Raising Rockstars Preschool: Unit L

I have started a new preschool program with Naomi! It is called Rasing Rock Stars Preschool, and was developed by Carisa over at 1+1+1=1.  We haven't been doing it very long, but are so far thrilled with it. As much as I love planning for all the school things I do with Naomi, I wanted a program that I could use as a guide to cut down on SOME of my planning time. However, I needed something that still allowed us the time and flexibility to do our thematic units. This program is perfect for that! It is broken into weekly units that has a focus letter, sight word, number, shape, color, Bible verse, life application and song. It's simple to use, and doesn't take us much time. Naomi knows all her letters and sounds, but this is a fun way to keep up on them, tie in our Bible time, and promote consistency in our day. I'm not planning on sharing what we're doing with this program regularly on my blog, but I thought it would be fun for everyone to get a peek at some of the things we're doing every day. I have more fun sharing the activities we are doing from our thematic units, which are in addition to this program! This week the unit focused on the letter L, number 1, sight word "see", and Matthew 5:16 was our verse. The song for the week was "This Little Light of Mine", which went along perfectly.

This is our main learning board for the RRSP program. On the top left is all the printouts I need for the week. On the bottom left is our memory verse for the week. In the middle is life application for the memory verse. After going over the life application one time, Naomi likes to "teach" me the life application portion. :-) On the top, to the far right is our song. The bottom pockets are, from left to right, a prop for our song/memory verse, and then key cards to review for our number, letter and sight word. Once we are done with a unit we put the key cards in the pockets for easy access for review. The items on the board get switched out each week to go along with the new units, but stay in the same format, so it's very easy to use. Making this bulletin board took me back to my teaching days!!  I was going to mount (well have Jim mount!) the board on the wall, but couldn't decide on the perfect location. What we've ended up doing is not mounting it, and this has been perfect for us! I keep it in the office, but it's easy to move our whole program around the house with us, if we need to change locations for our school some mornings. Variety is the spice of life right!? 

Part of this program includes a PowerPoint show to go along with each unit. Naomi and Nathan both really like these! Here is a shot of the kids watching the show one morning as they were eating their breakfast. We had a busy schedule that particular day, so it was a good way to squeeze two things in at one time! Hooray for laptops!

Doing some practice lines in order to get ready to write L.

Finding L in our verse, and then tracing a large L.

Writing the L on our L vocabulary words.

Cutting out the vocabulary cards all by herself! I like that this program requires some type of cutting every day. It's great practice for Naomi and she's getting quite good at it!

Naomi reading the "see" sight word book. We read this together every day.

Writing her L's. She got very good at these!

Cutting out "L is for....." discussion cards. Naomi wrote the L on all of them, we talked about them, and then she cut them out.

Each week there is an activity where you cut out your memory verse, tape the stirps together, and then measure to see how long it is. Naomi was very impressed that it was taller than Nathan and her!!

Coloring her Bible verse. I don't think we'll do this next week as she's not really into coloring.

Color by number words! She didn't mind doing this, but again, I think we'll do play-doh, or something else so practice the sight word, other than coloring. I am proud of how good she's getting at it though! I have to say, I always hated coloring too so I can't blame her. lol There is also a craft that goes with the memory verse that we enjoy, but I didn't manage to get a picture of us doing it.

Depending on the week, and Naomi's interest level, we do some additional letter activities. I normally find these at Confessions of a Homeschooler's printables, or Homeschool Creation's printables.

L is for Ladybug! Naomi really enjoys these dot paints.

Cutting out pictures that begin with L and making a collage.

Each weekly unit has a focus color. Since Naomi has known her colors forever, I was just going to skip over this part of the program, until I had a brainwave! Naomi may know all her colors, but a certain boy who just turned one doesn't, and what a fun way to include him in our school time! The color for this unit was yellow, so all three of us went on a yellow hunt. This is what we came up with: a whole basket FULL of yellow things! Our hunt was so much fun and all of us had a blast! What I couldn't have predicted was how much the kids would actually play with this basket of mismatched yellow junk.... errr.... treasures. ;-) I am the queen of organization, so our toys are all nicely sorted by type and category. The kids play with all our toys a ton, but have never had a basket full of yellow stuffed animals, play food, balls from the ball house, Easter eggs, blocks, bath toys, baby toys, etc, etc. I couldn't believe what creative, out of the box, play this lead to! Is there such a thing as too organized!?!? Naaahhhh...... ;-) 

 Nathan really dug these color cards I printed off from Homeschool Creations, and laminated for him. I used a scrapbooking tool to round all the corners so he didn't poke himself. As you can see in the previous picture, we had fun matching the real objects to the pictures. It was fun because everything was yellow, but it opened the door to some great vocabulary development too.

Nathan's favorite items by far were the many ducks. This boy LOVES ducks! He can say duck and will quack on command!

This hat provided lots of fun too. Not only was it super cute when he would try and wear it, but it lent itself to several games. The favorite hat game was taking some of the smaller items in the basket, such as the eggs and blocks, and tossing them into the hat. Nathan though this was HILARIOUS!

Another favorite game (that I didn't get a picture of) was with a yellow stacking ring. I would hold the ring, and he had fun experimenting to see what yellow objects would fit through it, and drop to the ground. He thought it was funny when things would fall through the hole, and also when they just sat on top of the ring. By the end of the week he was holding the ring himself and dropping objects through it. What great fine motor development! I could go on and on, but needless to say, we had lot of fun with our yellow basket!

Nathan even did some yellow dot painting! He loves to color, draw, and paint. I have a feeling he might be very artistic!

So there you have it! An inside look at some of the things we do every week! As the weather warms up, and we spend more and more time outside, we will be doing less "paper" school, and more "life" school. I love all the activities we do, and so does Naomi, but we are also looking forward to warm days, playing in the yard, and splashing in our little pools. Check out what others are doing at 1+1+1=1 and Preschool Corner. Until next week!

Karla