Monkey School

My sister keeps requesting that I do a blog post about some of my preschool ideas.  I have been hesitant to do this because of all the other AWESOME homeschooling type blogs out there.  Blogs with much more polished ideas and projects.  Don't get me wrong, I usually feel pretty positive about my activities (although I have had some major flops) but I don't go the extra mile to make the projects cute, and professional looking.  I just make them kid-functional.

Anyway, Miss M. started *real* preschool so I wanted to do something for Buddy.  He turned 2 in August and has spent his whole life being dragged around to Miss M.'s activities.  So, I invited 4 other moms to bring their 2 year olds to my house for an hour of "Monkey School" (I let Buddy pick the name) once a week.  And because I am a cheap-skate, I requested that they give me 5 dollars per month for supplies.  I don't have a formal curriculum, and I am not trying to teach them letters or numbers.  I just want them to get use to group activities and following directions in a group.  My basic goal is to do a story, a song, a gross motor activity, sensory experience and a project (either science or art). Here is the run down of our last lesson.

Opening Song:  If you Like Monkey School (to the tune of Happy and you know it).
If you like Monkey School, clap your hands (or say hi to so and so, stomp your feet etc.)
If you like Monkey School, clap your hands.
If you like Monkey School and you think it's really cool.
If you like Monkey School, clap your hands.

Book:  The Little Old Lady who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. ( I have props for the kids to hold up and do the actions at the appropriate time)

Gross Motor:  Pumpkin tells dance.

Sensory Bin:  Rice with orange and black spiders.  I put a black circle in the bottom of a pie tin and an orange circle in the bottom of another.  Then I wrapped spider webs around the tins and had the kids dig threw the rice to find spiders and then color sort them into the right web.

Project:  Water color surprise.
I drew Halloween pictures onto white paper with a white crayon and then had the kids water color over it to discover the surprise.

Song:  Oh Once I had a  pumpkin (to the tune of Have you ever seen a lassie). I premade pumpkins on a Popsicle stick and had face shapes cut out.  The kids glued faces on the pumpkins and then we sang the song (flipping the pumpkins around to show the face at the appropriate time).

Oh once I had a pumpkin, a pumpkin, a pumpkin
Oh once I had a with no face at all.
with no eyes and no nose and no mouth and no teeth.
oh once I had a pumpkin with no face at all.

So I made a jackolatern, jackolatern, jackolatern.
so i made a jackolatern with a big scary face.
with big eyes and a big nose and big mouth and sharp teeth.
so I made a jackolatern with a big scary face.

And that is it.  The kids had a good time.  although, it is still a little crazy because this is the first preschool type thing most of the kids have done.