National Fire Safety week is the first week of October here, so we are doing a fire safety preschool theme. I like to pair it up here because some of the fire stations near us hold open houses so it’s fun to do that when we are learning all about fire safety.
Along with getting lots of books from the library about fire, firemen & fire themed stories, here is what we will be doing in preschool.
Science of baking – bake treat to deliver to firehouse
Comprehension Questions:
What was Gideon afraid of?
What did the angel tell Gideon?
Did Gideon think he was strong and brave?
Find & Read words: Write some CVC or sight words on index cards (or cut pieces of paper) and hide them around the room. Turn off the light and have child use a flashlight to find the cards. Then have them read what it says. This is like a firefighter in a dark building. (Adapted from an idea at stayathomeeducator.com)
Fire obstacle course – This activitiy is dramatic play and pretending. Make an obstacle course and pretend something at the end is on fire. Call the firefighter (your child) who can dress up as a firefighter and practice crawling through the obstacle course to get to the fire and pretend to put the big fire out at the end.
Fire safety plan – where do you go? What do you do? Do you wait for other people? Designate a meeting place. “Don’t hide, go outside!”. You can make a map with this and talk about cardinal directions as well.
Good fire v bad fire – Discuss the differences between good fires (campfires, bbq, stove, candles, etc..) and bad fires – depends on the type of fire and what its effects are.
Space is so vast, that I decided to split it up into 2 preschool themes focusing on different aspects of space. The first being a space unit with emphasis on stars, asteroids, comets, astronauts etc.. basically anything that is not the planets & sun. The second, this unit, focusing specifically on the planets in our solar system.
As always, these are the activities that we are doing, and I hope that it saves you some time searching the internet for ideas.
Comprehension Questions: What does the word “commandments” mean?
Why did God give us rules? (To help the people learn how to obey God, be happy, and to know how to treat other people)
What are some of the rules that you have to follow?
Why do you have rules?
Earths Orbit in Action – Outline a path representing Earth’s orbit on the ground. Then acting as the sun, the child can shine a flashlight on you (who is the Earth) as you rotate and orbit the sun. You can reverse the role play as well.
Last week we talked about the human body, this week we are building onto that and diving into the 5 senses. The language, science, and art kind of all blend together, but that’s ok!!
“Baby in the Basket” Craft: Print the Baby Moses Craft page. Color and cut out each piece. Cut a piece of blue construction paper in half. Glue on the reeds. Glue the baby in the basket and glue in front of the reeds.
Jesus is Always with Me: Have the child choose five things in the room to bring to you. Place the items in a small area on the floor and place a small blanket over the items.
Ask the child: – Can the objects be seen? – Are the objects still there even though they can’t be seen? – How do you know that the objects are still there? Remove the blanket. Even though we can’t see Jesus, we know He is always with us.
With the objects gathered, turn this activity into a memory game. Without the child watching, remove one object. Have the child figure out which object is missing. For greater difficulty, remove more than one object or add similar items.
Teaching Emotions – talk about different emotions that people have then relate it to the Bible story – How did Moses’ mom feel when she placed Moses in the basket? How did Moses’ sister feel while watching Moses in the basket? How did Moses’ family feel when he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter?
Bathtub Play – Put a small baby figurine and put it on a boat that acts as a basket. Fill up a bathtub and have child try to move the boat to the other side.
Dab it Find It – If you subscribe to her website, you can get the printables free
Word Stretching – You can print out a page of CVC word pictures or just show them pictures on the computer.. Like this one.. Then have them try to stretch out the sounds of the word to try to spell it on the dry erase board. You can tell them that each word has 3 letters to help them.
Texture collage – Glue items like ribbons, beads, gems, paper scraps, feathers, yarn, pom poms, sand paper to a piece of cardboard for a sensory experience
Food Tracing – Draw short straight, zig zag, and wave lines and have child trace/cover them with fruit loops or other cereal
Eye Patterns – Make a chart with number of people on one axis and eyes on the other. Then help them figure out how many eyes 1 person would have, 2 people etc… If you want to challenge them, once you do the first 3-5 with them, see if they can do a couple more by themselves.
Guess the smell – soak cotton balls in oils or extracts that they can guess the smell of, or do spices, herbs, etc…
Observation memory game – Get a group of 5-10 items and have the child try to memorize them, then cover them up and see how many they can remember.
This week we are learning all about the human body. This unit is science heavy and a lot of the science/art/language is interchangeable, but that is ok!! Other themes that we will do later may be more focused on geography or history or something else, so it all works out in the end.
As always, I have linked to where I got ideas or printables. You can get our homeschool theme schedule with our weekly focuses from the freebies section if you want to follow along or get our themes for the year. You do have to be a subscriber to access the freebies though.
Josephs Robe Comprehension Questions from ABCJesus:
-What did Jacob give to his son Joseph?
Joseph’s brothers were jealous of him. Do you get jealous of your brother/sister when he or she gets something and you don’t?
What was Joseph’s dream?
The brothers’ jealousy turned into anger. What did they do to Joseph?
Roll & watercolor Body Parts – I drew a picture of a body on a paper and assigned each body part a number 1-6 (1=head, 2=legs etc… you could do 1-12 if you want to use 2 die). I will have my daughter roll the dice and use watercolors to color the body part to the corresponding number.
This week is all about transportation!! As always I went to the library and picked up a few books that interested me to go along with the theme. I have activities here for both my 4 & 2 year old. Hope you get some good ideas if you are doing a transportation theme as well. If you are following along please tag me on Instagram so that I can see what you’re doing!!
Books Ideas for Transportation Theme: The Little Engine That Could – Watty Piper; The Airport Book – Lisa Brown
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Religion
Fingerpaint Noahs Obeys God Worksheet, noah wreath
Put animal stickers on Noah Gathers Animals Worksheet
Use noah stamps on Noahs Ark worksheet and glue blue tissue paper for water
Use primary colors to paint a rainbow, add cotton balls for clouds
Make different ramps with blocks and experiment with cars – can talk about speed, velocity & friction
Learning how to read a map – cardinal directions, key, roads etc…
Talk about road safety: Wearing seatbelt, crossing the street, passing driveways etc…
Airplane wing case matching – Cut out an airplane body out of cardboard. Label clothespins with uppercase and lowercase letters C, B, T, S, A, M (can do letters of first & last name too for more). Have the child pick an uppercase clothespin and put it on one side of the airplane body for a wing, then find the corresponding lowercase clothespin to match for the other wing.
Train Sequencing – Put stickers labeled 1-7 on 7 trains. Have your child order them, then give each train the corresponding number of math beads.
This week we are focusing on community helpers. I have rented over 20 books from the library to have on our shelves this week and I am ready for my kids to want to do lots of dress up and imaginative play after learning about all of the different members in a community.
Some of our favorite booksfor community helpers include: Last Stop on Market Street – Matt de la Pena; Whose Hat is This – Sharon Katz Cooper; Tinyville Town Gets to Work – Ryan Biggs
Here is what my lesson plan looks like for this week. I linked where I got each idea/resource from too so you could check it out.
POST OFFICE FREEBIE
**Another idea would be to do some ‘dramatic play’. I made a DIY mail carrier set for my girls, you can see the whole tutorial here. You can download the letter and stamp template freebie here. (The settings my be off in the online version, but once you download it to your computer and open in Word it should be correct and ready for printing).**
Make a map of your community (draw or build with blocks)
Bake treats to deliver to community helpers in your area
Hammer Letters – Write letters of name on a thick piece of cardboard (not in order) and have them say the sound of the letter as they hammer golf tees into the cardboard.
Hope this helps give you some ideas for community helpers theme and saves you a little time in the researching department 🙂
School is starting again here at my house and what better way to kick it off then with an All About You theme! I love this theme to start the year because it gives you a snapshot of who your little ones are at this moment in time.
I have a 2 year old and a 4 year old this school year. In the language department, I’m working with my 2 year old on recognizing her name. My 4 year old pretty much knows all her letters and the sounds that they make, but I want to take this first couple weeks to review them and make sure she really has them down as we start the journey toward reading. For math, I working on the number and concept of 0 with my 2 year old. With my 4 year old I will be reviewing numbers 1-20.
Here is my lesson plan for the week and I provided the sources for the activities and printables that I found elsewhere. Hope this helps you on your homeschooling journey 🙂
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Religion
Creation day 1
Creation day 2
Creation day 3
Creation day 4
Creation day 5
Language (2)
Write name on board & show it
Use sandpaper letters to talk about each letter in their name
Sing BINGO with their name
Draw name in bubble letters and have child tear tissue paper and glue in the lines
I get a lot of my Bible Activities from here and some of my other ideas from here
Creation Day 1 – Use a piece of black construction paper as the background. Cut a piece of white construction paper in half. Glue the half white sheet vertically on the black sheet. Write “Day” on the white piece and “Night” on the black. Add the number “1” to the page.
Creation Day 2 – Use a piece of blue construction paper. Add cotton balls in the sky for clouds. Make waves with shaving cream and blue paint at the bottom. Add the number “2” to the page.
Creation Day 3 – Print out an outline of a tree and have kids color it and add flower stickers
Creation Day 4 – Make Sun,moon,stars mobile from ABCJ y2w3
Creation Day 5 – On a light blue piece of construction paper place birds in the sky. Add a darker blue half sheet to the bottom of the background piece for water. Add a fish to this section. Add the number “5” to the page.
Name Magnet Bin – Put magnets of the letters of child’s name in a sensory bin and dig them out with tongs, then place them on a mat where you have written their name. You can write their name multiple times if you have enough magnets
Dry Erase Game – write letters on a glass or dry erase surface with dry erase markers (2 letters at a time for young ones, many for older). Then have children stand a few feet away and call out a letter. They race to the correct letter and erase it.
2023 Plan for All About You Theme
In 2023, I have a 3 turning 4 year old that I am homeschooling. My 2 year old takes naps around the time when we homeschool, so this year I am not planning lessons specifically for her. That being said, sometimes we have to fit in school at a time she is awake, or sometimes she just wont sleep, so I have a few activities from the above plan (and new ones added this year) that I will have ready in case she joins us.
All About Me Theme Books – Like Myself – Karen Beaumont; Parts – Tedd Arnold; We’ve All Got Bellybuttons – David Martin; Marvelous Me – Lisa Marie Bullard
Religion Focus – Learning the Hail Mary
2 YR Options – Count stairs as you go up or down, talk about colors and their favorites, learn to say their name & age, baby size sorting from last year
Language
Write & walk through letters of first name (can also trace with sandpaper letters)
Name Magnet Bin*
Draw name in bubble letters and have child tear tissue paper and glue in the lines
Name dry erase game*
Math
Do an initial 0-5 number recognition assessment. Then practice quantities and counting with 0-5 spindle box
Use math beads to show quantity of 0-5. Ask math questions*
Talk about numbers in address (even if over 0-5)
Trace hand and write numbers 1-5 on each finger. Have child add counters corresponding to the number
Name Magnet Bin – Put magnets of the letters of child’s name in a sensory bin and dig them out with tongs, then place them on a mat where you have written their name. You can write their name multiple times if you have enough magnets
Dry Erase Game – write letters on a glass or dry erase surface with dry erase markers (2 letters at a time for young ones, many for older). Then have children stand a few feet away and call out a letter. They race to the correct letter and erase it.
Math Questions – How old are you? How many pets do you have? How many brothers do you have? How many sisters do you have? How many wheels are on your bicycle? How many teeth do you have? How many teeth have you lost? How many candles will be on your next birthday cake? What is your bedtime? How many eyes do you have? How many shoes are in your cubby? How many pillows are on your bed?
