In my post on Occupying a Busy Preschooler, I mentioned how I was homeschooling Preschool for the first time EVER, not because I’ve never had a preschool-aged child, but because my 8th child really broke the mold when he entered this world, and he NEEDS to do preschool.
Because this blog is all about raising arrows, I wanted to share our preschool journey with all of you in the hopes of inspiring and giving you a real life glimpse into how a relaxed homeschooling mom of many is making this work.
Earlier this week, the weather cooled down significantly, so I decided to hold our End of Summer Picnic early. I had already planned to add in the Hot Air Balloon Preschool Kickoff activity from A Year of Playing Skillfully to our picnic. I went down to the local dollar store and got balloons for a dollar a piece (aired up right there in the store), brought them home and tied them to a laundry basket!
After enjoying our fried chicken, we gave the younger kids rides in the “hot air balloon” and then let them play with the basket and balloons!
Earlier in the day, we read Hot Air – the (mostly) true story of the first hot-air balloon ride –
so, the kids were pretty excited about this whole hot air balloon thing! And frankly, anything involving balloons is a crowd-pleaser around my house (mainly because I rarely allow them in the house due to their tendency to create crazy balloon wars that threaten to destroy my sanity!).
I think this face says it all…
All of the kids loved our homemade hot air balloon, simple as it was! I loved watching them play and play in the cool air until the sun faded into darkness – the perfect end to summer and beginning to our homeschool year!
You can learn more about Our Preschool Curriculum for this year HERE (there’s a post, podcast, and video, so take your pick!). AYOPS isn’t the only thing we are using, but it is a good part of it. If you are curious how I’m pulling several curricula together, you can read THIS POST.
I really try to keep things simple, as I hope you are able to see. Making activities simple keeps mama calm and makes the activity much more fun. Simple may not photograph as beautifully as elaborate, but it certainly makes for beautiful memories!
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