Superhero School

We kicked off our year of preschool at home a few weeks ago, so I thought I'd share a few of the details of our first 2 weeks!  Since Cooper isn't going anywhere this year, I decided I wanted to do some learning activities with him at home and have a more regular schedule.  I looked at a ton of different curriculums/resources/Pinterest ideas and decided on Hero Training from Steadfast Family which is a Christian based study focusing on character traits and then I'm supplementing some letter and number activities each week.

I had been talking up "Superhero School" for a couple of weeks leading up to our start date and Cooper was ready!  The first day I made him a sign and a new cape along with "superhero pancakes" (with a star shaped pancake and blueberries and strawberries to look like Captain America's shield)

He was so ready!  We've been doing our lessons each morning Monday-Friday while Miles takes his first nap of the day and it's a great way for us to connect together.

We start every day with this morning binder page from Gentle and Classical Preschool.  This curriculum was recommended to me by a friend who homeschools and they have their first year available for free.  I looked it over and decided it was more than we were ready to take on this semester, but we may look at doing it next year.  But I did love this morning binder page where Cooper practices his name, age, and how he's feeling.  

The first week of Hero Training is about being helpful.  So the first day Cooper's mission was to help with a chore and he helped me clean our bathrooms!  He loved spraying the cleaning spray and dumping out the small trash cans into the big trash.

Little brother got in on the superhero dress up too.

Letter tracing.  Each week I focus on a letter and a number with Cooper.  For the most part the letter is just the first letter of the character trait.  Each day we talk about the letter and what sound it makes and then 1 or 2 days a week I do an activity with it for tracing or finding the letter.  This day we traced the letter with our finger and then with stickers!  I found a bunch of free Superhero preschool printable activities for FREE on Pinterest and they have given us lots of additional things to practice. Then I just make up a few of my own too.  

A few of the sites I've pulled from:

http://www.3dinosaurs.com/printable/superhero-pack

https://moneysavingmom.com/free-super-hero-math-printable/

http://moreexcellentme.com/category/preschool/printable-packs/page/2/

https://thekindergartenconnection.com/super-hero-alphabet-play-dough-mats/

One of the hero missions the first week was to help make a snack or meal.  Cooper chose to help cook dinner and I gave him a choice between making spaghetti or making a sausage and veggie sheet pan.  He chose spaghetti because "spaghetti is my favorite" (which he says because of a Daniel Tiger episode where they eat spaghetti).  So that evening he helped me stir the sauce, pour in the spaghetti, butter and salt the garlic bread, and serve everything up.  That night he told me "Thank you so much for letting me help you cook dinner!"  I have always wanted to include him in cooking, but honestly it's so much easier to put on a TV show for him while I have time alone to cook.  But this was a good reminder of the value of making an effort to include him at least some of the time!

Each week when he completes his hero challenges (including memorizing a new Bible verse and doing his letter practice along with the other Hero Training activities) he gets a new badge for his cape!

Week 2 was about self-control.  His memory verse for the week is "A person without self-control is like a city with broken down walls" so one of the tasks was to build a city with walls.  We did this lesson on Labor Day so Daddy got to join in the fun too.

Playdo mats for our letters and numbers.

So far we're both having a good time and Cooper has done great memorizing 2 Bible verses!  Hopefully we'll keep up the momentum.