Preschool Prep

In trying to establish some order to our days (and not leave R in the complete care of the tv), I have started making lists of the things I would like R to do. This also ties in with me trying to prepare her for Preschool. She has a rebellious streak that prevents her from following directions. I hope the more I give her these projects with the expectation that they will be completed, the less resistant she will become. And not to mention the fact that I would like to be able to teach her something! She'll pick up random things I say, but when I make an effort to specifically show her something, she acts like I'm trying to feed her poison. With that in mind, I've started singing my cell phone number to myself. Since I'm not directly trying to teach it to her, she just might learn it!

Each day, there are four items on her list: do a page out of a Preschool workbook, have an outing to Storytime or a grocery run, practice a life skill (more below), and the last is a special playtime activity like going outside or doing a game. When we mark off all items on the list, she gets a sticker.


The life skills are where I have fun. We started on Tuesday with tong transfers, a task I've seen on Montessori blogs. She is using big tongs to move cotton balls into a bowl. I need to find smaller tongs for her to use. Right now she has to use both hands to manipulate the huge thing.


On Wednesday, she practiced using kid scissors for the first time. The goal was to cut confetti out of crepe paper. At first she utilized both hands to manipulate the scissors, but the next time she tried she was able to use only one hand.


On Thursday, she baked! I had seen a recipe for a single-serving cookie that I thought would be fun to try. Unfortunately, the recipe was wrong; it called for one egg yolk when really it should have been an egg white. So the cookie didn't turn out that great, but Rosemary still attempted to eat it. [Update: I tried the recipe using an egg white and it still came out weird. The cookie was like a dense sponge; very odd.   I hereby put the single-serving cookie idea to rest. Next time we bake cookies, it will be a whole tray.]




Today, Friday, she painted with watercolors. The paints were old and didn't cooperate, so it was more like water play. The waterlogged, still white watercolor paper was promptly recycled without getting its picture taken. I did take this picture, though. This is the back of her Letter Jj worksheet. The front showed several items that started with the letter j. She was supposed to color all of the items and then circle whichever one she liked the best. Getting her to complete the worksheet was a challenge, but when it was finally done, I let her turn the paper over to free color. Look what she did! She was super excited about the "footprints" she made, but I was even more excited about the cat she drew! This is her first time drawing a face!

If you're a little lost, follow this link back to flickr and you will see a note placed directly over the spot that is the cat. 


So that was our week. Some days were pre-planned, others we figured out as we went along. Some days were executed better than others. I hope to come up with more fun things to do next week. I sense a trip to the craft store is in order!