preschool

We Love Evan-Moor Pockets

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Last year we started using History Pockets by Evan-Moor as a way to add more interactive layers to our studies. We use Story of the World as a beginning history curriculum and we found History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations for grades 1-3 touched on all of the main areas of Story of the World. While Story of the World contains map work and activities to do in the activity book, we wanted to take our learning a step further and this was the perfect addition. As we went through the different ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and China, the kids made Words to Know vocabulary booklets, postcards from ancient civilizations, puppets, and more.

My learners don’t like assignments that are heavy on writingimagehandler-1 so this was a great way to learn while using their hands to cut, glue, color, and write small amounts about what they were learning. Best of all, they looked forward to the assignments.

This year, I added more pockets to our studies. My third grader took on a new history and geography curriculum and as a complement to his studies we added History Pockets: Native Americans and History Pockets: Life in Plymouth Colony. We are emphasizing Life In Plymouth Colony now and will be finished by mid-December.

The Native American Pockets we are staggering as we cover different regions of the United States. Our history and geography curriculum is broken up into regions – New England states, Southern states, Mid-Atlantic, Great Lakes, etc. The Native American pockets cover tribes by region so as we learn a new region, we add the tribe for that area.

Evan-Moor pockets don’t just focus on history, though. They also have theme pockets and literature pockets. Theme pockets are fun because each book covers a selection of topics. For example, the December Theme Pocket resource book covers December Celebrations, things to do during winter break, and animals that are associated with winter and the arctic.

imagehandlerWe used the Literature Pockets: Folktales & Fairy Tales last year as part of our preschool/kinder curriculum and my daughter loved it. This year, even though she isn’t doing the history and geography curriculum that my third grader is using, she makes the Plymouth Colony and Native American Pockets with us. They are easily adaptable for all ages, easy to make and require only a few supplies.While my kids are working on coloring, cutting or assembling their pockets, I generally find material to read to them about the topic they are working on.

If you’re looking for a fun way to learn, I highly recommend the Evan-Moor products. I didn’t get anything for free and there are no affiliate links here. This is just my honest opinion and I hope other families can benefit from these resources like we have. Also, any parent – not just a homeschool parent – can use these resources as a fun and educational activity to do with the kids. Great for weekend craft time or holiday breaks to keep the minds working.

What is your favorite educational resource?

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Sensory Fun

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rainbow rice

I’ve been planning on starting a few sensory bins for my preschooler and have a long list of favorites that we are going to try. The other night, we made rainbow rice. This was a fun activity for my little to help make, and she is really enjoying the finished product. We looked at a few different suggestions, but here is the technique we used.

We added 1 cup of white rice each to six Ziploc baggies. To each baggie we added a different color of Wilton Icing Colors. Then we added 3 to 4 squirts of hand sanitizer to each bag. We sealed the bags and shook and squished them until the colors were mixed through. We poured the rice into a glass pyrex dish and let it sit out overnight to dry. Some of my icing color was chunky so I removed the chunks that didn’t dissolve. The next day we had beautifully colored rice that was ready to dig in. We got a little bit of color on our hands, but not much. And now that it has dried completely, it doesn’t transfer to our hands at all.

rainbow rice

 

Last year we made “snow”. You can find that recipe here. Here are a few of the favorites from my list that we will be trying soon:

What are your favorite sensory bins or activities? We love trying suggestions from friends!

Learning to Read

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This year my 4-year-old is very excited about preschool. I have made an extra effort to ensure that she has her own special work to do for preschool. Sometimes it’s as simple as pattern block puzzles or color by numbers. Other times, she gets special projects like mixed-media art and using buttons to spell her name.

One of her favorite activities though, is learning to read. When my son was in kinder his teacher gave him a sight word ring and we use that to practice some of our words. Then she uses the tiles from All About Spelling to copy the words onto the board. But what she enjoys most is Teach Your Monster to Read.

Start to Read Pack

Teach Your Monster to Read is an online game that pairs up with the Start To Read pack from Usborne Books & More. The game is free and anyone can register for an account to play, but it works seamlessly with the Start To Read pack. The pack comes with 8 beginning readers, a parent guide, and an alphabet poster to track our letter-learning progress. The readers are dual readers, meaning that the page on the left is meant to be read by the parent and the page on the right is read by the child. The child pages focus on letter sounds and identifying letter combinations that were taught through activities in the parent guide and through practice on Teach Your Monster to Read.

teach your monster to read

My daughter could already identify most of the letters when we started the program, except for the tricky ones that look different in certain fonts, but this has been our first real practice in learning the phonemic sounds. This is new territory for me as my son learned to read without any real instruction. He told me he could read one day and that was that. Now at age 7, he reads well beyond his age. I don’t have an educators background so some teaching experiences seem scary, but the Start to Read pack has been a great guide. I don’t have to guess what to teach, it is laid out for me. I also purchased the Phonics Workbooks and these are fun ways to reinforce learning the letter sounds while using hands-on interactive activities.

phonics workbook 3     phonics workbook 4

I’ve heard of several other programs that I am interested in trying for reading, but for the time being, I am very happy with how this program is working for us. And when my daughter asks me if we can practice reading, it makes my heart smile.

What is your favorite reading program to use with your kids?

 

 

Our Book List: Reference Books We Love

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reference books

One of the things that we have an abundance of is reference books. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, and subject specific reference guides are some of our most used books. And the benefits extend beyond homeschool. Every student should have access to reference books that are easy to read and understand. Our reference books help us fully understand concepts and subjects we aren’t familiar with. This year I expect we’ll be using our reference books even more as we get into more difficult subjects. I’ve even got a list of books that I’ll be ordering to add to our collection. Here is the short list of the essential reference guides that every elementary student should have.

Illustrated Dictionary – 288 pages with over 1000 illustrations. Inside the Illustrated Dictionary you’ll find a user’s guide, parts of speech and their roles in forming sentences, hints and guidelines for writing and spelling, and a brief history of the English language.

Children’s Encyclopedia  – 320 pages with over 1,500 images. Packed full of information and includes hands on activities and experiments plus downloadable images, quizzes and activity pages. Features all the world maps and flags with facts and records and over 600 hand-picked internet links for additional exploration.

Encyclopedia of World History – 416 pages of history from prehistoric times to the 21st century. Includes a 12,000 year illustrated timeline, over 100 maps, and amazing facts and illustrations. We use this as our history book and will be developing several lessons from it over the course of the year. This book also includes Usborne Quicklinks and additional links to hand-picked websites featuring information and activities related to in-text topics.

The Science Encyclopedia – 448 pages of science with over 140 experiments, activities and observations. Brilliant images throughout the book with information on everything from atoms to energy to plant life. Quizzes for each section are available in the back of the book plus additional Quicklinks and internet resources. We love this book and are using it as our science book this year.

First Illustrated Math Dictionary – This book clearly explains math concepts, breaking them down into the most basic elements and helping you understand math step-by-step. This is for the early grades from pre-k to 3rd or 4th grade and uses fun illustrations and easy to understand terminology. If you have a student who has a hard time in math, this book is for you. If your student is 2nd grade or above, consider the next level up: Illustrated Elementary Math Dictionary. Just as fun and just as helpful but geared for 8 and up.

Our Book List: What We’re Using for Preschool

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preschool booklist

This year we are officially starting preschool with my daughter. While I won’t be forcing any work on her, I want to be prepared with preschool-level curriculum that she will be able to use and learn from. Last year was our first year of homeschool and she loved sitting at the table with us while we did first grade work and I spent a lot of time searching for things for her to do and modifying 1st grade work to fit her level. While my preschooler will spend a lot of time doing creative activities and playing with play doh or sand, this year we’ll be more prepared with other learning activities.

Reading:

Start To Read Pack – The Start to Read Pack introduces letter sounds and follows the synthetic phonics system. It comes with 8 beginning readers, an activity book that reinforces the letter sounds, and a colorful poster to help us identify and master our letters.

Very First Reading Set – This 15 book set includes level one readers that focus on shared reading – the parent reads one page and the child reads the next. The pages that children read helps them master word sounds and builds up reading confidence. The end of each book includes story review activities, sequencing, and phonics lessons. The set also comes with a parent guide and online resources for additional learning resources.

Start to Read Pack

Math:

First Illustrated Math Dictionary – We’ve got this on our shelf already but we’ll be using it a lot more this year. The math dictionary introduces basic math concepts from counting to shapes and so much more (great for pre-k through 2nd or 3rd grade as it covers fractions and symmetry and lots of other advanced topics). It includes activity ideas as well. We’ll focus on learning the concepts and use our math manipulatives kit (bear counters, rulers, pattern blocks, etc.) that we got for our math program last year. If you want to know more about how we use our manipulatives kit (because we use it all the time) read my math post here.

Wipe-Clean First Math – This wipe-clean activity book comes with its own dry erase marker so kids can practice their early math skills in a fun way. We have others from this series and they get used constantly around here!

first illustrated math dictionary   first math

Spanish:

My First Spanish Word Book – We’ll be using this book to match words with pictures as we begin our adventure in preschool Spanish. She’ll get additional practice from the books her brother and I use that are closer to his level.

My First Spanish Word Book

Writing:

For writing practice we’ll be doing a lot of pencil and paper, but we’ll also have these two wipe-clean books on hand: Get Ready for School abc & 123 and Ready for Writing.

get ready for school abc & 123   ready for writing

 

What will you be using with your preschooler this year?