Fun Stuff...

After reviewing the posts that I recently posted about Jasmine's preschool I decided that I had better go back and post about all the fun learning toys they have to play with too. =o) It's not just all workbooks and no fun.

• Play-doh (with alphabet cookie cutters too)
• Puzzles
• Legos
• Lincoln Logs
• Sewing Cards
• Books Galore! (seriously)
• Blocks (building and abc)
• Art supplies (Jasmine loves, scissors, glue stick and construction paper!)
• Matching games
• Chalkboard (they enjoy this)

We have a lot more stuff but that's what popped in my head. These are all educational things that they can play with whenever they want.

I understand that most 3 yr olds are not going to want to sit down and work in workbooks or do worksheets. Jasmine just happens to be little different and loves them. If it weren't for the fact that she was always asking to do them, I probably would not have purchased them yet. Right now 'school' is fun for her and it's kinda like a game. I want to point out that I am following her lead.

As a side note, I'm really curious to see what India will be like when she's 3. Will she be anything like Jasmine? Will she be the complete opposite? I think it will be very interesting to see.

Math already?

The only thing I can say is that Jasmine is my little school nerd! he he *grins* Shhh, don't tell her.

She has been requesting a math program just like Lily's. So for Christmas guess what she got. Yep, a math program. How did you know? Hmm. =o)

Ok, I got her Saxon Math K. I had read about how a lot of people use it for preschool instead of kindergarten so I figured we would give it a shot. It's really hands-on. Lots of manipulatives, pattern blocks, linking cubes, teddy bear counters, a scale and things like that.

We sat down to do our first lesson Jan. 1st and she ended up doing 3 lessons at that time. The beginning ones are so easy. Like counting to 5, playing with pattern blocks...she's been doing both for over a year now. So we have actually sat down for math on 5 different occasions and we are already up to lesson 16. I don't know if she'll do that for much longer though. Pretty soon she'll come across stuff that she doesn't yet know and that may slow her down.

The only part that's hard for her right now is snapping the multi-link cubes together. They're hard. So one evening I just sat down and popped them together and apart, together and apart. It has helped a little bit. So I know they'll get easier to use over time. Right now, I'll just continue helping her 'snap' them together.

Reading...

When Jasmine was right around 3yrs she started sitting down with her sister's chapter books and pretending to read. Then she would bring the book over to me, pointing to a word, and ask "what word is this"? She would do this over and over again.

So I'm like hmm.... I think she may be able to start learning to read.

I decided to purchase Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. And Guess What? She started reading at 3 1/2! We're on lesson 30 something right now, I believe. We actually had to put the book down for awhile, before she was reading. She would sound out the words for me, but she couldn't hear what it was that she was saying. It just wasn't clicking. We waited a few months and tried again and it clicked. Now she has also started reading Bob Books and working on Explode the Code book 1 (ETC). Right now I don't have her writing the words in ETC. She would just get frustrated if she had to do all the writing. Our main goal right now is reading.

We don't work on this stuff every day. Just when she's in the mood for it. Either she tells me she wants to do it. Or I ask if she wants to. If she says no, I simply so 'ok'.

Sonlight PreK

I started researching preschool curriculum. The one that I liked the most was Sonlight's Pre-K (Core B now). I really liked this one because of all the story books that are included it it. Simply put, it's literature based. Read to your child!

While researching this program I came across this yahoo group SL Preschool. I have learned so much about teaching little ones from the ladies on this list. I'm very glad I found it. In the files section there are also 2 different schedules posted for Sonlight PreK. Of course, you have to be a member to have access to these files and they are copyrighted.

I own most of the books now for this program but not all. And we don't sit down and do it everyday. In fact, we're kinda lacking on doing this lately. So I'm hoping to get back into it.

I have all different workbooks that I purchased to go along with this. We've done a page here and there but I would like to start working on it more. (of course only when Jasmine wants too. It's her choice.) Here are some of the workbooks we have:

• Developing the Early Learner (DEL) - we've done about 10pages so far.
• Building Thinking Skills Primary
• Visual Perceptual Skill Building
• Cuisnaire Rods Alphabet book & cuisnaire rods.

Again, we've only worked a little with these right now.

ABC sites (free)

We discovered Starfall.com for Jasmine. She loved that site. It got old after a while though and she stopped going to it. But when we finally went back to it she loved it all over again.

Starfall is an awesome site. It starts with introducing letters and their sounds and works up to learning to read short stories. It's very fun for little ones.

Next we found Letter of the Week. This is a free curriculum teaching letters and their sounds. (they also have other things there too). We didn't follow this to a 'T' but here is what we did:

• I would print off 2-3 letter coloring sheets (for the letter we were on)
• I would tell her what letter it was and what sound it made.
• I would show her the ASL sign for that letter. (sign language)
• I would show her the letter on the keyboard. (she had fun typing it)
• I would pick up some of the recommended books from the library and we would read those throughout the week.
• We would place one of her coloring sheets into her ABC's book. (binder + page protectors, nice and simple but she loved her special book)

Let Preschool Begin...

Once I started teaching Lily, Jasmine had to be right there and involved. I constantly heard "Momma, do you have a worksheet for me"? Jasmine was requesting this at the age of about 2 1/2. At first I was just giving her extra math worksheets (etc.) and letting her draw and scribble all over them. Well, not just scribble. She was constantly trying to write words. Using little symbols and o's as her letters. I also had to start making a copy of Lily's history coloring pages so that Jasmine could do that too.

Eventually I purchased her some Kumon workbooks. First their tracing one, which she absolutely loved and then their cutting workbook.

So that was the beginning of Jasmine's preschool. I will make separate posts about the different things we've done or are doing since then.