Prepping for Preschool

We have been working hard this summer preparing the princess for preschool.  I think it is important to expose her to as many types of preschool activities that I can so that she can build some confidence.  She is definitely much more dramatic than our older son and tends to frustrate easily, so I thought giving her a "leg up" might be a good idea.

What are some good "preschool prep" activities?  First, we have spent a lot of time being as independent as possible in the bathroom.  Pulling down and up her own clothes, wiping, flushing, and washing her hands.  These are all things we have been working hard on over the past month.  I have found that teaching a girl to be independent in the bathroom is a little more time consuming than a boy! When she is successful, she is very proud of herself and proclaims her "big girl" status.

We have also spent a lot of time working on fine motor skills.  While many girls love to color for hours, she is more of the "hurry up and finish" type.  I pulled out my back-to-school folder from teaching and found a nice big school bus for the kids to color.  The little guy went to town!  With my older two, I put a little more emphasis on coloring within the lines.  Both were up to the challenge and ended up competing against each other.  

Working on their school bus

We also did some activities to practice her name.  I shared the sticker names with you before, which is great for name recognition and learning the letters in their name.  This time, though, I gave her a paper that I had written her name on in dots so that she could trace them.  She loved this activity and begged for me to give her more names to trace.

Working hard tracing her name

I thought it was important to expose her to glue and scissors as well.  We did several activities this summer using both glue sticks and bottled glue.  She really loved to participate in those activities, but did not really care for the stickiness on her hands!  I also let her explore with scissors by cutting play dough and scrap construction paper.  She had seen her brother use scissors many times before and was excited to be joining in on the fun.

We have been working on listening, following directions, and handling conflict as appropriately as a three-year-old can.  She gets a lot of practice with this being sandwiched between two brothers. We have ventured out to storytime several times this summer and have been working on sitting through the stories, sitting on her bottom with her legs crossed, and participating in the craft activities with as little help from me as possible.  

She is more than ready to head off to school.  Every day she asks if it's her turn to go, but we still have another week.  I love that she is so excited and I look forward to watching her grow throughout this next year.  It's finally her turn to be a big kid!