Joy School

We started a co-op preschool group with 3 other boys in our ward who are Cadence's age. They all turn 4 sometime within this "school year". We switch off which mom teaches, do a welcome, pledge, weather, days of the week, have a short lesson, a snack, and then LOTS of playtime!
  The first group was at our house. We had fun singing songs about the weather, going on an "A" hunt around the house, and learning about our 5 senses! It ended up being a really short activity, which I was aiming for, especially with this being their first "preschool" day. For our lesson we did:
 - Sight: Played "I Spy" - one of Cade's favorite games.
 - Hearing: Everyone closed their eyes while one person made a sound (clap, run water, etc.). Then, they had to guess the sound. They ended up making all sorts of sounds of animal sounds (which was funny because you don't have to close your eyes to guess those...).
 - Touch: Touch different items under a towel to see how they felt (smooth, rough, wet, etc.) and tried to guess what they were.
 - Smell: Used smelly markers to draw a picture.
 - Taste: For snack time, we made silly faces out of salty popcorn, sweet banana slices w/ choc. chips, tart/bitter apples (green), and sour lemonade. After tasting each part, I had a tray of everything they could pick whatever they wanted from (except the choc. chips).

  I also sang to them the song "My Heavenly Father loves Me" and pointed to the senses it describes in the lyrics. We talked about how Heavenly Father has given us our senses to help us enjoy His beautiful creations.
 We had a really fun time and Cadence spent the next week playing "school" with me and pretending he was the teacher! He really loves to learn and while we already did most of these things on our own, it's fun for him to get together once a week with his friends.

This is our semi-permanent "calendar" in the kitchen. It worked for today, but I'm still dreaming of making our own to use with the boys every day, not just preschool days.