Preschool Curriculum Part 3

The main piece of curriculum that I decided on was Before Five In A Row.  I purchased my book from Rainbow Resource for $35.00, but I know that you can find it for much cheaper elsewhere.  You can check homeschooling resale pages to find some deals.  I have also heard that you can sometimes find it at the library.

I really like this curriculum because it focuses on good books.  For those that choose, it gives you a passage of scripture to start the day/week off with that matches the theme of the book.  It also offers a lot of ideas on how to incorporate different subjects from the chosen book that week.  I plan on taking 1-2 weeks on each book (depending on how fast my son wants to go through it).  Some of the books are older and out of print.  I know I will probably have to use inter-library loan in order to find a few, but that is fine with me.

There are lots of outside sites that offer ideas on how to supplement each book.  I have found that I really like Homeschool Creations for their supplements.  They have different pages for sequencing, math, writing, letter recognition, colors, and much more.  I plan to laminate the pages that I like, and then I can have Isaac use a dry erase marker to work on it each day.  I am creating a folder for each book.  That way each week I can just grab it and go.  Laminated pages will work great for other kids in the future.

We also use ABC Mouse.  We have had a subscription for over a year now.  My son loves it!  We have a laptop set up so that he can do his homework while Daddy does his.  ABC Mouse is the reason Isaac has known his upper and lower case letters for about a year.  It's great!

This week I have started looking into coops.  I think I found one that I like, but I can't participate fully until after the baby due to an attendance clause.  However, they have public field trips every other week, family activities, and mom's night out that I can go to without being a full member.  We will have our first field trip on August 20th.  I am excited, so I hope that I am feeling well enough for an outing that day!

For the first time in about 4 years I ordered a new insert for my planner.  I cannot express how excited I was to open it!  I use Google calendar, but there is just something about being able to see everything on paper.  I have already started planning out the next month of activities.  This way I know when I need to request the books I need.  I plan on getting additional books to go along with the main book for the week.  This will help me expand on different aspects.

Curriculum Part 2

The first of my curriculum that I purchased has arrived.  I have had numerous friends recommend this book to help a child learn to read.  Everyone had such great things to say about it, so it has been on my list to buy for about a year and a half.  It will cost you around $15.00 if you purchase it new, but if you buy it off of half.com you can get it as low as $4.00 if you watch for a good deal.

I have always planned on starting this the year before my son would start kindergarten.  Which would put this a year away.  Isaac knows his upper and lower case letters fairly well.  I thought perhaps he might be ready for this a bit earlier which is why I purchased it for this year.

I think right now my plan is to focus on 1-2 letters a week.  I have lots of ideas in mind on how to implement the letters, but I will just have to see what works out for us.  I will see where Isaac is in about 6 months.  He may be ready for it then.

Preschool Curriculum Part 1

My posts regarding my preschool curriculum will come in a few posts.

About a year ago I wanted to start a preschool type program since I had a few kids that were going to Kindergarten that year.  I had purchased this book from Amazon because it had decent reviews, and I thought it would cover a lot of what needed to be covered before a child started Kindergarten.

Ultimately, it didn't work out at the time.  Most of the kids that I watched just weren't ready for the kind of activities in the book, so I just did it with the older kids.  Out of the kids that completed the activities they seemed to like them a lot.  At times the activities were much to young for them, so I would think this book would work best for 3-4 year olds.  Even though my son is within this age range, he doesn't want to complete the activities.  He would much rather watch someone else do them.

I think it will be useful to work on handwriting, so I will be using this as a supplemental aspect of my preschool curriculum.  Most of the book won't work for my son because he already knows his upper/lowercase letters, and numbers.  I will use some of the counting/math pages, the pages that work on cutting, and writing.

Pros

• The front of the book has a great assessment for the parent to complete on their child to help them know how ready their child is for Kindergarten. 
• Another aspect of this book that I like is that it has a perforated line to allow easy removal from the book.  This made it easy to make photocopies of the pages.  
• A variety of activities.
• Great for letter recognition

Cons

• Some activities seem way too easy while others seem quite difficult.

For those of you that are doing preschool at home, I would recommend that you buy pencil grips.  I bought a few packages because they are easily lost.  I know that most Kindergarten teachers wish that parents would teach their child the correct way to hold a pencil.  These will help with that.  I believe they work for both right and left handed children.  

If you bought both of these items you would spend $23.00.  I am keeping receipts for tax purposes, but I am not sure it will count for preschool.  

Our Choice to Homeschool

Some of you may already know that Derek and I are planning to homeschool any kids that we have.  It’s not something that I talk a lot about because some people are pretty judgmental regarding homeschooling.  Everyone has an opinion, but many of these opinions do not have many factual backings. 

I wasn’t ready to talk about our choice because I am nervous about it myself.  I didn’t want others to be negative regarding my choice because it would cause me to doubt myself more.  I know that I am capable of teaching my children what they need to know, but when you are first starting out in the world of homeschooling it is quite overwhelming.  There are lots of choices to be made.  Should we choose year round school, or tradition school years?  What curriculum should we choose?  How much religion do we want involved in the education?  What are the state specific laws?  Quite daunting! 

The main reason that we have chosen to homeschool is because there were obvious gaps in the education that both Derek and I received.  This made us want an alternative to public schooling since we know we live in a bad school district.  With the advent of Common Core Standards it has really driven home that we need to homeschool. 

I have been part of forums with nationwide experts, online discussions, and have done a ton of research regarding Common Core Standards.  Not even taking into consideration the data collection that is being done, the curriculum itself is pretty scary.  I left many of these forums with the distinct impression that they are trying slowly breakdown the family unit.  I’m not even talking the traditional family.  I’m talking a family in general.  Where children have two parents regardless of gender.  I have my own suspicions as to why the government may be trying to do this, but I will keep that to myself.  You can watch this video on Common Core to begin your own researching journey. 

My hope is that in addition to our regular family blog that I will update on our homeschooling journey.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.  I know I have many friends interested in homeschooling, so my hope is that this part of my blog will be helpful to you.  Perhaps my failures will keep you from making the same mistakes that I make along the way.