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Preschool Syllabus: Folk & Fairy Tales

Our theme for the month of February is folk and fairy tales. I figured it would be an easy theme to combine with Valentines since so many of these tales are about love. I'm also excited to spend a month reading fairy tales. Husbandie and I are huge fans of fantasy, what I consider to be a longer-length cousin of fairy tales. Many of our early dates involved discussing J. R. R. Tolkien,  George MacDonald, & J. K. Rowling and we hope to someday share our love for these authors with our children. We will actually will be reading a little of Rowling (The Tales of Beedle the Bard) and MacDonald this month.  

Additionally, we will be reading the classic Grimm and Anderson tales as well as tales from African and Asian cultures.

WRITING CENTER ADDITIONS - these items are added to the markers, crayons, and paper that is always available

dry erase monster handwriting practice cards,
cutting paint strips, stamps, glue, and jewels
skills practiced: fine motor, printing, cutting, creativity
*shape stamps are foam stickers on milk caps*

LEARNING "TRAYS" - I rotate these, setting out about four/five a day from which the boy's can choose.


sand paper letters and tracing in "magic dust"/colored sand
skills practiced: fine motor, printing, letter recognition

upper case lower case letter matching 
skills practiced: letter recognition
*hearts are plaster of paris mixed with red food coloring and poured
into a silicone heart mold

folk/fairy tale themed rhyming cards
skills practiced: phonetic awareness, comparing, sorting,
word recognition

*i have made the pdf available here

the storybook game - in this game players flip over one card
at a time and must use the picture to make up a story
skills practiced: word recognition, vocabulary,
expressing thought/ideas
social, memory, creativity 
*story example: once upon a time a prince set sail on boat - in search
of a ring for his princess - but all he found was socks
*borrowed from our local library 

fairy/folk tale finger puppets - the boys will use them to
review/retell tales. 

skills practiced: reading comprehension, expressing thought,
memory, vocabulary
*borrowed from our local library 

matching teddy bears - this activity can be done two ways:
the boys can either match the teddy bears to the ones on the
game board or play memory
skills practiced: comparing, memory, social 

sorting counting bears by size
skills practiced: comparing, sorting, vocab
 *we've also used these bears and our scale to play a "war"- inspired card
game, you can check it out here

sorting jewels by shape
skills practiced: shapes, comparing, sorting

a-b or a-b-c patterning with jewels
skills practiced: patterning, soring
*the tray will not contain both sets of jewels at the same time
(mini man is working a-b patterns and big buddy on a-b-c patterns)

knight counting with cloths pins
skills practiced: rational counting, number recognition, fine motor
* i have made the pdf available here

bead bars used for counting "teens" and skip-counting by 10's
skills practiced: rational counting, fine motor, numeral 
recognition, counting by 10
*when set out tray will only contain one bead bar activity at a time
* if interested in using bead bars you must check out this post by
living montessori now - very informative

pouring and measuring fairy dust/colored sand
skills practiced: fine motor, practical life, measurement,
fractions 

popsicle stick polygons - triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon,
octagon
skills practiced: shape recognition, spatial, fine motor

building a block castle with aid of step-by-step picture cards
skills practiced: following directions, spatial and shape awareness,
fine motor

scooping water beads
skills practiced: fine motor, sensorial

cloud dough with knights, dragon, and castle building tools
skills practiced: fine motor, sensorial, creativity
*i made this cloud dough using 7 cups of flour and 1 small (6.3 oz)
 bottle of dollar tree baby oil

*To see our fairy tale unit crafts as well as our book list click here.

P.S. Check out our homeschool page for more theme units and educational ideas. 

Comments

  1. Wow there are some really great and unique ideas here, I'm really inspired. I was trying to work it from your posts how old your son would be now (i assume these aren't for little lady!). I think most of these trays would be a stretch for goblin right now but I'm book marking this post for when he's a little bit older

    ReplyDelete
  2. My mom is a Montessori preschool teacher, so I used to help her set up the "jobs" for the kids. They do similar interactive activities; so cute!

    Have a great Tuesday :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. So many great ideas! Visiting from the Valentine's Blog Hop! thanks for linking up. I love that Bear activity. Did you make/print it or is it a matching game?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Stopping by from Show & Tell! So many awesome ideas - LOVE it!!! I really like the Fairy Dust pouring and the Story Telling Game. You've been pinned!!! New follower of your blog. :)

    ~Bekah @SonshineTotSchool.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. These are wonderful, as usual! My little boy would love the shape sorting gems (which we do have) and the popsicle stick shapes (we have colored popsicle sticks too!) trays. Pinning away :) I would love for you to come share these at WOTT.

    http://his4homeschooling.blogspot.com/2012/02/whats-on-tray-wednesday-6.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great ideas! I love how creative you are with your activity trays and developing trays to fit your themes. Thanks so much for linking up with Montessori Monday. I featured your post at the Living Montessori Now Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/LivingMontessoriNow

    ReplyDelete
  7. Great set of trays! Just pinned so many ideas!

    Lisa
    Criss-Cross Applesauce

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great ideas! We're doing fairy tales this term, too. I appreciate the knight number recognition printables - sure to be a big hit around here!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I see you , like me, have many trays to choose from. Sometimes I have more ideas than we do time. Thanks for the link to the bead bars. My Princess is working on teens and I was going to do something somewhat similar for her. I am heading over to read that post now. Just stopped by from WOTT linky. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thanks for sharing at WOTT! I love the little homemade hearts. That would be a fun project for next year. We haven't really done fairy tales yet, but you have so many great ideas for when we do!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Really great post, Thank you for sharing This knowledge.Excellently written article, if only all bloggers offered the same level of content as you, the internet would be a much better place. Please keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
  12. I featured your bear sorting post in a blog post on The Three Bears I have going up on Monday. I used the picture as well, I hope you don't mind. www.chestnutgroveacademy.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

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