skool daze for little J

We're going with a play and learn pre-school approach for little J this school year. He's 3.5 and is really eager to learn! I love the Montessori style of teaching, and hope to adapt alot of that in his learning activities this school year. In general, we do alot of learn by play with everyday activities. The general plan for this pre-school homeschool year is to incorporate some sit down time several times through the day for specific activities. Nothing rigid or scheduled - just fun and learning!! Lots of reading, music, art, outdoor activities, and library visits are in our future this school year.

We have a project in my dining room and hope to have it finished by next weekend - it will include removing half of the furniture in there, leaving only the dining table and chairs and adding a new book case system to house the supplies we'll be using for arts and crafts along with the books and music we'll incorporate with some of the creative play activities we hope to include with play and learn time.

I have found a couple of toddler groups locally for homeschoolers, and hope to connect with one close by for scheduled and routine play and learn gatherings either weekly or bi-weekly. We're talking about Romp n Roll for a gym class again, and we've also discussed The Little Gym which is close to big E's school. That all depends on pricing (some of those places are just crazy expensive!!), given our current economic situation at home...

We started today with A is for Airplane, and he had fun helping me fold and tape together handmade airplanes then decorate them with stickers. We made two, one big airplane and one little airplane. On the big airplane I wrote an "A" and on the small airplane I wrote an "a" and we just played and talked about the big airplane and the big A, v/s the small one and the tiny "a". Then we had some fun throwing them in the house!

I have to get better organized with activities, since I'm totally green at this... Below are a couple of pictures from today's activity.