I Am Fearfully And Wonderfully Made

I praise you Lord, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made~ Psalm 139:14

This month we have been learning All About Me.  How fitting that our science book this week {from Abeka} is discussing "Discovering Myself."  Within this unit, our children are learning about who they are in Christ.  We all are individuals.  We all are different.  Out of millions of boys and girls in this world, not one of us is the exact same.  God made us this way....a wonderful way.  He gave each of us talents and gifts to use for Him.  Not only did He create us, He cares for us and is concerned for us.  He is concerned when we are sick.  He is concerned about us when we are sad or happy.  He is concerned about us when we obey Him and when we disobey Him.

Within this study we examined our hands.  Our hands have bones that help us to do things.  Our hands have muscles and blood that help us to do things.  God intelligently formed our bodies so that we could actively serve him and others.  Sometimes we need to ask God to help our hands do the correct thing.  Not only our hands, but our feet, our eyes, our ears.  All these parts of our body were created by God, for God.  The world offers so many temptations and distractions that we can choose to do with our bodies that will not glorify God.  How important it is for us to teach our children early on that our bodies are not our own.  They were bought and are owned by our God who fearfully and wonderfully made us!

Cutting Skills

Using scissors and cutting paper is an important skill that preschoolers need to learn and have experience in before attending Kindergarten.  Cutting with scissors requires the child to learn the skill of hand separation.  This simply means that the child is able to use his or her thumb, index finger, and middle fingers separately from the pinkie and ring finger {Education 101}.  For preschoolers this is obviously very challenging because their hands are so cute and tiny...and if they are my children, chubby little hands!  You can start exposing your child to scissors as early as 3 years old!  But for most it is not a perfected skill until they are around the age of 6 { and in some cases earlier, depending on the child of course}.  I encourage parents...PARENTS...to not be overwhelmed by the first several exposures to cutting.  They will NOT be able to stay on a straight line and they WILL demolish the paper into tiny shreds.  Often times, they tear the paper due to frustration of not being able to open and close the scissors.  That is normal and to be expected.  Simply encourage them to use the scissors and to hold the paper with their opposite hand.  They will get it soon enough!

This last week we began using scissors in our house with Gabe.  He is 4 and loves cutting.  I quickly remembered how important it is to cover important guidelines with pre k students as we began this journey.

1.  Pick small scissors with a rounded tip.  The things these kids think to do with scissors is insane.  Be safe! Ha!

2.  Talk to your child about scissor safety.  You remember being taught not not run with scissors and to always hold the pointy side down.  What worked for you, will work for them!

3.  We cut PAPER!  Not hair, clothes, bedding, or your brothers hair, clothes or bedding.  AND TONGUES!  No putting scissors in the mouth!  Yes, I did have to say that this week.

4.  When finished they need to be encouraged to put the scissors back where they belong and to pick up all scraps.  This is especially important if you are home schooling with toddlers around, which I am...and let me tell you, it's an important rule!

Now, I can't get upset with Gabe for wanting to cut his brothers hair, because his brothers hair is long and he often times is called a girl.  And I myself have been told that I cut my hair when I was older than him I think!  So here is my suggesting for the kids that want to be barbers:  Have them color a paper of themselves {great for All About Me}.  Then let them give themselves a haircut on the paper!  It seemed to work for us!  Happy cutting!!

First Week of Preschool at Home! Letter Cc and All About Me

So last week was actually the first week of preschool in our home for Gabriel {aka Gabe/ Gabraham Lincoln/Danger/Gabby Pants} He's 4...fabulous 4!  And let me tell you, he LOVES preschool!  Everyday he asks me, "Can we do school please?"  I'm absolutely flattered and eating it up!  I can't let this kid down, so I'm trying my hardest to plan ahead.  I will post my lesson here on this blog and I hope that someone out there will find it helpful.  A little background on me:  I was a preschool teacher for several years at The Goddard School in Denver.  My philosophy aligns closely to theirs- I believe that children learn best through play up till the age of 6.  Who doesn't learn best when having a blast, am I right?!  I believe in focusing on the Whole Child, meaning: academic, social, creative child centered learning.  You won't see worksheets on my blog because I don't think that they are age appropriate for this age group.  Before a child can complete a ditto or worksheet, they need to master skills like holding pencils correctly and writing.  I believe in open-ended art.  This also means no worksheets, dittos or coloring books {now don't freak out...my kids have tons of coloring books and I even color with them!}  I'm talking about during academic time~ all art work in our preschool is a process.  It's open ended meaning the child can explore with an item to use with paint and create on an open canvass!  There are no lines and boundaries that the child needs to stay within.  I'm not going to blab on and on about this.  And so...week 1:

These are my pupils for preschool:  Gabriel and Oliver!  Oliver is only 1~ but he loves to join in and listen to books, play toys and sing songs just as much as any other preschool child.  I know that he is able to learn alongside his brother, so I tailor my plans to his level very easily!

All About Me Theme

I will always have a book of the day that either coincides with the letter of the week and/or the theme I am teaching.  This months theme is "All About Me."  That may sound selfish...but it's critical!  Our children need and are able to know details about themselves in case of emergency.  Knowing their full name, age, address and phone number are important.  Not only that, they simply need to know about themselves~ where did I come from, who am I?  How was I made and what is my purpose on this earth?  We all contribute to society and to our communities so how can I do that as a preschool age child?  We are believers in Jesus Christ in our home...so teaching my children their identity in Christ is a huge lesson in itself, and is the most important.  So first and foremost the verse of the month is:

I am fearfully and wonderfully made~ Psalms 139:14

Children at a very young age are able to memorize scripture.  They may not understand it, but memorizing it puts it into a store bank in their head.  One day when they are old enough to understand it, it will come back to them as needed.  Train a child up in the way he should go and he will not depart from it~ Proverbs 22:6.  My children are starting Awanas next month, so I will incorporate scripture and bible more later when that starts.

Letter C:

This weeks books for letter C:

A Chair for My Mother by Vera B Williams
Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss
Cool Cars by Tony Mitton
Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker
Caps for Sale by  Esphyr Slobodkina

Today we read Cool Cars by Tony Mitton and afterwards we explored with brown paint, construction paper and toy cars!  The boys loved it and made several masterpieces!

Books for All About Me

I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont

Eyes, Nose, Fingers, Toes by Judy Hindley

All By Myself by Aliki

I am also focusing on reading classic books to the boys so I got The Tales of Uncle Remus:  The Adventures of Brer Rabbit by Julius Lester
As far as numbers we are learning to recognize numbers 0-10.  My 4 year old is really struggling with this area so we are focusing on these numbers.  I bought LeapFrog movies about numbers for him to watch in the car when we run our errands~ it has seemed to help after just a few days.  I also have made teacher made games for him to practice matching the little plastic magnet numbers to the numbers on flash cards.  These are very simple things to do to encourage number learning.

More for Letter C!!!

Create a cat face for letter C

Target sells an ABC matching puzzle in the dollar section!