First Day of School

Our first day of our little Coop preschool was Monday.  We had a great day.  As I was teaching I didn't take any pictures during the day, but here are some pictures of the children's work.  And I'll walk you through their hour and a half morning.  This month we are themed 'oceans' and are learning about the oceans of the world.  Next month is Oceana, then North America in November...

So here is the morning.

First they start with tracing their name and the letter and number of the day.  Then they each have a workbook that they can work on until it is time to go to mats.
When they finish their 'fun pages' (I got this name from Laura), they get out their mats and we do some yoga poses.  Hopefully I'll get some pictures of this - they are so cute bending and twisting their little bodies all around.

Then we have music time where we introduce a new instrument each week.  This first day we just sang Baby Beluga together as we didn't quite have the music put together yet.

Then it is time for the children's 'work'.  There are 8 trays all with different activities that they can go and get off the shelf and work on quietly on their mat.  I'll show you a couple.  They are all montessori activities or montessori inspired.

Matching fish.

The jars and lids tray is simple, but fascinates the kids.  They take off all the lids and then put them back on the right jar.

The other activity uses paint samples.  The child lines up the little squares from most saturated to least saturated and can then check their work with the full paint strip.  We did sand and sea colors this time.

Counting with shells.  This is an activity Jonah and I have done with buttons several times.  I've never used the 'x's before, but this made the activity a little easier and more self explanatory.

Matching shells.  One of the other moms put this tray together and I love how it can be a simple matching or if the child can focus long enough they can attempt to orient all the shells in the same direction as the others.

After their 'work' they each folded their own mat and put it away.  They then got a felt square and came for circle time.  We started with a manners exercise - to begin with we are introducing ourselves to each other with first and last name.  Then we introduced the letter of the day - a - with sandpaper letters and pictures or objects that have the letter as a beginning, middle or end sound.   We did a couple montessori three point presentations (this is a game where you introduce three objects (we did one with sea creatures and one game with things that start with 'a') and then ask the children in turn to put one on top of another, beside another, or point to it.  Then we did a look and find page from one of Jonah's magazines and an experiment with tapping glasses with different levels of water and listening to tone.

Then we have snack time, where they poured their own water and I read a book while they ate.

Our last project of the day was doing a group art project.  I love putting a solid paint wash over crayon - it looks so fun.  This is great decor in the room for our ocean month.