Preschool Wrap-Up

I just wanted to share a few more pictures from Jack's preschool co-op, during the months of January through April:

Money

We talked about money, looked at money, used money to do a couple of crafts, then played "store" in the living room.  I brought out a clerk's apron and put a toy cash register on the piano bench, then gave the boys a big basket of toys to "buy."  Oh, and some plastic bags.  They loved it, playing continuously for at least an hour.

Animals

This was another fun day.  Once I started trying to come up with animal activities, the ideas just flowed.  We read the story of Noah's ark, then "found" Little People Noah's animals, which were scattered all over the family room, and put them back in the ark.  They played animal scramble, tossed animal bean bags into a big bin, and put our big animal alphabet puzzle together.

Pirates

Oh, how the boys loved Pirate day.  Cat was home from school because it was Spring Break for her that week, and she just ate it all up too.  We read Roger, the Jolly Pirate and Pirates Don't Change Diapers.  Each child received a scarf to tie around his head and made a spyglass by covering a paper towel tube with drawn-on construction paper.  I tried to make eye patches for the boys, but I did it all wrong.  I used card stock; should have used black felt.  I tied them on with ribbon; should have used elastic thread.  Oh well.  They still liked them. The highlight was when the boys followed Cat's instructions to find the hidden treasure in the back yard based on my oh-so-artistic treasure map.  They were lucky that the booty was already divided up evenly.  Nobody had to call anyone a "scurvy nave," which one boy kept saying in an awesome pirate voice the whole time, or bust out a hook to get their fair share.  Each bag had a few jewels (big fat jelly beans) and pieces of eight (chocolate gold coins).  We still had some time left after the treasure hunt, so the kids started playing "hot and cold" by hiding the Little People treasure chest in the back yard.

End of the Year Party

When I taught the "Money" lesson back in January, I introduced Preschool Bucks, which were awarded to boys when they came to Preschool.  We kept the boys' bucks for them and then I put together a little store consisting of items we all contributed.  The boys used their bucks to buy things from the store during their end of the year party.  This was a huge hit, and Jack LOVED all of the fun little things he came home with from the store.  They also made things out of marshmallows and toothpicks (Jack's is an airplane, btw), played t-ball, and moms painted boys' hands to make handprint shirts.  We also watched a slideshow I made of pictures from preschool this year.

 

I was skeptical about how much I would like participating in a preschool co-op this year.  I never did anything like this with Cat, and I was sure that having to prepare several lessons over the course of the year would become a burden for me.  Boy, was I wrong.  It did take some time to get some of my lessons together, but once I had done it a few times I realized that I could simplify and the boys would still love it, and learn a few things.  I loved being a part of this with Jack, and feeling like I was focusing on him in some small way.  It was fun to see him "at school," to see him feel big and independent, and to watch him interact with his peers.  We (the moms) all loved having a group of boys to teach.  We made sure to focus on things we knew they would like - there was a day about trains, a day about dinosaurs, a day about farms, a day about sports, you get the idea.  It was great.  This experience really was a great blessing in my life.  I'm so thankful for it, and I'm thankful to the other moms who made it as great as it was.