Sunday, September 21, 2008

Way to go Mother Goose!

I have been meaning to post all week about my first week of teaching our little home preschool group. But first let me explain. In the spring, I started to look into putting Jell in a preschool and was struck quite speechless at the ridiculous prices. I could hardly find a program under $100 a month! Ouch. Tad ridiculous if you ask me. I wasn't looking for day care, just a fun program that would help her learn but mostly just give her new experiences, and good interaction with other kids. My mom had done this home preschool thing, called Joy School, a hundred years ago when I was preschool age so I looked into it. There are these fantastic programs, such as Mother Goose Time, which we chose, that send you a full curriculum, with complete lesson plans, prepared visuals, pre-planned and prepared art projects, books, music, etc. for a crazy low price of like $12 a month. So, a number of women in the ward and I started our little Mother Goose Time preschool. There are five of us and we rotate teaching, so one week in five, we are in charge. We have just got started. This was our second week, and my first time. And what a fantastic program! I think it is so great and the girls are way too cute. They were hilarious their first day showing off their backpacks to each other, and pulling out all the contents to show the "teacher." I was pretty nervous about my first week, and sure, we still have some things to get used to (like getting myself and my girls ready for the day by 9:30, and the class used to not wandering off to play), things to learn (our understanding of the whole "s" is for star type of concept is not at all there yet), but we haven't had any ballet breakdowns (by the way, we dropped that class), and Jenelle talks about her school ALL the time. She even makes Meri play school, sitting on their little rugs and everything. So cute. Anyway, here are a few cute pictures from Tuesday. I wanted to take dozens and videotape too, but I kind of had my hands full. Hopefully next time!
Here's the girls sitting nicely on their rug squares (with Meri, the spy, sitting in):
The painting project was a hit! It's funny how different the girls are, even at such a young age. One girl was crazy meticulous, very slow and deliberate and so far, in every project is "Not done yet!" Another worked hard at using every color. Jenelle honestly didn't have much method, but seemed to do it for the joy of painting. And the other little girl stayed mostly in the lines and actually painted matching pairs of socks (there were socks drawn on part of the project). I love it
And getting slightly distracted by a friendly squirrel two feet away on the other side of the glass (to the right of Jell's piggies)
Anyways, we did tons of fun stuff like make homemade applesauce in my ancient victoria strainer, measure our long jumps, play bingo, pretend to be weathermen, match socks, find "s" things and "l" things, take potty breaks, eat snacks, learn hand motions to songs, practice cutting on a line, etc. We even are taking our first field trip this week to an apple orchard, which is pretty exciting. Hopefully, it continues to go great and I'll have more pics to add next time!

8 comments:

shaun said...

Way to go Mother Goose! I tried to tell Janelle (mine, not yours) about the program, but my information came from Cooper and by the time it got past me it was all jumbled. You should tell her about it sometime so we (by we I mean she) can do it someday.

Raina said...

Way to go!! It looks super fun. All those girls are too cute sitting on their squares. I'll be excited to see if the enthusiasm sticks with the kids and the "teachers". :D

Jen said...

What a darling group of girls. You are perfect for the job with your crazy creativeness! Sounds like a blast.

Kristen said...

What a great idea! You look like the oh-so-prepared teacher too :) I bet the girls will love this ,way to go for getting it started!!

Mandy said...

That looks like fun! We tried that a few years back with boys. Not fun.

Nadine said...

That is so inspiring to me! My mom did the same type of group when we were little, and I still remember the day we learned about pulleys and got to make our own. I guess it was simple machine day in preschool. I swear when I have kids, I am going to have read your archives to remember all the fun things that I see you do with your kids that I want to do with my own little family!

Emily said...

Sounds awesome, Alisha! Where can I sign up? Jason would love something like that! And, I agree with you...the preschool prices are incredible here, too...not to mention the waiting lists! I think I'd have to get Jason on a list now just so that he could get in next fall when he was three! Crazy! It's not prep school people!

Hannah said...

Wow, good for you (and good to know for the future). I like the idea of someone else making the lesson plans for me...it takes some of the stress off. It looks like it was a big success!