I have two what I consider pre-preschoolers. They are 2 1/2 and 1 1/2. They will be 3 and 2 right after Christmas. I planned whole heartedly to use letter of the week this year and next, but have decided that they are learning plenty without it. My 2 1/2 year old can count to 20, and knows most of her colors and shapes. She is learning the alphabet too. The 1 1/2 year old wants to do everything that his big sister is doing, so he tries to count and say his ABCs as well. They both love books so we read alot. We watch Sesame street.. I know I learned tons from it as a kid and I see that they do too. We also watch Reading Rainbow, Between the Lions, and Word World. They also enjoy interactive shows like Dora and Little Einsteins where they are encouraged to "help" the show. That pretty much is our "curriculum" for them.. along with coloring, lacing cards (which are actually foam shapes that I punched holes in), and a variety of other crafts and activities.
I like choosing a theme for the week with my two preschoolers 3 and 5. I just started the theme apples. I found some great tracing, science activities, early reading games and math worksheets I know my kids will love. I can't wait to start. I found the materials on Kidssoup.com, a new site I just discovered with the help of this forum. A great resource, I love it and it will safe me a lot of time searching for stuff.
I also have a 3 and 5 year old. I have been doing stuff more "formally" (used very loosely) since Jan. The 3 year old I have recently started as she was picking it all up anyway and has pretty much caught up with her older brother. 1. Bible- we read a bible story talk about it and they color a picture. 2. Bible Memory- They memorized Ps chapter 1 ( Actually the 5 year old was suppose to memorize the whole thing- and the 3 year old ended up doing it too!) =) Now we work on different verses and talk about character traits 3. Math- DS5- Math- U-See and flash card games 1-100. DD3- counting and flash card games 0-10. Ds will quiz her and he teaches her this stuff. 4. Geography- DS5- We are learning the US states, and a simple fact about them. Eg. Maine= lobsters etc. DD3- we havent done this yet 5. Science- Exploring Creation with Astromony- We just read and do some of the experiments together. They do a lapbook about it. We skip most of the details and learn just the main points. (Although DS5 called my husband today and explained to him all about " Thermonuclear fusion" =) 6. Reading and Writing- We just started Scaredy Cat Reading System as my son did not like the other program I had. I am doing it with both of them so far, but we will see if dd3 struggles I will stop her. Writing is just on a dry erase board or a writing practice book for ds5 only. 7. Social Studies/ History- This is mostly just reading right now- like our Bible stories, or books, or field trips like museums, War reinactments and such. Looking at this it looks like I do so much-- that makes me feel great. But it is really laid back most of the time. We are kinda playing games and crafty stuff mostly.
My son did the coolest thing yesterday. This week, we started learning about the months of the year & how to use a calendar. Yesterday, he told me the names of all the months (in order), the days of the week (in order), figured out what day of the week of it was, and counted up to 100 with just a little help. I had to tell him the names of the tens (30, 40, 50, etc), because he kept wanting to call them twenty ten (30), thirty ten (40), etc. Anyway, then he did it again for my dh when he got home from work. When he got done counting, he told dh that one hundred is 1-0-0 (one, zero, zero). This week he's also learned what month each of us was born. When we're saying the months, and we get to one that has a birthday, he says "that's the month sissy was born" or whoever was born that month. He's also really gotten into the Magic School Bus this week. He goes through phases with books. One week it's Berenstain bears everyday, the next week it's Arthur, etc. So this week is Magic School Bus. He found a cardboard box, tore it at one corner, set it up on a side, put two small chairs in it & calls it his Magic School Bus. He sits in one of the chairs, pretending to drive around & looking through the Magic School Bus books. It's so cute. My daughter helped him out & drew a steering wheel & gauges on the 'dashboard' and tires on the side.
Isn't it wonderful that we can just allow our kids to fully go for their interest! I love the Magic school bus series! I had planned on starting more formal lessons with letters with ds4, but right now he is so into numbers, that I'm just letting him run with that. He's one of those kids that does really well when he can devote all of his attention to one area, but hates to switch (even during the day). He'll let me know when he's ready to move on. Now his younger brother is all about letters and can name almost every letter he sees! I've never done anything formal with him, but he's definitely picking it up anyways.
Hi, I have a 3.5 yr old and 2 year old. We've been doing everything very informally. We've just made the decision to homeschool so things will be changing around here soon. My oldest took an interest in letters and numbers before 2 yrs old. So I put letters wherever I could. I bought letter pasta, foam letters for the bath (Target dollar spot), letter vinyl window clings (also Target dollar spot), a letter poster on the playroom wall, letter puzzle and countless books. He also loves to watch Leap Frog videos. The Letter Factory, the two word ones (can't think of the names), Math Circus and just recently the reading one. He also loves a Scholastic Chicka Chicka Boom Boom video that I bought off ebay. That movie/book is great for learning lower case letters. Dollar General is fabulous for preschool workbooks. I also just bought a pack of wipe off animal cards from there. They came with a marker and my son can trace the names of the animals. He loves those! Sheri
Anyone have any good ideas for the letter E?? We will be working on that in a couple of weeks. Mine loves the super why site on PBS if you haven't check it out!!!
I have a 4 year old and a 2 year old. I don't do much with my 2 yo, except for lots of singing and counting during the day as we go along. My daughter gets 20 min. of phonics everyday. If your child knows the letter sounds I totally recommend Phonics Pathways. It had my daughter reading independently from books in 4 weeks or so. It's awesome! We are doing our addition tables, using household stuff. And we read a ton together, fiction and nonfiction. We sing a lot and work on our keyboard a little. For art we do mostly coloring and play-dough. And my daughter loves board games so we play Candyland (colors and counting), Hi-Ho Cherry-o (for counting and manual dexterity), and Boggle Jr. (for spelling and reading). I'm thinking about getting her UNO to play too. I'm going to start a first grade curriculum with her when she turns 5. Amy
Ooooh! I found a "Where the Wild Things Are" Uno that I have stashed away for a stocking stuffer. We love games!
With mine I am allowing as much play as possible. I let them use starfall..what a great site..Tonight we got out our own individual dry erase board and wrote on them. My youngest tried writing his name....and my oldest was doing math problems (hes 4) I looked down and he had 2+2=4 I was amazed and felt pretty proud...he went on to do a few more...0+7= 5+5= etc
My 'baby' is 4 and here is what she uses, when she wants to do school. Time4Learning 100 EZ Lessons Learning to write ABCs and 123s tagging along with older children's lessons in history and science worksheets/mini books from enchantedlearning.com books, lots of books
