We’re almost done with Joy School! It’s hard to believe it’s already going to be over. When I realized that this was the last time it would be at our house, I decided to take some photos (since I haven’t taken ANY at our house in the past! SILLY!). So here are Rachel, Jaxon, Nolan, and Chase, playing on Chase’s top bunk during free play time.
Snack time, which is always entertaining and eventful:
The unit was on Imagination and Creativity, so we were focusing on creativity on this particular day. We had a few stories and songs, problem-solving situations, and lots of art. They loved the art projects! The clean-up wasn’t too bad with the “smocks” they wore (and the washable paint). It’s always good to have lots of artsy materials on hand for kids!
The Joy School program required a lot of prep at the very beginning, but after tha,t it was just a matter of reading over the lessons and getting things prepared for the day.
We had a bin of basic materials that we would pass around each week. It had a few posters along with crayons, scissors, and glue sticks for the kids. Below we have a tree that the kids would put an apple on when they arrived. Each of the apples have a photo of each kid taped on it:
A special helper would do the calendar and weather each day after we sang a special song for each one. For the calendar, we had fun September – May month signs (that Pace & I made), and we would reuse the numbers each month. (The Joy School program suggests to make different-themed numbers for each month, but I chose to simplify and just have basic numbers we could use all year)!
The weather chart is just a spinner type of wheel. They’d look out the window and decide what the weather was like.
One of the moms had made these little mats for the kids to sit on during lesson time. These mats were easy to fold up & transport in the bin.
This upcoming school year, I will send Chase to preschool, as will the other moms. But I am glad that I did Joy School for him this year, because otherwise I don’t know how I would have entertained him all the time!
Chase really acted up almost every time it was at our house, so it was extremely helpful to have Gretchen (or my mom, if she was in town) watch Charlotte for me! Even still, it was often pretty chaotic at our house, so I wouldn’t really recommend having more than 3-4 kids in a Joy School group. I actually think that four kids was the perfect number, because we each did a certain week in the month and rotated to take our turn again the next month.
Alright! Probably more info than anyone wanted, but I do highly recommend doing Joy School or some sort of preschool for your child because all the benefits are well worth the extra work!