I am in the process of writing a 3-part column about homeschooling a preschooler.  The first part was going to print this upcoming week in the newspaper, but I have asked them to postpone it because I wanted to write about the terrible disaster occurring now in Japan.   So, it will be a while before my preschool columns are printed and shared online.  I hope you’ll check back here for those when I post them.  I will have several extra details to share with you on my blog, mostly in the form of photos.

I can share one photo and details about it now: Above you can see the body tracings that my four-year-old and I did together.  I can remember doing this in my early years at school.  Can you?

We were lucky enough to participate in a “Mystery Friend” program at our church.  I was anonymously paired with a young person at our church, and my son was paired with an adult.  Then we exchanged letters and trinkets for several weeks before revealing our identities at a special event.  It was a nice way for the children and adults in the church to get to know each other, and it was perfect for my goal of socializing my son!  My son got a really good mystery friend who gave him some great activities to do during those weeks.

One of the activities she gave him was this huge sheet of paper and some extra markers.  She gave him the directions to trace his mother’s body on one side and his on the other.  So we did that, and then he wanted me to trace his body again, so we did it over my tracing.  Then he added the eyes and mouth and colored them in (a little).

I was very grateful to her.  I had thought about this before, but I never got around to finding paper large enough.  This activity is an oldie but goody!  We had lots of fun!

P.S.  See that coloring of the pretty flower on the left?  My Mystery Friend gave me that!  I also got a super cool mystery friend!