Homeschool World Forum

Here are some of our favorite preschool activities.

Other than that we do some simple workbooks, read aloud, and I try to involve the children in my day. They help me cook, clean, fold laundry, etc. I like to get them outdoors, so we may take walks or roller blade. If it's cold out we will go play basketball or soccer at a local gym.

We do alot of art projects. I used to freak out about the mess, but now I think they are fun. Leave lots of interesting materials around. Setting up centers like you said you did in your other post is a great idea.

I also have a one year old so that keeps the older 2 busy. Having a baby around keeps everyone occupied, lol!

We pretty much have a weekly schedule,

Monday & Tuesday mornings are library time(story time is done by the librarian on both days)

Wed and Thur we do simple work sheets that teach tracing and etc then free/simple structured play for the rest of the day, Thursday afternoon is 45mins of "gymnastics" at a center with other girls her age.

Friday we go to Grandma's which usually involves something REALLY cool she gets to do with her

You can involve the preschooler in different extracurricular activities like painting, pottery, gardening and also could help you cook.

thank you so much for sharing the site. We do a weekly preschool class with friends and I am always looking for fun tings to do.

Mindy

Hi, kinda new here
I'm a single mom of a 3.5 yr old and am aware of the fact that technology has changed a lot in our society, and that it is becoming increasingly important to get training/education in subjects related to computers.

As a result, I've exposed her to computers/Ipads at an early age. On long road trips or sometimes even at home when I need a moment to do some laudry or dishes, I give her the computer and she plays educational games

I haven't focused all that much on her handwriting or tracing since I assume that most of her school papers while growing up and eventually her career will involve working off a computer keyboard?

I'm also not focusing too much on arts and crafts. Is this wrong?
I figure she will get some of it here and there, but that I wont waste my time with a lot of those types of things.

thoughts?

Hi! My youngest is 5.5 and in regard to the things you mentioned, this is what I did with her.

She was exposed to computers all her life and iPad the past year or two. I try to limit how much she uses them as toys, though, and encourage her to play with 3-D objects IRL, be outdoors in nature, be in touch with other human beings of all ages and sizes, etc.

I started teaching her the very beginnings of handwriting when she was almost 4. She can now write the whole alphabet and numerals 0-9, but this is a fairly recent development--since her 5th b-day. I consider it very important that children learn to write beautifully in both manuscript printing and cursive before I allow them to start typing their school assignments. That's my personal, old-fashioned opinion.

I started helping her do a craft project once every week or two about the same time I started teaching her to print letters. (We worked on letters for 5 minutes a day or so 1 or 2 days a week.)

I don't think arts and crafts are a waste of time, but I don't think they need to be pushed as much as I've seen some people push them. Children need to be children. They need to play. Play is the work of childhood.

I did hear an impressive lecture one time that said never to teach a child to use scissors until after handedness is well established--at whatever age that happens.

HTH,
Ramona