Last week we began our homeschooling. Our state doesn't require schooling until age 5 (and even then you can sign a waiver to wait until six), but we figured that an extra year to make all of our big mistakes couldn't be a bad thing. Also, over the summer, it became very clear that The Kiddo was ready for some organized learning.
After a homeschool conference (I cannot stress enough how much help this was in organizing our thoughts and giving us a jumping off point), this is the set of curricula that we decided on for our preschool:
Before Five In a Row: I love this curriculum. It's sweet and gentle and really focuses on learning through reading, play, and experiences. Even though BFIaR only provides a few lapbook templates, other templates for the BFIaR books can be found all over the internet. My only complaint is that some of the books in the curriculum are hard to find.
Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson: I was skeptical at first because reading seems advanced for a four year old. By lesson number 5, The Kiddo was starting to sound out words. He's confidant, he loves it, and for the past two days his first words in the morning are, "Can we do my reading lesson?"
A couple of basic math concept books that I found in Target and Barnes and Noble: Finding a preschool math curriculum has been a bit elusive. I have a few workbooks, but nothing feels very cohesive. I'm not sure what the expectation is, so I have decided that I will teach shapes, numbers, patterns, tracing, and comparisons. Once we pass that we will look into elementary curricula, which will hopefully prove more useful.
Karate/ Gymnastics: I've added this in because it's my school of thought that The Kiddo needs physical goals as well. He is a high energy/high enthusiasm kid, so I am hoping good things for this. My trouble is wondering how committed to be. Should I let him change his Physical Education at will? Should I force him to commit to any particular amount of time? Decisions, decisions...
Our own Spanish introduction: Once again, a great curriculum has yet to be found, so on the advice of some other home school parents, we have begun reading books, watching movies, and singing songs in Spanish. Since DH is fluent, it works out really well. I figure we will add in some vocabulary after Christmas.
What are you learning this year?
What are you learning this year?
