The Four Year Old Game Plan

I wanted to do something a bit more scheduled when K. turned 4, but I didn't want to have a whole school day. I decided that 30 minutes a day would be just right. I planned this 'school time' between two other activities so that I couldn't go past the 30 minute limit.

On Mondays we have Social Studies.

• We are learning the names and locations of the states.
• I put a large map of the US on a bulletin board.
• For 26 of the states we have OLD View Master reels. I used yarn to map the trip through these states. We look at the reel and then move our car to that state and add a picture of something we saw in the reel.
• For the last 24 states we will use books from the library to look at pictures about each state.
• We are learning about our world.
• First we learned about the farm. I used Down on the Farm from Teacher Book Bag.
• Now we are learning about our community. I am using Exploring My Neighborhood from Teacher Book Bag.

On Tuesdays we have Science.

• I found the book Science Experiences for the Early Childhood Years (7th edition) at a second hand store. There are 4 to 8 experiments for each topic, plus activities to integrate each topic into math, music, literature, etc.
• It depends on how interested K. is in a subject as to how much we do. I thought she would be very interested in Plants, but she wasn't, however, she was captivated with Water.

On Wednesdays we have Writing.

• I discovered Peggy Kaye's Games for Writing at the library. Part One of the book has eleven activities that teach pencil control and telling well-organized tales. This is the only part of the book we are using until K.'s pencil control is ready for writing letters.

On Thursdays we have Math.

• The math section in Down on the Farm is a country store where K. uses pennies to purchase groceries. She picks her groceries, puts out the number of pennies for each, then counts all the pennies.
• I found more activities at Bringing Learning to Life.
• Part One of Games for Math by Peggy Kaye has games for counting, size, shape, patterns, and more.

On Fridays we have Reading.

• We practiced our phonics. K. enjoyed learning a phonics song. You can find lots of them on You Tube.
• Using clip art I made some worksheets for matching pictures to their beginning letter. (If you'd like these you can e-mail me.)
• Now we are reading three letter words. I made rhyming word lists. A page for each short vowel. As K. sounds out each word we use it in a sentence or talk about what it is because reading isn't just about sounding out groups of letters, but understanding the meaning of those groups of letters.