Supplies Lists

To give everyone time to find the supplies they'll need for the weekly crafts I came up with an index card sized template for a supply list and a book list. Many libraries can order books you need from libraries farther away, or might have waiting lists, so I recommend doing a weekly library visit and looking for each week's books a few days ahead of time. At our house I plan to keep a basket in the breakfast area to display the books for that week. I've seen other people use a shelf too, however you want to do it I think it's a great idea to keep the week's books out on display as something special :)
There will be one Supplies List and one Book List per week. Many of the supplies lists will overlap so once you get the basics you won't need to buy anything except the occasional special food item (like apples) for a cooking activity.

The lists can be printed on 3x5 index cards and slipped inside library pockets that will be glued/stapled onto our file folders. Then when it's time to do your weekly grocery shopping or trip to the library you simply grab the index card and you've got a ready-made list, no work involved. These are available at Dollar Tree for $2.50 and Amazon.com for $4.99 for a pack of 50. They can also be made using cardstock, construction paper, or old file folders. You can choose to skip the actual pocket altogether and just put the index card lists inside the file folder or your purse, though I do think these look really neat and organized.

(and for those who are tempted by color, amazon has some really cute ones for $5.99 a pack)



**Those lists above are the real supply and book lists for September, Week One to give you a real idea and if you want to go ahead and start looking for supplies knock yourself out!

For those wanting a general list of materials we'll likely use, here are some good craft things to keep around in general:

• construction paper
• crayons
• pencils
  
• glue/glue sticks
  
• scissors
• fingerpaints (red, yellow, and blue are enough to get you all the other colors by mixing)
• art smock (use an old oversized t-shirt, it works great. Ikea also has a nice art smock/bib that fits several ages and has long sleeves so it covers the child fully)
• googly eyes
  
• pipe cleaners
• popsicle sticks
• paintbrush
• hole puncher
• tape
• puff balls
• cotton balls

Also, be sure to save things! I keep craft supplies in old yogurt containers, shoeboxes, spaghetti sauce jars, and baby food jars. Baby food jars are also perfect for pouring paint into. Tissue paper from christmas and birthdays is useful for tons of crafts. Empty milk jugs, soda bottles, paper bags, paper plates, and paper cups are also useful for crafting.

Lesson Planning Basics

I'm pretty sure I've nailed down a basic framework we can all use to do lesson plans. Now, I don't have my heart set on this or anything so please feel free to make suggestions whether you are helping to write lesson plans or simply planning to participate in the curriculum once we start up.

I'll explain this a bit so everyone understands what it is:

Below is September, Week 1, Day 1 lesson plan. I have a prayer for the day written, 2 calendar songs to get us started with calendar time, and 2 nursery rhymes/songs that relate to our themes this month--apples, trees, and the character trait of self-control. Below that are 2 activities. The first block simply mentions that we'll make applesauce (Sid the Science Kid style, using it as a science lesson almost). The second block says we'll make a letter A in the form of an alligator. For these two activities I simple printed out the pages from their original sites and slipped them into my September, Week 1 file. The last block at the bottom lists 2 book choices that relate to the theme. I'm not 100% thrilled with this section so I would love any ideas about how we should handle books since we have such a big age range (infant-5 years old).

My thought for how that last block can work is to also create a small (index card size) print-out with the total book list and materials list for each month. This would be what we could each keep with us when we go to the library to check out books and the store to get any materials we might be missing. That way there's no last minute searches for a glue stick or googly eyes in the morning before doing a craft :) In this case that last block would be a suggestion only of which books from the list might work best for the corresponding activities, but people with older/younger kids can choose what books interest them and which ones are easiest to find at the library that month.


Note that this is the entire week's lesson plans, 3 days of learning time and would fill anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on the family and how in depth you want to go with the activities.

Also look at the prayer for the day, calendar, and songs. I repeated all of those for the entire week and that is not a mistake! Kids love repetition, it's how they memorize those cute songs so please don't feel the need to come up with new songs for every day or even every week. Repeat the same songs for at least an entire week at a time, if not more! Really the only things unique to each day are the 2 activities and the books can change somewhat but again, kids LOVE repetition, I can't even tell you how often I've read Adios, Oscar this past month to Tobias, he insists on it every single night. So while it looks like a ton of planning, it's really just finding 2 songs, 6 activities, and a few related stories for each week.

Store Sales

First, I must say that I LOVE Target :) I got all the above items for $1 or $2.50 each at Target's dollar section (at the front of the store when you first walk in). So if you need pipe cleaners, crayons, paper, stickers, plastic bins, magazine holders, or a planner book go ahead and check that section out.

Here's what I ended up getting:

Wooden Date Board: $2.50 I'll be using this as part of our calendar time each morning, it just seemed perfect, it's all wooden, and it was $2.50!!

Yellow Bin: for all those arts and crafts things I've collected

Blue Desk Chart: these are similar to what's used in classrooms. The slots allow cut out letters, words, or numbers to be slid in. I used these in my K-1 classroom for making sentences, putting words together, and even a behavior chart where each child had colored cards above their name.

Blue Wall Chart: same as the desk chart, but this can be put on the wall anywhere.

Teacher Plan Book: The paper must have cost more than the $1 this item cost, I've no idea how they did it really. It's basic and meant for a classroom but can provide a nice organized place to put daily activity ideas, list the themes of the month, etc.

So keep your eye out right now for cheap school supplies that might be useful for your preschooler.

Some ideas include:

• glue stick
• crayons
• stickers
• paper
• markers
• pencils
• pipe cleaners
• puff balls
• manipulatives (anything small that can be counted, sorted, matched, or transferred)

Has anyone else found any good deals they'd like to share? Any $.05 crayons or anything?

Lesson Planning

Sorry to have left everyone hanging this past week, my son was sick so there was a lot of cuddling and general clinginess going on here :)


Anyway, I wanted to make sure everyone is on the same page here and give you an idea of where to begin with lesson planning for each of the months. First, for whoever has December, keep in mind that there are 5 weeks in that month and of course the Christmas season, so I'd say we only need 3 real weeks of lessons for that month, maybe with a few fun extra activities if you feel like it in case people's kids' get antsy Christmas Eve :)

For your month's theme, refer to the themes and fruits of the spirit lists on the blog. You'll need to plan for 1 nursery rhyme, 2 activities, and 2 books for each day, 3 days a week, for 4 weeks so that's a total of 12 nursery rhymes (these can be repeated several times), 24 activities, and 24 books (one easy book and one harder book for each day).

With that in mind, I'd like to let everyone see how I'm organizing my ideas. I am using the File Crate System. This system is wonderful and Dawn over at By Sun and Candlelight has been so great about explaining it in detail for her readers. So I have a plain folder for every week of the year. On the front of the folder I've stapled a piece of paper so I can jot down doctor's appointments, notes, to-do lists, and dinner plans. Inside the folder I put not only household items (bills to pay, grocery lists, etc.) but also the activities I plan to use for that week. So when I spot a neat activity that relates to September's theme (apples, trees, letters A-D, and beginning number sense) I print it, cut it out, or write down what it is, and put it in the folder in the correct week. I will also put my 3 daily lesson plans for each week inside that week's folder.


So if everyone could scrounge up just 4 file folders and write the dates of the weeks (Sunday-Saturday) in their assigned month, you can use those to collect ideas. Just anything you see over the next few weeks that sounds interesting or relates to the theme or phonics/math go ahead and stick it in. Soon I will make another post describing the lesson plan format (sounds complicated but really it is super easy and you'll like it I promise!). For now focus on collecting interesting ideas and sticking them into your 4 file folders for your month.

Also, so everyone knows, this is the current list I have of planners:

September--Manda (imagine.more)

October--Robin (rowbinemichelle), Mollie (blueflower100)

November--Rene (rene2cute)

December--Danielle (daniellega)

January--Tracy (tarceo)

February--Casey (waitinginSF)

March--Sue (suehaydon)

April--Kristi (ilovemycutiebabies)

May--MoMommy16

Fruits of the Spirit--Christine (crisby5470), (meghanjane'smommy), Becca (improvingmama)

Spanish--Rhianna (rhihug)

*If you have not sent me your e-mail address I can't add you to the blog authors yet so go ahead and send that to me on BBC or at my e-mail address imagine.more@yahoo.com whenever you have a chance.

Spanish additions to the lessons

I have been thinking of ideas for integrating Spanish into our curriculum. There are a couple routes we can go. Please let me know which ideas you'd most like to see integrated, because I think if we did all of them, it would be too much. But maybe not? Comment and let me know which would be best and how many things you think would be best.

1. Colors (a few per month, maybe 1-2?)
2. Days of the Week (just add it in to the calendar activities?)
3. Months (same as days, just add it in?)
4. Theme based vocab to mix in (e.g. for September: apple, tree, school)
5. Spanish activities (e.g. 1-2 activities to somewhat match the theme/fruit of the spirit each month)
6. Conversational type Spanish (1-2 phrases per month like "Please" "Thank you" "Good morning" etc.)

I don't want to overwhelm you or your kids, but I want to have options out there. What do you feel would be most fun/beneficial? I can incorporate all of it, but would it be too much? You can obviously do what works best for you, but I don't want to plan activities that seem like too much.

Sid the Science Kid

I found a fantastic resource for science-related activities geared towards preschoolers.

http://www.pbs.org/parents/sid/activitiesIndex.html

On the website you can print out a PDF file of each activity and watch a short (2-3 minute) video clip of the activity being done. I plan to make the Applesauce activity one of the September activities since the theme is apples and I think it can be fun for any kid, even the under-1 crowd can enjoy mashing apples and eating the applesauce.

What do you think? Those who will be helping to plan lessons, do you think these might be a good addition to your month's themes?