Letter of the Week or Themes

[Sunchimes]

I've been debating this all summer and can't make up my mind. Time is running out. I do not offer a pre-school program. I only have one child old enough-she just turned 3. She is very smart, and I honestly think she would be learning if she lived in a cave. She knows her abc's and can recognize many letters, counts to 15 reliably and 20 if she focuses, knows shapes, up to octagon and hexagon, colors, including grey, gold, and silver. She can sing at least one verse of at least 25 songs, etc.

We've always done things informally, but Mom wants a more focused plan this year to get her ready for pre-K. So, if she is in the mood, we will work, if not, then we won't.

Letter of the week makes sense. I can download LotW lesson plans for very little, and it doesn't require a lot of supplies beyond printing. It doesn't seem to address things like rhyming words, etc.

Themes are great, but it's going to be hard to get supplies like farm animals, etc for this. I live in a very small town and there is no Dollar Tree or Michaels, etc. Besides, I don't have a lot of disposable income to be buying themed things.

What pros/cons have I missed and any suggestions? Thanks!

[VTMom]

Personally, I like themes. I think they're a lot of fun, and you can be really creative with them. You mentioned you're concerned about costs. You don't necessarily need to sink money into it. Frequently, our themes involve books from the library, songs, crafts, experiments, that kind of thing. For example, having the fall theme of apples could involve a million different crafts, a million books, songs, baking, etc. Last year, I purchased 6 different apples to taste test during snack time. Each child made their own observances in their journals and we voted for our favorite and made a bar graph with the results. The 2/3 year olds were working just as hard with their journals as the older kids!

Anyway, my point is, you can do all kinds of things without sinking a lot of money into it!

Are there any other providers in your area who may be willing to put together a kind of "theme box". You could rotate the boxes to help cut costs and keep things fresh. It's something my area has been talking about but we haven't quite made the step to implement it.

Good luck!

[JoseyJo]

We do a letter of the week and a monthly theme. I find most of my curriculum ideas on the internet. We do a letter each week, then numbers 0-9, then shapes each year. We have a lot of fun w/ it and it keeps everything interesting. We take kids 18 mo and up and everyone participates at some level.

Our theme this month is World Cultures, and we are learning about the Middle East and North Africa this week. We have eaten Middle Eastern food, made handprint camels on a sandpaper sand dune scene, learned how to say hello and good bye in Arabic, made Egyptian foil-tape bracelets, learned about and made passports- for these we used little pocket composition books. We looked at pictures on the internet of the places we "visited" (where our breakfast came from, or our art project, etc) and drew pictures on the page of the scenes we saw. The older children copied the names of the countries into their books, the younger ones decorated them with stickers. Then pretended I was a government agent and stamped the page w/ that day's date- everyone got a kick out of that each day!

For our preschool skills we spend a 1/2 hour each day doing a "learning activity". These are usually just games we make up. The favorite this week was Letter Number Hunt. We took turns getting a number from the Bingo ball roller (1-26) and counted on the alphabet poster to find out what letter that would be. Then we searched through our ABC beanbags and our letter tiles to find the letter and race back to our seats. The littlest one was the helper and brought the bingo ball to each person, everyone helped with the counting and we all cheered when the letter was found

[craftymissbeth]

I've looked into Letter of the Week and may use it in the future rather than spending lots of money up front for a boxed curriculum. That said, though, I don't understand wanting to prepare children for pre-k :confused:

[Starburst]

Pinterest should have lots of ideas for themes, most you can probably print. Also try http://www.inlieuofpreschool.com/ or http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/. they should have plenty of things you can print out or even make at home.

P.S. my condolences on not having a $1 store near by.

[MsLaura529]

We did themes this summer, and then I'm going to letter/shapes/numbers/colors for the "school year".

I agree that pinterest has SO many things you can find on there to help create your lessons.

[kitkat]

I did parts of letter of the week 2yrs ago. I pick and chose things I knew my kids would be interested in. I didn't do flash cards like the program does, but I did do vocabulary words on our learning poster and the kids really liked that. I found for myself that I did better with letter of the week than doing themes on my own. Doing my own themes was time consuming for me, but everyone is different. Good luck deciding!

[butterfly]

I've been debating this all summer and can't make up my mind. Time is running out. I do not offer a pre-school program. I only have one child old enough-she just turned 3. She is very smart, and I honestly think she would be learning if she lived in a cave. She knows her abc's and can recognize many letters, counts to 15 reliably and 20 if she focuses, knows shapes, up to octagon and hexagon, colors, including grey, gold, and silver. She can sing at least one verse of at least 25 songs, etc.

We've always done things informally, but Mom wants a more focused plan this year to get her ready for pre-K. So, if she is in the mood, we will work, if not, then we won't.

Letter of the week makes sense. I can download LotW lesson plans for very little, and it doesn't require a lot of supplies beyond printing. It doesn't seem to address things like rhyming words, etc.

Themes are great, but it's going to be hard to get supplies like farm animals, etc for this. I live in a very small town and there is no Dollar Tree or Michaels, etc. Besides, I don't have a lot of disposable income to be buying themed things.

What pros/cons have I missed and any suggestions? Thanks!

I love using a letter a week, but my kids are at the same point that your smart little one is. I don't feel that a letter a week is going to provide them enough to keep them stimulated and actually learning - unless you focus on a bunch of items that start with that letter. We are doing themes instead this year. I take this as far as I want to go with it - depending on the kids interest, as well as my own.

Some cheap suggestions... I would invest in a small dry erase board. You could use this to have her focus on writing. You could write out a word that you're studying and have her copy it on her own. She could practice numbers on it too - have her draw 4 circles then the numerial, etc...

I use a lot of recycled items. I save the milk jug caps and I have the kids sort those, count them, use them for patterns, color naming, can play memory games by putting small items or papers under them... You could write numbers or letters on the tops and have the kids put them in order or spell with them. Use them for crafts, put magnets on them....

I use the library a lot! I try to get there atleast once a week to get books and activities for the next week. Our library has some preschool curriculum/theme books. I get those when my ideas run dry.

Search old posts for curriculum themes, ideas, links, etc.

[MrsSteinel'sHouse]

Since I have a wide variety of ages and abilities here, I do it all My almost 4 yr old is interested in letters so I keep moving forward with her. Everyone enjoys a good letter craft. (this week yellow yarn glued on the letter Yy). But then I try to include something a little more challenging for the almost 4 yr old.
I enjoy a theme and generally have one going on. This week went from yellow day to yellow week because we were enjoying it so much. I also try to add in random books with activities to go with them.

Oh and I ordered Scholastic's Big World to use this year.

I do feel like I always over plan activities but if I don't use them on a specific day they still get used. Some days they are playing awesomely and then I leave them alone. Other days, such as rain or snow days, I need all the tricks i have in my bag!

I am busy working on this year right now. As soon as my plans are a little more firmed up I will share. I was excited yesterday to finish menus for the next month!!!

[Josiegirl]

I did letter of the week for awhile, creating all the activities, getting ideas from books I've collected and internet. I just came upon an old newsletter I had sent home, from our F week, which we did Farm.
Monday- Circle Time we sang Farmer in the Dell and Old McDonald. Kids picked animals and acted them out, we talked about farm animals and what their babies are called, discussed what we get from each of them. We talked about sheep, their wool and what we can make from it. We made sheep(using cotton balls), read The Big Red Barn.
Tuesday-Read The Cow That Went Oink, added black spots to our plain white cows to turn them into Holsteins. Then we rigged up a 'cow' using chairs, a broom, plastic gloves and pretended to milk the cow(wearing cowboy hats of course). Had a box filled with black and white items, also checked to see who was wearing black or white that day. Made butter using cream and lots of shaking(we eventually gave up and used the mixer. )
Wednesday- Sang If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands(must've started off with a grumpy day that day haha). Rounded up toy tractors and farm animals to paint with, then made baby chicks using our footprints. We played 'in the mud' using shaving cream and brown paint(again using tractors/farm animals).
Thursday-Song was The Cows on the Farm(sung to the Wheels on the Bus) and Here We Go Round The Big Red Barn. We made Indian Corn pictures using bubble wrap. We made Pumpkin Fluff Dip, serving with graham crackers for snack. Then one of our dcf's brought in their bunny for the day.
Friday-Made scarecrows using lots of shapes the dcks cut out.

That's just a sample of one week. It was really fun while I kept it up. I might get back into it. I remember(vaguely) doing Bear and Baby week for B. Made cinnamon bears, talked about(and pretended) hibernation, etc.
There is SOOO much you can do.

[Josiegirl]

A site I used to like is No Time For Flashcards. She posts lots of letter ideas.

[butterfly]

I did letter of the week for awhile, creating all the activities, getting ideas from books I've collected and internet. I just came upon an old newsletter I had sent home, from our F week, which we did Farm.
Monday- Circle Time we sang Farmer in the Dell and Old McDonald. Kids picked animals and acted them out, we talked about farm animals and what their babies are called, discussed what we get from each of them. We talked about sheep, their wool and what we can make from it. We made sheep(using cotton balls), read The Big Red Barn.
Tuesday-Read The Cow That Went Oink, added black spots to our plain white cows to turn them into Holsteins. Then we rigged up a 'cow' using chairs, a broom, plastic gloves and pretended to milk the cow(wearing cowboy hats of course). Had a box filled with black and white items, also checked to see who was wearing black or white that day. Made butter using cream and lots of shaking(we eventually gave up and used the mixer. )
Wednesday- Sang If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands(must've started off with a grumpy day that day haha). Rounded up toy tractors and farm animals to paint with, then made baby chicks using our footprints. We played 'in the mud' using shaving cream and brown paint(again using tractors/farm animals).
Thursday-Song was The Cows on the Farm(sung to the Wheels on the Bus) and Here We Go Round The Big Red Barn. We made Indian Corn pictures using bubble wrap. We made Pumpkin Fluff Dip, serving with graham crackers for snack. Then one of our dcf's brought in their bunny for the day.
Friday-Made scarecrows using lots of shapes the dcks cut out.

That's just a sample of one week. It was really fun while I kept it up. I might get back into it. I remember(vaguely) doing Bear and Baby week for B. Made cinnamon bears, talked about(and pretended) hibernation, etc.
There is SOOO much you can do.

lovethis