'A' is for Airplane

With the first of September looming ever nearer, I figure it is time for Jay and I to begin our curriculum for this year.  Hooray!

Several people have asked about our curriculum.  I looked into several different ones before deciding that I could make my own, and would like it better than anything I could buy.  There are so many great free resources for preschoolers on the Internet that it seemed pointless to buy anything!  So for anyone interested, I am going to post our weekly lesson plans on here.  :0) 

I will go through each day and tell you our theme and give you a bulleted list of the things we will do.  I will also do my very best to link to all the resources we use so that you can use them for your child if you choose to. 

I do feel very strongly that learning should be fun!!  So I never force Jay to do any of these things.  If he doesn't want to, we will take a day off or even a week if need be.  When he gets tired of one type of activity, I try to switch it up so that he gets to do something new.  Hopefully he will grow up with a love for learning!

This week we will cover:
The letter A and the sounds it makes
Airplanes
The color brown
The number 1
Triangles
Matching and Memory Skills


Monday: The Letter A
-color (or paint or chalk or whatever he feels like doing) a letter A coloring page and decorate it with airplane stickers
-while Jay is coloring we will watch this, this, and this
-glue our letter A coloring page to a brown sheet of construction paper and hang it on the wall

-make a set of letter A Memory cards (one card will have the letter A on it and the other will have a picture of an airplane on it)

-sing our ABC's
-use pipe cleaners to make a big A and a little A
-go fishing for letter A's (I put some of our refrigerator magnets in a bowl.   We use a Popsicle stick with a string tied to it with a paperclip for a "hook".  And Jay works to catch letter A's and pull them out of the bowl)

Tuesday:  A is for Airplane
-color an airplane coloring page and put letter A stickers on it
-while Jay is coloring we will watch this
-glue our coloring page to a piece of brown construction paper and hang it on the wall

-we will talk about the sound that the letter A makes in the word airplane
-we will go on a scavenger hunt in out house and yard to find more things that start with the letter A
-we will sing I'm a Little Airplane
-We will read Cars Trucks Planes and Trains

Wednesday:  Airplane Watching Day
-we will go to a park near the airport to have a picnic lunch and watch the planes fly over us
-we will look around the park for things that start with the letter A and for things that are brown
-we will build paper air planes and fly them

Thursday:  The Number 1
-color a number 1 coloring page
-while he is coloring we will watch this and this
-glue the coloring page to a piece of brown construction paper and hang it on the wall
-make a pair of Memory cards (one will have the number 1 on it, and the other will have 1 sticker on it)

-Jay will do a worksheet where he draws a line to connect several sets of matching objects (I picked up a preschool worksheet book at the Dollar Tree with all sorts of fun worksheets in it!)
-we will play Memory
-we will read a book about the number 1

Friday:  Triangles and the Color Brown
-color a triangle coloring page
-while Jay is coloring we will watch this and this
-glue the coloring page to a brown piece of construction paper and hang it on the wall
-make a set of triangle Memory cards (both cards will have triangles on them)

-we will play with pretzels and use them to make triangles
-we will play the memory game that we made throughout the week
-Jay will do a worksheet where he circles things that are triangular
-we will review the week by going on a mega scavenger hunt where we search for something that begins with the letter A, something brown, something there is only 1 of, and something triangular.  Jay will get a special treat at the end--I think we'll make cookies or something!  :0)

So there you have it!  Our lesson plan for our first week back at "school!"

And just in case you are wondering, I do not leave every coloring page up all the time.  I replace the ones we have up as we cover our next letter, number, shape, or theme.  Then I hole punch them and put them into three ring binders.  These binders become Jay's very own Letter, Number, and Shape books!