Frustrated/Confused

[Sunshine44]

I'm feeling a little confused or frustrated this week. All of my dck's are getting older and a few are preschool age (including my child) and I want to start some form of preschool routine with them (as much as I can). I just do not know where to start. I have been doing daycare for a few years now and I have just kept it playing and learning as we go (day to day stuff), but I want more for them. My own child needs to learn ABC's and other stuff so I'm trying to figure out a way to do this, have more structure (or routine with it). If that makes sense?

Not sure how to go from 'daycare' routine to 'preschool' routine. Do you have any resources you go to? Ideas? Suggestions? I'm just not sure how to break up the year with lessons and such.

[kitkat]

When my son was in 3 yr old preschool, the big skills that they did were cutting with scissors, recognizing first AND last name, letters (also intro to letter sounds), and some counting. The focus was really more on play still. Not sure about 4yr old preschool or 4K (they grade skipped him to Kdg after a few months of 4K). What I work on with preschool age is cutting, name recognition, counting, letters/letter sounds, and lots of reading. I try to break the week up with focusing on one skill each day. It's not really a preschool routine, just what our "project" is for the day. The rest of the day is left for play time. Our library has a set of letter sound books (can't remember the series) that are pretty good and the kids like them.

[cheerfuldom]

Have you looked into any preschool curriculum? I have bought a few great teacher books at our local Barnes and Nobel. I don't buy the curriculum for each child just the teacher resources to sort of put an order to what they learn and then I go from there. I think you need to first figure out what the goals are for the kids and you can create some lessons for them. Theme weeks are an easy way (shapes for one week, colors the next, etc) and you really don't need to devote a huge amount of time for this

[Sunshine44]

Thanks for the ideas. I may hit up the book store soon and see if I can find something that may help my thought process.