Secondtimearound - you are ambitious!! You must spend so much time preparing for your day! Good for you.

I like to let kids be kids (not saying that your way isn't) but I just feel like there are lots of time for kids to have to sit in a classroom and follow directions/be told what to do or play with. I don't ever tell the kids to play with one particular thing (puzzles/blocks etc) other than art/crafts/playdough time. Everything is available all the time during free play (except arts/crafts/playdough). I let the kids drag everything out too and sometimes you can barely walk across the floor because everything is out (I have way too many toys lol). We don't clean up as we go we do it all at the end of the day. I do work on colors/letters/shapes/counting/nursery rhymes etc but for the most part I believe that is something that most parents should be working on not just me. We learn those things through playing.

I was interested to find that my daughter's licenced pre-school actually does almost the same as me. Mostly free play, some arts/crafts, outside time etc. The teacher told me that they are government regulated to have lots of free play time more than anything else.