Thursday, October 4, 2012

3 YO Curriculum

Developing curriculum is probably my favorite thing ever, so I had fun doing this! I used ABCJesusLovesMe as the backbone, and if designing curricula is not your forte, everything is pretty much done for you; and best of all, it's free! (You just have to pay your printer with ink!) I of course had to "supplement", mostly with the themes/books of the week, and connecting those to the letter of the week. The Bible, songs, memorization, and how to teach the letters & numbers are all straight out of ABCJLM. We used the 2 yo curriculum last year, and the 3 yo this year. It's just 3 days a week and contains lots of review weeks.

This year, we are learning letters & numbers- recognition, tracing with finger, and then the sounds the letters make, and simple counting. This summer, we were outside of a store with a large sign on top one day, and Keaton said, "Mommy, I'm gonna learn all those letters!" pointing to the sign. At that point, I knew he was ready! (please read this great post about not pressuring preschool children!
I connect the letter with a theme I think he would be interested in and then find a good book to go along with that. (We read the same Bible story & book all week long.) If I can then connect it to the Bible story, I do, but if not, that's OK. (for example, R=rainbow goes with Noah's Ark).

For Bible, we are going through the major stories of the OT, some of the life of Jesus, and then ending with the wordless book. There is a verse & Bible song each week as well. I searched for crafts or activities to go with each Bible story, although ABCJLM had some really good ones already.
 
I make sure I have one gross motor activity to do each week as these are K's favorite! And the curriculum adds review activities, fine motor skills, and some other things like spatial concepts later in the year. At the beginning we review colors & shapes as well. And then I add in tot trays, some of which connect to the theme and some of which are random.

For the supplementing, I used mostly the following websites. These can be a bit overwhelming, but there are tons of great ideas! My advice: just pick one or 2 activities per week/theme instead of trying to do EVERYTHING that theme has to offer (unless your themes last a month!)
2 Teaching Mommies
No Time for Flashcards
Preschool Alphabet
1+1+1=1

Oh, and here's my Pinterest board with lots of ideas for each theme we are doing...

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