 |
| (Printable: Finnegan and the Hughes) |
Early September, and we are beginning our attempt at homeschooling. I do feel very prepared - both to give my kids more and more if they want it and less and less if they are just not into what we're doing. This year my older two are 3 and 4 years old, so I'm not too worried about cramming them full of information. If anything a big driving force in keeping them home was because current preschools and kindergarten programs are oddly intense and work focused with only a little time in between for play. We are also a low- to -no-tech family, so hands on, organic playing and learning is the priority. (There are a lot of very nice play-based preschools as well, but they are either not in our area, not in our price range, or are just WAY too time consuming for this age.)
Our schooling this year is mainly focused on our preK aged four year old since she is chomping at the bit to learn everything. As of right now she would easily test into Kindergarten for level of reading, letter recognition, number recognition, basic math skills, memory, writing skills, and knowledge of basic concepts such as "patterns" or "opposites". Socially and physically she would be no where near ready (small for her age and more introverted), so I'm thrilled for the opportunity to be able to teach her at the level she at in an environment where she is comfortable. I'll get into more depth in other posts about curriculum choices, supplemental stuff, and extra-curricular activities, but for now here is a quick run down on how we plan on doing school (at least for this semester):
I picked up a Kindergarten curriculum book from Sam's Club while out grocery shopping that covers letters, numbers, colors, shapes, basic concepts, early math, and writing practice. I then tore every single page out of the book, dividing and regrouping parts until I had a handful of worksheets covering a little bit from each part of the book for each week (setting aside pages I thought were more advanced for next semester). I put it all in a binder and attached notes any time I thought of a fun supplement to the concept. I originally purchased a lesson planner but hated it so much that I choose to just rip out the weekly planning pages and use them in my binder (which is now the official lesson planner). For my three year old, I purchased the preschool book also at Sam's Club and just rip out a few pages that are similar to whatever her sister is going over that day.
The four year old has also started "Learn to Read in 100 Easy Lessons", and she's just loving it. I expect to get through the rest of the book by the end of the semester (we took a break during the summer) and be an independent reader of very simple books by Christmas. For science, I found some great links online for experiments for preschoolers and copied down each one into my "Extracurricular binder". We'll be doing one experiment a week with my husband during an evening before or after dinner (he's the math/science one of the family -we are fortunate to have every subject of interest covered between the two of us). I also comprised a list of "Life Skills" (that I keep adding to whenever I think of something) that ranges from knowing their address and taking care of their own hygiene to learning how to swing at the playground alone and how to use a ruler.
I went a different route than most of our friends and choose not to buy a Christian curriculum for our family, mostly because I didn't want to really use any really set curriculum for such a young age. Because of that, I had to seek out another way to not only teach the kids more Biblical principals and stories on our own. They already read two chapters a night from The Jesus Storybook Bible (restarting it again whenever they reach the end), so they have a good grasp of the basic salvation concept and who the main players are. I found a great link for teaching about "Biblical character" that goes over various traits, what they mean, how we use them, and verses about them. I then plan on matching each trait to a specific person from the Bible so they can learn more about these names and stories they already know about.
As for getting out and about and being active, I fortunately write for a travel blog that takes us to museums, zoos, aquariums, exhibits, events, cultural and historical locations, and more constantly. We have the opposite problem of most of needing to mindfully make time to just be at home and not on a field trip. We've also enrolled the oldest child in soccer for the fall which gets the 3 year old extra playground time while her sister is chasing a ball with a pack of other 4 to 6 year olds.
So let's see where this year takes us!
No comments:
Post a Comment