Schedule & Curriculum Update

I've decided to make a few tweaks to our current schedule and curriculum. The changes for our Schedule are pretty minor - just moving things around a bit. I've been researching and like Waldorf's philosophy of having a daily rhythm so our new schedule reflects that. The biggest change is while before we were more focused on time, now it’s about having a consistent flow to our days. For instance, before, if we got up late, we would skip/move around things in the schedule to play catch-up. Now we try to keep the daily pattern/flow intact regardless of time. This way we both know what to expect during the day. It’s only been a couple of weeks but it’s going really well…


Daily Rhythm:

• Mommy’s Early Morning Routine
• MunCee Wakes Up
• Breakfast
• Tot School Session 1
• Morning Nap
• Lunch
• Tot School Session 2
• Afternoon Nap
• Free-Play/Field Trip
• Outdoor Gym/Nature Walk
• Dinner
• Bath Time
• MunCee’s Bedtime
• Mommy’s Pre-Bedtime Routine

Weekly Rhythm:

• Monday:            Planning Day
• Tuesday:           Grocery Day
• Wednesday:     Laundry Day
• Thursday:          Cleaning Day
• Friday:                Fun & Frolic Day
• Saturday:           Anything Goes Day
• Sunday:             Family Day

The other changes are related to our Curriculum. As in my previous post, we use a combination of several books and blogs to come up with something that works for us. The major change is that instead of a subject per day, we will do all subjects each day and the same activities all week. There may be minor variations to the daily activities but the key idea is repetition. We’ll also reintroduce Circle Time and use our morning session mainly for Educational Media and free exploration of our Tot Trays. So, here’s the new format…

Tot School Session 1

Circle Time:

• Welcome, Calendar, Weather & Action Songs
• Yoga
• Godly Character Trait

Educational Media:

• From our selection of DVDs – Letter Factory, Preschool Power, Preschool Prep, Sparkabilities, Signing Time, Trebellina, Themes to Remember, Your Baby Can Read

Tot Trays:

• New trays set out each week for free exploration

Tot School Session 2

Activites:

• Practical Life
• Sensorial
• Language
• Math
• Culture

Library Time:

• Before Five In A Row (BFAIR)

I’m excited to see how this new approach works out! New posts will be labeled Tot School (instead of Teeny Tot School) to represent the updated curriculum.

Tot School Curriculum!

We're almost ready to begin Tot School. Our first session is scheduled to officially begin on April 12th but we're still awaiting some of our supplies from Oriental Trading so we'll see what happens.

I've finalized our curriculum which is a based on David Gettman's "Basic Montessori", "Tot Tray" ideas from 1+1+1=1 and the free "Brightly Beaming Toddler" curriculum from Letter Of The Week. We're also using "Before Five In A Row" for our reading program. I know it seems like a lot but I've also created a week-by-week schedule for the entire year so it's pretty simple to follow. I don't expect that we'll do everything as planned (since this will be based on MunCee's interests), but it will help keep ME organized; that and I'm also TOTALLY addicted to spreadsheets so this was actually a very fun project for me ;-)!

So, here's our basic curriculum with some of the things we hope to cover during months 13 thru 24. We will have two 1-hour sessions per day as follows:

Circle Time (~15 Minutes):

      Session 1 - Weather, Calendar, Learning Songs, Nursery Rhymes

      Session 2 - Action Songs, Finger Plays, Sign Language

Learning Activities (~30 Minutes): 

      Monday - Math

           (Numbers, Shapes, Sorting, Matching)

      Tuesday - Sensorial

           (Colors, Stacking, Mirror Mirror, Senses)

      Wednesday - Language

           (Letters, Writing, Reading (BFIAR), Opposites)

      Thursday - Practical Life

           (Self-Care, Tidying Up, Emptying/Filling, Pouring/Transferring)

      Friday - Cultural

           (Arts & Crafts, Music, Nature Study)

Exercise (~15 Minutes)

      Gross Motor - Walking, Climbing, Pushing, Jumping, Throwing

I'm currently preparing our learning activity trays for the first two weeks. My plan is to repeat the same activity in both sessions to reinforce the material; not sure if this will bore MunCee so we'll try it and make adjustments if she loses interest.

That's really it; for now anyway!