Who Needs Preschool?

I first started homeschooling when Ian and Shane were preschool aged.  Back then, I was part of a club for stay-at-home moms and we all knew which preschool was the best and when you had to place your child on the waiting list to get in.  The list filled up within hours and I had to write a check as a deposit for the boys' spots.  Ian was in the four year old class, that met three times a week in the afternoon.  Shane was in the three year old class, that met twice a week in the mornings.  The total cost for both boys to attend preschool was $150 per month (I think. Maybe it was $150 each!).  I just felt sick to my stomach knowing that I would have to pack the three kids up in the van and drive across town ten times a week.  And I would pay someone $150 a month to teach them...colors, shapes, and maybe letters and numbers.  So I used one month's tuition and bought my own stuff...

One person's shot glass is another person's lentil scooper!

Preschool is my favorite age to teach.  I could teach preschool forever!  Come to think of it, I've been teaching preschool since I first began homeschooling...

Right now I have a bin filled with lentils on my table.  I've had Lentil Science since Ian was kindergarten aged, but I never officially set it up due to the never-ending supply of messy two year olds in my house.  Well, enough is enough!  I'll never get Ian's kindergarten days back and lentils can be swept up and replaced for only $12.50 for a 25 pound bag!  That's like one day of preschool! True to my children's natures, all I have to do is set something up and set them loose.  I was pleasantly surprised with what they came up with.  The gold-colored shot glasses were purchased at our local thrift store for $1.  I removed the gold chain they hung from (who wears a shot glass as a necklace?) and added the shamrock stickers.  The gold buttons were $.50 for six and make perfect gold coins.  My idea was to dig for the gold treasure using the scoopers.  Fiona added the counting bears and created her own one-to-one correspondence.

At some point I will pull out the other activities that go along with the lentil science, but for now I'm going to try to include a little more St. Patrick's Day themed activities for this week.  The great thing about getting activities set up for Daniel is that the older girls enjoy them as well.  And I don't feel like they missed out on preschool activities because I was so busy including them in Ian and Shane's school work.

I've started checking out some preschool blogs put together by moms who send their kids off to school everyday and have plenty of money and time and a fancy camera for nice photographs.  They have AWESOME activities for their Saturday Science.  I can only make a cheap imitation, but my kids enjoy what I've come up with (so far) and that's better than a super-fancy blog and public school and lotsa money.  Today I had Daniel search for those gold buttons in shaving cream.  Wow, that was a sensory experience!  We could only find one button!

Some ideas I came up with for this week are: paint chip (from the hardware store) memory with different shades of green, a green item scavenger hunt, a shamrock sticker puzzle, green playdoh with gold beads stuck in it (I don't get the stuff-stuck-in-playdoh thing, but I guess there is no harm in trying it out), and green finger jello!