosaurs and Hey Diddle Diddle and the letter D. I think that should be fun too.

Here is the poem.

When I wake up in the morning
And I'm all ready to play
The sun is shining, warm and bright,
That's how I know it's day.

But when it's time to go to bed,
Oh, what a beautiful sight,
The stars are twinkling in the sky
That's how I know it's night.