My Little Preschooler is Back to School

Evan started school this past Monday, same as the girls. He really wants to be active, all the time. A lot of his day is spent running around or playing with his toys and with his sisters. But sometimes, especially if he sees me getting into one of the storage units in our school room, he'll say, "Mom, I need something to doooooo", or "Mommy, can I do a craft?". Busy, busy, busy. I actually didn't have anything in particular planned for his first day of school, but I knew of some things I could pull out if he requested something. I will have a "school bin" for him, like his sisters have, after we get back from the beach. It will have a pencil case (filled with the essential tools that every preschooler should have), and some workbooks I picked up at the dollar store that focus on letters, numbers, colors and shapes (although he knows his colors, shapes and some of his numbers and letters already). His bin will also have a book of stories, probably Fairy Tales, a small dry erase board and this workbook that I saw over on this blog (sorry, forgot the exact post, so I just linked to the main page). I think he'll like having his own bin, like his big sissies, but I really like to teach him the tot school way. I haven't signed up for tot school yet, but hope to once we get into a groove around here.

Once the girls were on a "break" from school, on Monday, they went off to play together. That's when I pulled out some stuff for Evan. I have these feltboard story characters that we made with our toddler/preschool activity bags last summer. I told the story of "The Gingerbread Man" to Evan using the feltboard characters. We did it a few times and he enjoyed being some of the characters. The repetition of the story helped hold his interest and made it easier for him to participate. We got silly with it and had a lot of fun.

We did some other activities, too. Like tracing stenciled shapes onto a dry erase board. I LOVE these boards. They have lines on one side and are blank on the other. Soooo many ways to use them! They were a buck at the dollar section of Target! He loved erasing them the best ;-)

And yesterday, I created this little game for him. It's cardstock, with marker lines dividing the sections. A shape and number are drawn in each box. I cut shapes out of self-adhesive foam. This activity was a hit! He loved sorting the shapes and sticking them in the right place. We counted, talked about colors and shapes AND, as an added bonus, he got the fine motor skill practice of peeling the paper off the back of the shapes. Surprisingly, that didn't frustrate him at all. Silly boy is hiding as he shows his project. ;-) Oh, and I made sure I copied the sheet I created, before he started, so I can bring this out on another day for him to do again.

Evan played with some of his wooden educational activities last night, as I was reorganizing the cabinet. Since I wasn't sitting there, guiding him, he decided to do his "own thing" and build tall towers. That's fine by me. He was occupied and happy.

TTFN

~Tina