Below are ideas that you can do at home in the event we would be closed due to sickness, weather, Holidays, etc. While we do not follow a formal curriculum per se, there are many things we do each week in Pre-K3 that you can continue to reinforce at home. I ask that you take time, in a fun manner, to touch on the following during the day:
Prayer-most important-we are learning to bless ourselves correctly and the prayers “Our Father”, “Hail Mary”, and “Glory Be”. We say our prayers before we eat “God is great, God is good. Let us thank Him for our food. By His hands, we are fed. Thank you God for daily bread. Amen”. At lunch we add “Munch, munch, munch, thank you Jesus for our lunch. Amen”. We also learned that we can pray to God like we are talking to a friend. Please continue to make prayer a part of daily life.
Colors-Please practice colors. There are many fun ways to do-”I spy…”, look for colors on a walk, around the house, on a drive, etc. You can also find color songs online.
Shapes-Please practice shapes. It does not have to be formal. Shapes are everywhere around us! Make it a game, google shape songs, etc.
Letters and Numbers- Again, you can do this informally by doing fun activities at home to begin letter and number recognition, counting, etc.
Name -Recognition of first name at first, followed by beginning to form the letters of our first names, being mindful of correct holding of crayon.
Read, Read, Read EVERY day!!!!
Fine Motor skills-playdough, floam, puzzles, string beads, lacing cards, etc.
Gross motor skills-get outside when you can-run, jump, climb, play ball, etc. If you are stuck inside, you can google some of our favorite dance/exercise songs.
Here are some of our favorite people for our dance/exercise/learning songs:
Koo Koo Kangaroo-”Pop Se Ko”, “Milkshake”, “Roller Coaster”, “Dinosaur Stomp”, “All I Eat Is Pizza” (A MUST on Fridays)
Jack Hartman-just google his name-many gross motor songs that are also educational
Learning Station-also many educational songs to dance to
Singing Walrus-”Days of Week”, “Months of Year”, counting, shapes, lessons, etc
Elf Learning-”Clean up Song”-TRUST ME, IT WORKS-clean up before song ends
Kiboomers
Brain Breaks
Blippi-many, many, many educational videos. We do his letter in the box in his alphabet video each week. He also does many videos of field trips that the children LOVE!
In addition, I found some websites online that a friend of my husband’s posted. She is a principal in upstate PA. They are listed below:
Notimeforflashcards.com -”everyday activities for 3 year olds” and others
MATR.ORG -math activities
Raz-Kids
Headsprout
Growingbookbybook.com
www.readin.ecg.org -into the book
PBS kids-activities for children as well as information on how to talk to your child about the Coronavirus
I hope that you find all of the above information helpful.
I am also listing a general idea of timing and activities that we do during our school day.
7:35-9:00- We arrive at school, get unpacked (yes, they can do it by themselves), get a book, and wait for prayers, Pledge of Allegiance, and school pledge/rules to come on the loudspeaker. When everyone is ready, we begin “table centers”, which is mainly our fine motor skill time. Play “Clean Up song” to transition.
***** As we advance through the school year, we will meet in the gym with the rest of the school for prayers, etc. then
make our way to the classroom.
9:00-9:30-Morning meeting/circle time-this is when the much anticipated FROG jumps out of the pond to see who does calendar, weather, weather frog, flag holder-and who gets to be line leader. The children know the year, month, and days of the week (we have a song for that- sung to “The Addams Family”). We count each day to find what date it is. We sing “What is the weather, the weather, the weather? What is the weather, the weather, today?”. “The Singing Walrus” has a “Days of The Week” and “Months of The Year” song, and “Have Fun Teaching” has “Seasons of The Year” song. Next we do our flag song, rotating songs between “God Bless America”, “This Land Is Your Land”, “Grand ‘Ol Flag”, “America the Beautiful”, and “Yankee Doodle”. Next, we sit back down and do our greeting to each other, either “Hit the Floor” or “Hello Song”. This is also the time that we discuss the schedule for our day, and introduce/talk about our color and shape. We read our Religion lesson story at this time too. We do our songs and fingerplays related to our theme. We end the morning meeting with a book related to our theme of the week.
9:30-9:50-Bathroom break, followed by movement songs on our Smartboard that are related to our themes/letter/number/shape/color-refer to GROSS MOTOR section above
9:50-10:10-snack with prayer first followed by independent book time
10:10-11:15-Center time-this is our gross motor play time-blocks, dollhouse, cars, kitchen, tool bench, etc. This is also the time that we do our art projects in small groups. You can get seasonal ideas for projects on pinterest or similar sites. There doesn’t need to be a finished product-finger paint with shaving cream, color with chalk, paint with watercolors, build with play-doh/floam/modelling clay. This is also when we would do small group instruction such as worksheets related to our letter, number, shape, or color, as well as our religion page to go with our lesson. Again, play the “Clean Up Song” to transition out of this time. A portion of this time is also when we go to our “Specials”-Music, Spanish, Computers, and Library!
11:00-11:30-Playground/schoolyard (or gym) . We try to get outside daily when the weather permits. It is so important to get fresh air and run, run, run!!!!
11:45-1:00-bathroom/prayers/lunch-we do not put anything on the Smartboard until lunch is mostly over. I believe conversation while eating is a very important skill to be learned. We look for similarities in each others’ lunch, talk about families, hobbies, favorite whatevers, etc. Only after everyone is almost finished do we watch something on the Smartboard. I usually do a read aloud story, songs, or a show related to our theme and depending on time.
1:00-2:45-bathroom again, get out rest mats, and HAPPY NAPPY with instrumental music (usually “Peaceful Moments of Worship”). Wake up, pack up, dismissal.
So, that is our day at a glance. Again, I just provided the schedule as a guideline to help give you ideas. Our little friends are creatures of habit and like order. They will call you out before you can blink if you deviate from their norm!!!! I hope some of these ideas are helpful to occupy the younger ones.