Another Year, Another Co-op Preschool!

I didn't manage to keep up with posting about last years co-op, but we had a great year!  If you are wondering what co-op preschool is, I wrote a bit about it here.

This year my oldest is in public preschool, so I focused my effort on coordinating at group for my youngest.  Being pregnant and a bit more realistic about the time commitment I wanted to make, I didn't publicize the group as I have in years past.  Lots of people have approached me with interest in participating, so I recruited some help with coordinating the group and we were quickly able to assemble a group of kids.

The newest Ladera Learners!

 I hosted our first class.

We set up our schedule very similar to previous years: 1 class/week 1-1.5 hours long.  Snacks, circle time, several activities, closing circle.

The kids did fantastic!

These little guys are only 1.75-2.25 years old and they did great!

Happy Face Snacks

An Engaged Circle time Group!

We reviewed our circle time board and read "Baby Be Kind"Baby Be Kind and "I Can Do It."From Head to Toe Board Book  Pretty amazing for our first circle time experience for most of these guys!

 We colored placemats with our names on them and laminated them!

For our sensory/science activity, we played with warm and cold homemade playdough.  I loved exploring the texture and temperatures with my little guy.  We even mixed the "red" (okay okay, it's pink I was out of red dye) and blue together for color exploration!

Finally, we completed our first day interviews!

It was a really great class and I am so excited to watch these kids grow and change.  With my oldest off at school, I have an even great appreciation for the opportunity I had to be so involved in his first formal learning environment.

Co-op Preschool with Miss C, week one

Month 2 of Co op preschool is underway!

One of my favorite things about co op is exposing my son to different lessons, books, activities, and teaching styles as we move from host to host.

One of my other favorite things is that we divide the work, and it's nice to have a good chunk of my work out of the way!

This week, we moved to a new host, Miss C.

We started with some great free play activities.  Everything was new and exciting to Colin, which I think is why he feel asleep for nap so easily today!

Puzzles

Fishing Sensory Activity

Miss C switched up our circle time format and I was amazed at how long she engaged the kids.  She has a much calmer demeanor than I do and it seemed to work great!  We sang our welcome song, our name song, the itsy bitsy spider, where is thumbkin and a new song about a turtle.

Next it was time for books!  This is where I think Miss C really excelled.  Where there were some classes I barely managed to get through one book, she got through three of them!

I had never read Silly Sally before and it was a cute story.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is on our bookshelf.   For the longest time I couldn't stand the story and I can't remember exactly why.  The kids loved it today.

Our Art activity was to make a coconut tree for the letters.

We did snack after the activity, including alphabet graham crackers.

It was a great class and Colin is excited to go back next week, or as he told me after class "Let's just stay here until next class."

Co op Preschool: 1st Field trip We Play Loud!

The conclusion of our "All about me" month of Co-op preschool was a field trip to a local indoor playground, "We Play Loud!"

The staff was great about coordinating with me and even gave me the option to book a field trip through their site. Afer I considered needing to to pay in advance, coordinate students, parents and siblings, and plan a lesson compelling enough to convince the kids to stop playing for a bit it seemed easier to just meet instead

I like this venue.  It's on the expensive side, but it's immaculately clean, safe, and age appropriate for our kids.   

It's been a good month!  We learned about our our names, our families, our friends, and our bodies.  We practiced sitting and eating together, taking turns, listening during circle time, recognizing letters, picking up and holding pencils, writing our names, cutting, gluing, painting, threading and cooperating. We explored new materials and for some, new foods.  Being our first month, we had some adjustments and settling in, but over all I think it was really successful and I'm excited to see the unique perspective that each host brings to class! 

Co-op Preschool: My body and clothes

We had a fantastic class today!

Arrival Free Play:  Having a few activities seems to help focus the group and it certainly makes clean up much easier for us when we are hosting.  Today we had trucks, coloring and play dough.

Snack Time:

Circle Time:  We are working to extend our circle time as our kids have a slightly longer attention span.

Intro

Book: Have You Seen by New Blue Socks?  This was a cute story with a nice rhythm to it.  It's amazing to listen to the kids answer questions about the book or relate it to their lives.  Our preschoolers are growing up!

Next, we played a fun game of "I Spy" where we identified different articles of clothing our friends were wearing.

We played head shoulders knees and toes.

Then we had an opportunity to practice our public speaking!  We did a show and tell with a favorite article of clothing!  Mr. Griffin asked each child what color their item was and where they put it on their body.

Activity 1: Paper Dolls.  This was a fun activity and for some of our kids is was their first time using scissors!  We colored our dolls and then cut them out (with help).  Finally we glued their clothes onto them.

Activity 2: Felt Man This was a great activity for practicing taking turns and cooperation.  We also talked about where each body part went.  When we were done putting it up, we took it back down again.

Shaving Cream sensory activity and drawing.  This is an activity I remember from early grade school and I thought the kids would love it.  I wanted to do it last year, but I was still worried our kids would eat it (one of our siblings still tried!)  It was a fun way to explore a new material and our tables are very clean now!

Closing Circle Time.

We had a great class!  Our hosting is over for the year, but I'm excited to see what our friends have to share with us in the coming months.

Coop Preschool Week 3: My Friends!

This was our third of fifth week of hosting co-op for the year.  This weeks lesson was about Friends!

The most critical component to success seems to be parent involvement, so I decided to post my plans the day before so everyone would know what to expect at class.

In an effort to contain the chaos of having between 6 and 15 toddlers in our house, we decided to limit 'arrival' play options to coloring and blocks today.

We had a fairly small group, but both went well and the kids seemed to have fun.  I'm amazed at how much better they are getting at coloring!!

For snack, we had veggie sticks and cuties.  

For circle time we sang our name song again and then I read the book Friends by Helme Heine

It's a cute story about a mouse, a pig and a rooster who are friends.  I think our group is just getting old enough to start understanding stories, so after I read I asked the kids a few questions.  It was a smaller group, and I liked having the chance to speak to them individually.  I can't imagine being a teacher with a class of 30 or whatever insane number they have sometimes.  Ek!

Activity 1: I was really excited about our first activity.  I cut out pictures of each of our preschool friends along with their names.  The kids took turns sticking them on the board.  We talked about the persons and then added their name.  For our age group, I told them what the name was and they stuck it next to the friend.  It was really adorable.  I had planned to divide our class into two groups (since we had a small group, I didn't).  But I think it was a good plan.  This activity would have been nearly impossible with 9 kids.  Before class, I also had a lot of fun with Colin and the pictures.  "Lily has black hair, that's different than mine, but look Jacob has hair like mine!"  

Activity 2: Friendship paintings

Okay, so this actually was just painting.  My original plan was to have each child make a hand print and then ask a friend to make a hand print, but we haven't painted yet this year, so we just painted!  We love painting!

Activity 3: Friendship Bracelets.  

I was a little concerned if this would be a bit advanced, but everyone did great! We threaded beads onto lace to make friendship jewelry.  I love beading because you can do so much with it, hand/eye coordination, patterns, colors, concentration.  

Activity 4: Chalk Writing- I cancelled this activity.  It rained last night and it was just too muggy and wet to go back outside.

We only had 3 kids by closing circle, so it was a bit more casual.

Overall it was a great class!