The Last of Preschool Co-op, 2012-2013

I regret to inform my readers that yesterday’s post was the last of preschool co-op for the school year 2012-2013.  Yes, unfortunately we are ending preschool co-op eightweeks earlier than originally intended.

After a thorough discussion, it has been decided by the participating mothers that we, as a group, are unable to continue.  (This is one of the benefits of homeschooling and/or joining a preschool co-op…you have control over the school year).  Ending early is due to various reasons, some including, but not limited to the following:

• 2 participating mothers have returned to work full time
• 1 participating mother has returned to working part time
• 3/6 children are feeling burnt out and are less receptive to preschool (spring is in the air!)
• 2/6 children will be out of town during the next month for extended family vacations
• 1 mother has been called to jury duty for the next month

These are all unexpected obstacles and while each participating mother wanted Preschool Co-op to continue as we originally designed it, we just could not work out a way for that to happen.  I will, however, continue to share educational and research based toddler and preschool activities and articles on a regular basis.  Following is a list of the last few weeks of phonemic awareness and phonics activities, (although you will find that being the end of the year most of the material is review).

Phonemic Awareness Skills: Medial Phoneme Isolation – For the next few weeks, students will focus on phoneme isolation mastery, specifically medial, but also review of initial and final phonemes.  This is one of the most difficult skills for preschoolers to acquire.  Please refer to the following posts for more information:

• Initial phoneme isolation
• Final phoneme isolation
• Medial phoneme isolation (typically the most difficult to master)

Students will also learn phoneme blending using the following format:

Phonemic Awareness Skills: Phoneme Blending

Tell the children words are made up of sounds that are represented by letters.  I am going to say a word, but it is broken into sounds.  You will help me smoosh the sounds back together to make that word.  Show the students the letter cards L, A and P, set apart.  See the letters l, a, and p?  The sounds are /l/, /a/, /p/.  Push the letter cards together.  See, when the letters are pushed back together we get the word, lap.

Follow the same procedure as above with the following words:

/k/ /u/ /p/ (cup)	/f/ /e/ /d/ (fed)	/m/ /i/ /s/ (miss)
/d/ /o/ /t/ (dot)	/b/ /a/ /t/ (bat)	/s/ /i/ /p/ (sip)
/b/ /i/ /g/ (big)	/l/ /e/ /d/ (led)	/h/ /i/ /d/ (hid)

The final skill is phoneme segmentation, where the student divides the word into sounds.  Follow this procedure:

Tell the children words are made up of sounds that are represented by letters.  Tell them they will learn how to break words into individual sounds.  Listen to the word: cat.  The sounds in cat are /k/ /a/ /t/.  There are three sounds in cat: /k/ /a/ /t/.  Have the children practice with you using the words pen and sun.

Follow the same procedure as above with the following words:

dig  /d/ /i/ /g/	fun  /f/ /u/ /n/	sad  /s/ /a/ /d/
back  /b/ /a/ /k/	let  /l/ /e/ /t/	rip  /r/ /i/ /p/
nod  /n/ /o/ /d/	top  /t/ /o/ /p/	pan  /p/ /a/ /n/
not  /k/ /o/ /t/	rut  /r/ /u/ /t/	wig  /w/ /i/ /g/
had  /h/ /a/ /d/	pin  /p/ /i/ /n/	yes  /y/ /e/ /s/
bet  /b/ /e/ /t/	log  /l/ /o/ /g/	nap  /n/ /a/ /p/

Phonics – Phonics letter introduction was designed to continue in the following order:

• Letter Xx
• letter Ee (with basic decoding practice)
• letter Vv
• review with basic decoding practice
• letter Jj
• letter Uu
• letter Yy (/y/ sound only, not long e or long i sounds)
• letter Zz

As with all other phonics lessons, practice begins with picture sorts of each letter.  My Pinterest board Letter Identification/Basic Phonics will give you inspiration of how to extend letter learning.

Feel free to contact me with any questions you have for the remainder of the year.  I look forward to beginning again this fall.  It will be a new school year with a new and modified preschool co-op!  Also, during the summer I’ll be offering a five series post about how to begin your own preschool co-op.