This Week in Preschool: Max, age 47 months

Max will turn four next month and while we are not doing anything too formal, I love Little Acorn Learning and we have been using Eileen's monthly guides for a couple of years now.  It is a natural step to begin focusing these activities more around Max as he enters the preschool years.

He is also tagging along as Jillian and I move alphabetically through her third grade studies - though I am careful to focus on the weekly theme and not on teaching him letters (I don't feel that he is ready for this right now).

Weekly Themes: Bees and Apples

Our Morning Circle -
I keep circle very brief, to accommodate the attention spans of my youngest two children (currently 24 months and 47 months).  We spend about 15 minutes on this each morning, depending on the length of the story or short morning talk we have each day.

• song to call children to the circle The More We Get Together
• Two Little Black Birds finger play
• Bees fingerplay (Little Acorn Learning, May theme)
• short morning talk, with props (Little Acorn Learning, May theme)
• observe the weather, fill in our Weather Tree
• sing the Weather Song
• prayer for a peaceful day

The More We Get Together (our version)

The more we get together, together, together
The more we get together the happier we'll be
Because Max's friends are Jill's friends and Jill's friends are Max's friends
The more we get together the happier we'll be

Two Little Blackbirds

Two little blackbirds sitting on a wall,
    Hold out two fingers - index from each hand - in front of you
One named Peter.
    Raise up one finger
One named Paul.
     Raise up the other finger
Fly away, Peter.
move one finger behind your back
Fly away, Paul.
   move other finger behind your back
Come back, Peter.
     bring finger back to the front
Come back, Paul.
   bring finger back to the front

Two Little Blackbirds Sitting on a Wall.

Monday - Cooking/Baking: (recipe from inspired Nutmeg) Sesame Honey Fudge Candy

Tuesday - Painting: (Letters of Grace Aa)  Apple Print Tee
Tuesday was a rainy day, so we did this indoors.  It was a little bit of a challenge keeping things from getting too messy, but this was a fun project for all of us.

We did the red stamping on Tuesday, the added some green on Wednesday, and now we are letting the shirts dry for 72 hours - not easy to have all that patience when you're not quite four yet  ;-)

That is Max's shirt in the middle (yes, in my bathtub to dry) I've been giggling all week about how the girls both just stamped like crazy all over their shirts, but Max very methodically placed each stamp.  So true to their personalities!

One quick tip to pass along if you are going to do some apple stamping:  we used corn cob holders to create "handles" for our apples, which made them easier for little hands to stamp with.

Wednesday - Coloring: (Little Acorn Learning) Paper Mache Beehive
We made a paper mache beehive out of newspaper strips, glue, and a balloon.  After the glue dried (more patience required!) I spray painted it yellow and then when the paint had dried, we popped the balloon.  Ta da!  A beehive!

Thursday - Handwork: (Little Acorn Learning) felted bees
The sun actually came out on Thursday, so we went outside with our soapy water and wool roving and made some felted bees.

Our bees and our paper mache beehive are now hanging up in our Nature Corner

Friday - Practical Life Skills: caring for wooden toys with beeswax polish

All Week - Fine Motor Skills:

• building with legos
• stringing wooden beads on shoestrings

Hope you have a BEE-utiful weekend!