Pre-school for a Princess

So, I bet you've been wondering what Eden (41 months) has been up to during our busy days at The Ark Academy. (By the way, I am going to follow up this with another post of preschool resources.)


This is our play room. The bulk of Eden's time is spent choosing from activities found in the open shelves here. Along the right side of the room, just out of view are the toys. There is a round plastic Ikea table with chairs just out of view on the left, and a piano beside it. The table in the middle is a pottery barn train table. It is great for working on puzzles, or setting up trains. In this shot Josh has his Rokenbok city set up. This is the map, though i got it 60% off at Hearthsong a couple of years ago.

Anyway.

Since January, I have been using Hubbard's Cupboard as curriculum inspiration, though we are following it loosely. Eden loves it.



Here she is sorting animals that fly and animals that swim. You can find the free download and others like it here.














On the open shelves in the play room are art and craft supplies and I rotate toys and activity trays. There are a few described here and below are a couple more.


Spooning. On this tray are mung beans (because i love the pretty green colour) with a ladle and two toy metal pots from Ikea and an espresso spoon.



Beading. Coloured beads in a screw top container and pipe cleaners. Everything here is from the dollar store. Even the basket.

Playdough. Endlessly fun. This set is Melissa & Doug and was a Christmas gift.

As visitors to our home know, the only magnetic surface we have is our front door. Accordingly, Eden sits here on her work mat and sorts magnetic butterflies from the dollar store. They can be sorted according to size or colour. There is also a leap frog alphabet toy and the leap frog fridge farm in this shot, though I just rotated those out because she has lost interest in them.


Here she is making soup. The Ikea pots are out again, this time with beans, dry pastas, and a dry pea soup mix. She could do this for hours.



Of course, in any self respecting homeschool there is also plenty of real baking!!















This terrific puzzle is a quantity and number association activity.



And below is another favourite: Sink & Float.


Household objects, toys and trinkets are arranged on a work mat. You need three tupperware containers. One contains water. One at a time objects are placed in the water to determine whether or not they are bouyant. If they sink, they go in the "sink" container. If they float they go in the "float" container. There are marbles, a rubber duck, a plastic boat, balls, rocks, coins, keys, corks, shells....you name it. This activity is a science and classification exercise.


Tracing. A new great love of hers. This is a wipe off book, but it is getting old. I found a great consumable tracing book at Costco, but the kid plowed through it too quickly! Happily, I stumbled across a great site with tons of pre-handwriting printables . I can't wait to make her a little workbook from the printouts. (Stay tuned for the link.)


Of course she is also learning alot
by watching Josh and using his materials.
Here she is counting beads from his bead decanomial box.

Last but not least, here is shot of Eden doing what she loves most....playing Princess!!