This week's lesson plan was really the School Supply List, intended to get us looking at what materials that we have to do our lessons with and what might we need to acquire.
And for me, it meant getting motivated to clean out the Library, which holds our computers (one a Christmas gift from my mom, the other on loan from Tyler's school), my filing cabinet (a freebie from a house down the street), and a bookshelf that my husband built in high school!
I haven't finished my shopping yet, but I did pick up a package of Construction Paper, a box of Washable kids' paint, and a package of washable markers. I had to go to the "R Us" store on Monday for a baby shower gift. I had an additional $10 off coupon that was sent to me with my new credit card, so I decided to use it on school supplies. The Crayola crayons, markers, and paints were Buy One, Get One Free, so I grabbed the paint and the markers, then rounded it out with construction paper. I paid about $5 total.
Jason asked me why I was buying this stuff, so I told him it was for Preschool. Up until then, Jason had not been too excited about Preschool (thanks to his older brother's influence), but when he saw the supplies he immediately started clamoring to go right home and immediately do Preschool. I kept telling him that it wasn't time yet, but he would not be dissuaded. I was thinking to myself "But I don't have anything planned!" Told you I can't fly by the seat of my pants!
I was able to put him off by serving lunch, reading books and putting him down for a nap.
On to the Library...
We moved into this house in May, which was the end of the school year, so most of my art supplies and school stuff just got "packed" into my filing cabinet and have sat there until now. When I needed something, I just opened cabinets and pushed stuff around until I found it. It was a mess, let me tell you.
Monday's home-prep time is slated as my day to prep Jason's school work. Since this week's assignment was to work on School Supplies, I spent the time in the Library.
First I cleaned off the top of the filing cabinet. Everything that didn't belong found it's home. Now it holds a three-drawer plastic bin filled with different kinds of paper, our computer disks box, and my lesson planning binder.
One of the things that had been taking up real estate on top of the cabinet was Tyler's work boxes. Those were moved to their homes on the bookshelf. These are for the four main subjects and are now filled with either subject's books.
Those folders on top will hold Tyler's daily assignments. The clipboards were my addition last year when I saw a need for something hard to write on while sitting at the computer. Love them!
Then I moved on to the inside of the filing cabinet. I started pulling items out and making piles. This is what my workspace looked like with only half of the first drawer unloaded.
I put all of the different writing/coloring utensils into separate containers. I sorted out all of the broken crayons and set them aside for now. Maybe I'll make broken crayon muffins sometime or something. Glue, scissors and tape went into a box and everything was put into the top drawer.
Jason woke up from his nap and the first thing out of his mouth was "I want to do Preschool". Um....I had just unearthed a Thomas the Tank Engine coloring book, so I asked if he wanted to color in it with the new markers. That received approval and kept him busy while I worked on drawers two and three.
Then he asked for something else, so I gave him a book that I picked up in the Dollar Spot at Target. It's called Loops and it has a picture on top, then the same picture on the bottom. But the picture on the bottom is made partially out of traceable loops, which works on fine motor skills for penmanship. So, I explained what to do and started him on the first page.
It was very interesting to check on him later and see that, rather than just tracing the line with a single stroke, Jason was coloring in the line. I realized that he has probably never been asked to do anything besides color, so he didn't know the concept of tracing the line. Yeah, assessment! Now I know what I need to work on!
He was so proud of his work, so I praised him and had him pick out a sticker for his page.
While he was doing his page, I finished up the filing cabinet. Items for preschool went into the second drawer, items for Tyler went into the third drawer, and the bottom drawer holds my paper collection, clear contact paper and a box of clear page protectors and tabbed dividers from a project long ago that I decided to keep.
When Jason was done with the Loops book, he asked for something else to do (oh, no! Is he going to breeze through my planned lessons this fast???)
I had just handled a box of colors and shapes flashcards, so I pulled them out real fast and asked Jason to sort them by color. He did really well. When he was done, we talked about the colors and the shapes. It was fun! And, thankfully, he was ready to be done with Preschool by then.
Plans for Tuesday and Wednesday were side-railed a bit when my youngest decided to take a flying leap off of my bed and hurt his left foot. Thankfully nothing was broken, but he spent those days confined to the lazy boy or being held. He still wanted to play, so we pulled a side table up close and he could sit on the edge of the chair and play. Here he is "cooking".
Wednesday night I finished going over my School Supplies list. I need to buy an Alphabet Wall Chart and some display foam, and a stapler.
I decided to print and laminate the Pledges signs, and I made my own Pledge to the Bible poster. It's very simple, but you can download it here if you would like. I printed them out on plain paper, cut them down, backed them with cardstock, and then laminated it with clear contact paper.
The clear contact paper stuff was awful and a laminating machine immediately went to the top of my wish list.
Today I am planning to go to the Dollar Tree and will pick up the rest of my supplies there.
How did your week go? Did you get your school supplies prepped?
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