Our Preschool Activity Jar

I don't have any exciting events or spiritual insights from our life to share this week. We did have a fun day Monday at Chatuchak Park. We met up with our friend Ryan, a missionary from Hong Kong who will be going on furlough soon. He came with English Emma and Thai Lynchee, so it was really an international playtime and picnic. The other notable event was at three o'clock this morning: cleaning up after a little boy got sick on his bed without running water, since the municipality decided to shut our water off for two-and-a-half days without advanced notice. I have never been so happy to see water running out of my faucet as I was this afternoon!

I didn't really want to write a whole blog post about either of these, so I decided to share a bit about what I have been doing with Simeon for preschool. With three older sisters vying for my attention, it is easy for me to not give him much attention. I'm not worried about him "falling behind," and he doesn't need any formal education at this time, so I prioritize math lessons with Meriel or grammar review with Hollis. But he does need some "Mommy-time," and he does want to learn.

At the beginning of the school year, I was using a schedule in which we used Bible stories to teach a letter a week. It had Bible stories in order with a letter that went with them, instead of being in alphabetical order. We started with "X" marks the spot for treasure; the treasuring being the Word of God. I tried to have multiple letter activities for each week, including a nursery rhyme and a coloring page. I realized that Simeon does not like to color, and he didn't seem to learn any letter after "x." His binder was full of letters he didn't recognize and worksheets he didn't want to do.

During Christmas vacation, I put together a preschool activity jar. I cut notecards into eighths and wrote an activity on each one. I put the forty tiny cards into a small drawstring pouch and placed that into a jar. A few activities are repeated twice (such as "read a book together") but most of them are unique. I created an equal number of letter and number cards, so we wouldn't end up being too heavy on math over language arts or vice versa. Each school day, Simeon pick two cards out of the bag. I find time somewhere during the school day to do those with him, often one in the morning and the second after lunch. After we do the task, the card goes in back in the jar but not into the bag. This way, we rotate through many games and exercises throughout the month.

So far, this had worked well for us.  Each day, Simeon is excited to choose the activities and is ready to learn with Mommy. It is easier to include a variety of games since I don't have to remember what we've done recently and what the options are. I don't have to plan or print anything. Simeon is learning in a fun way, and we get our one-on-one (with interruptions, of course) time. We have played a modified Master Mind, made play-doh letters, learned numbers with Winnie the Pooh matching cards, colored by number, matched lower case and upper case letters written on milk caps, found "f" and "F" in a "Life of Fred" math book, counted miniature vehicles on a road mat, and much more. Simeon and I are both looking forward to preschool in the weeks ahead.