The Peaceful Preschool - Letter A

 Zeke and I started using The Peaceful Preschool last week, and it was so much fun! He turned 3 the day after Thanksgiving. 

I love the simplicity of this preschool program. Everything is so practical (there is even a section each day for practical life skills) and engaging. Here are a few snippets of what Zeke did last week.

Our books of the week were "How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World" and "Ten Apples Up On Top." Our focus this week was, you can probably guess, apples! Instead of listing each day's activities, I'm going to list them by "subject."

 

PHONICS

We put red glitter glue on our letter A flashcards to make tactile flashcards. This is such a great idea, especially as I was considering buying a new set (I lost the set I had with my older boys).

He made letters in a salt tray. I dyed this salt with food coloring and put in in a Melissa and Doug tray.

Zeke made his letters with playdough. I showed him how to roll snakes, and he did this all on his own!

He also hunted for the letters in a cookie sheet full of pinto beans.

He stamped an apple with the letters.

COUNTING SKILLS

I printed out 5 green and 5 red apples and laminated them. We used these to sort by color and count. He is really good at counting objects to 5. I also printed out apples with the numbers 1-5 on them and taped them to Megablocks. He had to stack the apples in numeric order.

This isn't from The Peaceful Preschool, but I found these on Teachers Pay Teachers for free. We used the 0-5 puzzle cards. He did so good with counting the apples on the tree and matching them to the numbers. He needed a little help matching the numbers, but he did remember that "zero means none," which is a win for me.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Zeke transferred cinnamon sticks from a tray into the jar with tongs. This was really good for his fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and patience! 

He also used a glue stick to spread glue on his letters, then screwed the lids on and off of three spice jars and sprinkled spices on the letters (cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg).

LARGE MOTOR SKILLS

We tossed a balloon back and forth, and this was one of his favorite activities! No photo because we were busy having fun.

I also placed red and green "apples" (pom-poms) around the living room and gave him a basket to collect the apples.

PRACTICAL LIFE SKILLS

Zeke practiced using a measuring cup with a small plastic tub of oatmeal, a measuring cup, and a small bowl. This was fun, simple, not as messy as I thought, and kept him entertained for a good while!

ART SKILLS

I printed out a tree coloring page and Zeke used watercolors to paint it. Then we added red fingerprint apples to the tree.

He also glued torn paper scraps to an apple outline.

There were some activities listed that we didn't complete, like making an apple crisp that I knew none of my kids would eat. A few other things he did this week that weren't from The Peaceful Preschool were:

dot marker apple patterns

color the apples 

dot marker "a"

apple lacing

apple puzzles

I found this Apple Picking game on Teachers Pay Teachers for free, and Zeke really had fun with it. I had to call out a clue like, "Pick a green apple with a worm in it," and he had to find that apple and put it in the basket.

 

Preschool is such a fun age!