The lady who lives below us in Michigan keeps asking me if I'll be homeschooling my boys next year. Since they aren't even 4 yet, I finally asked her what she means. She said, "Well, you know, will you do preschool with them?" Say whaaaaat. . . . ??? Have any of you considered yourselves to do homeschool as preschool? I mean, my gosh, I'm obviously a SAHM who interacts constantly with my kids and my kids, quite frankly, have been "homeschooled" since the day I brought them home from the hospital. Why on earth are people so hung up on this educratic structure of how and when learning takes place? It's this mentality that I fear will lead to the encouragement of mandatory preschool. For heaven's sake, just let them color, play with play-doh, do puzzles and all of that other stuff. It's the same thing they've been doing all along, so why do people feel the need to label it once they reach a certain age???
My son is 4 & we're doing preschool. I consider it preschool because we are doing some structured learning. Not a lot, but some. We go onto Starfall.com 3 days a week. DO one of the kids computer programs 2 days a week. I bought him Explode the code to help reinforce his phonics skills (I wasn't going to because he's already reading, but decided I didn't want to have to start in the middle of a phonics program a few years from now). He's also working on math skills (addition & subtraction). If he was just playing, coloring & doing puzzles I probably wouldn't really consider it school, but because he's doing more advanced work I do consider it school.
I don't believe in preschool. If a kid is ready and wants to do some structured stuff, fine. I'm all for letting them! But to MAKE them sit down and "do school" at that age goes against everything I believe. Children learn primarily through play at that age. It's mostly incidental learning.
My preschool is all play and fun. lol. I will do some "structured" things but only if my little one is willing. She often was because she saw her brother and sister doing school. She learned quite a bit. This past year she was way to active to sit and learn so she played around and still seemed to learn quite a bit. I don't have any real programs for her. I just try to make it fun and like "school" because she wants to play "school". So, I use that time to actually teach. She will teach her dolls also. lol. I don't think a child who knows her abc's at 3 will be any more advanced or shows more intelligence than a 3 year old who does not. I actively taught my first dd at 3...and she did amazing and loved it. However, my ds at the same age wasn't interested. Yet, he was obeservant. This kid may not have been able to read sight words at 3 as my dd did....but he did teach himself to read later on. He is two years younger than my dd but can do just about the same work as her...including math. One may have thought that compared to my dd at 3 and 4 that he was not as "smart". Sure he didn't know as much but now he practically blows her away. lol Point is...don't worry about it. Play is the important thing. Geesh...they will spend enough time sitting and learning later on.
My dd does preschool, but it's because she wants to be involved in what her older brother is doing. So she has some books and she'll do a couple of pages a day, then she's had enough and goes to play.
We are in no rush to homeschool our youngest son Matthew. When I started homeschooling, we did preschool homeschool with Michael mainly because he is a special needs child. I thought it was the best thing for him and it was at some points. We have now come to the decision that we won't do homeschool preschool at age 3. I do not see the point at starting so early. I myself, have run into moms who are asking me how to homeschool their kids (who not even out of diapers!) I think this time we'll wait until Matthew shows signs that he is ready and we'll take it from there. For now he is enjoying coloring and having books read to him.
I think the majority of people really think that kids will be soooo behind without Preschool. We will be doing very light school work for preschool next year (my younger DS is 4) for letters and numbers. Other than that he will just listen to older brothers lessons. It does help that my boys are only 2 years apart!
I wouldn't say we officially did preschool, I certainly didn't say we're "homeschooling preschool." But my son was an early reader (3 1/2) and showed a lot of interest in learning. So we started Before Five in a Row about that time. That was pretty much it. He's getting ready to start 2nd grade and I'm just now really starting what I would consider "real school." We've mostly enjoyed Five in a Row and lots of unschooling up until now. I started out last year trying to have schedule and focus on the 3Rs, but it just didn't happen. I really think he's just now ready to focus on doing that stuff.
I have to agree with Jackie. Let them have fun, there will be plenty of time to school them. Anyway they are learning while they are playing.
Every now and then we get someone on here asking, "What's wrong with my 2yo? He won't sit down and practice writing his letters!!! He won't color in the lines!!! He doesn't match colors!!! HE JUST WANTS TO RUN AROUND THE HOUSE!!!" What's wrong with him? HE'S TWO YEARS OLD!!! He'll grow out of it when he gets to be three or four, lol!!!
I am not a fan of preschool either. Ems was eager to learn at this age. What child isn't? So I allowed her to learn as a child learns; by exploring, playing, handling objects, coloring, and being a child. There are many ways for a youngster to learn without attending "preschool".
At that age I considered it learning experiences, lol. I wasnt pushing them with any kind of structure, but I made every day things into learning experiences. Dd had her Leap Frog fridge thing that she loved to play with, but it also taught her phonics. A list of simple things for them to look for at the grocery store helped them identify letters. Having them count how many of something they had or wanted to share helped them learn numbers. It is amazing what you can get them to learn when they dont know it is actual learning.
I think the best thing you can do for your kids to make them interested in reading is to sit and read by yourself and also read to them. If they see that you enjoy reading it will usually make them want to read too.
I think that "preschool" is coloring, play doh etc. That is how they learn. With my ds he was asking for more, so i gave him more. When he backed off so did I. Now we are starting Kindy, and we only do it when he ask, but he likes it so we do it. I think most people try to imitate PS just because it is more "normal" and other people will leave you alone more if you seem normal. Because they get questions like you did. Even homeschoolers get pushed into thinking that we have to do what ps does, even though we are not ps because we feel we can do it better. Crazy right? It is funny, because my other post is about how I was freaking about about what to teach for kindy. then I was put back into reality taht it really isn't all that much, other then reading and basic math stuff.
I am pretty much the same as the others. I really did stuff with my oldest, who is 8 and starting 2nd grade. The baby is now 3 and really wanting to do school with the big girls. I am planning on getting her some free worksheets and I have falling star. I just plan on letting her play and when she is interested we will do school. With out any instruction she is begining to count and recognize letters, just by being around the bigger kids. I say just relax and let them have fun.
I do preschool because my little ones want to do school just like there sister. It's hard to tell them NO you are to young you have to wait. So I have Little Hands To Heaven. They like having there book just like sissy has her book. I also have used Kumon workbooks because they wanted workbooks too. I think they like the one on one. I do both group and one on one stuff. I worked my oldest for preschool because she was going into PS and I didn't want her behind. It was also easy to push her because it was just her and me since hubby was deployed most of her preschool years and number 2 wasn't here yet.
Absolutely if they want to do it! There's no way I'd tell a kid no if they were ready and willing! It's just when the kid ISN'T ready and willing, you don't want to push.
Oh wait I do say NO. Like at 8 PM and it's just starting to get dark. My 3 year old will suddenly say let's play school. Umm no dear it's about that time. Another time is right before naptime. She's good at trying to get out of rest/nap and bedtime.
We did preschool but not in any kind of formal sense. Basically I got a preschool workbook for each of them and let them do as many pages as they wanted when they wanted and we would do craft projects and games and songs and fun stuff like that.
