The Homestyle

Last week in our Preschool Homeschool, William and I studied the letter F and fire safety. I wanted to share with you what we’ve been doing, because I have had a lot of moms tell me that they’d love to do Preschool with their kids, but that they don’t have any phenomenal ideas. My hope is that this will give you a few ideas that are easy to undertake.

One of the best things I’ve learned in doing Preschool with William is that simple is actually WAY better. When we first started off, I wrote out six months worth of goals (lesson plans?) I had for what we would accomplish. After two days, I realized I had way overshot the mark. We were both exhausted and stressed out from trying to recreate “real” school. So, I dialed it way back, and things have been better ever since.

This is one example of a very typical theme for us. Keeping in mind my goals for William this year, here are the activities we did this week:

Monday

• Reviewed capital F using our Preschool Workbook

• Learned lowercase f using our Preschool Workbook

• Talked about the sound f makes, while using pictures like: flower, fire, fan, fireman, etc.

• Colored this picture of a firefigter

Tuesday

• Reviewed Ff by coloring and writing on this worksheet as well as reviewing the sound it makes

• Watched this YouTube video with a song about fire safety

• Talked about Stop! Drop! Roll! and practiced acting it out in the living room

Wednesday

• We didn’t do any school this day, because William went to his Dr. Suess book club!

Thursday

• We did a bunch of activities on the US Fire Administration for Kids website, and at the end William took a quiz and was able to print off a certificate for being a Junior Fire Marshall!

• Using this document from our local fire department, we talked about how to get out of our home FAST if there were ever a fire. Then we practiced several fire drills from various places in the house and designated our family’s “special meeting place” outside.

• We talked about how to call 911 if there was ever a real emergency. We practiced on some old, broken cell phones, and talked about the importance of only calling if there is an actual emergency.

Friday

• Our smoke alarms needed to be tested, and the one in the kids’ room needed to have the battery replaced, so Brian took the opportunity to let Will use some tools and take off the back of the smoke alarm. They looked at all the parts and talked about what makes it work. Then they replaced the battery together, replaced it in their room, and tested all the other alarms.

• We reviewed the letter Ff by writing with sidewalk chalk on the back porch.

• Will began memorizing 2 Timothy 1:6

This is why I remind you to fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you when I laid my hands on you.

Saturday

• The culmination of our Fire Safety week was (of course) a visit to our local fire department!

You can see that these activities were very basic, and almost completely free. Kids don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to learn. In fact, a lot of extras can sometimes cloud their ability to focus on the basics. We also didn’t spend huge chunks of time on this. We spent about 30-45 minutes each day in our school time.

By the end of the week, William could write some really great F’s!

He could tell you how to Stop! Drop! And roll! He could tell you how to call 911 and how to escape the home in an emergency.

Was there more we could have done? Of course! But I am pleased by the fact that my son accomplished the goals I had for him this week, and that he loved learning every bit of it!

A special thank you to the awesome guys at Poudre Fire Authority’s Station Five for spending Saturday morning with our kids, teaching them about what firefighters do and helping them be safe with fire. You guys are awesome, and we are so thankful for you!!