YEAR B Curriculum

in a nontraditional pre-K program.

I do a weekly lesson plan for Monday to Thursday with four categories: language, science, math, and a combined one, music/movement/art. So I have 16 different activities for each week. Ideally, I do the lesson plans and any necessary preparation over the weekend. Once I have everything ready, I just try to do them all at some point during the week. We don't have a particular "learning time," so I just introduce the activities into our play throughout the day. If my son isn't interested, then I give it up immediately and move on. If he really likes something, we might do it several times. If it takes two weeks to get through one lesson plan, that's fine. My goal is exposure to a wide variety of topics and materials, but not mastery of any one subject.

I call what we do "non-traditional" because we are not covering the alphabet, basic counting, shapes, or colors. And writing worksheets in general are strictly out (for now), but I do encourage more free-form fine motor activities, like painting and play dough.

Some of my son's recent favorites:
Language - homemade feeling book (1 photo and word on a page, both very large)
Science - pond diorama (source below, I put the cutouts on popsicle sticks and we use it as a stage for imaginary play, I assemble the diorama by myself ahead of time)
Math - making odd/even towers with legos (from Exploring Patterns below)
Music/Movement/Art - painting a coloring page and glitter & glue

My favorite resources for this month are from Scholastic (I got the PDFs on sale for $1)
Instant Habitat Dioramas
Lift and Look Science
20 Instant Math Learning Centers
Exploring Patterns in Math and Beyond

And my favorite links are:
BBC 1st Level
BrainPOP Jr.


Disclosure: I don't have any connection to, or profit from, any of these sites.