Who says you need a curriculum for K? Make things up! Make it fun! You can get workbooks on the cheap at like Walmart, Sams club and even Dollartree. There are so many sites with printable stuff and fabulous ideas! Starfall.com is awesome for phonics and reading and it's free! I planned on using letteroftheweek.com with my toddlers for prek but then I realized that we naturally cover those things in day to day life..and like someone else said pre-k and K aren't that different. Most of the K things you can and will cover naturally in the course of the day.
Hi there... I can answer on FIAR if you like...and how I used iet. Each "unit" is based on a book (that you can get from the library if you wish). You read the book each day of the week (or two weeks if you like). Then after each section in the book is sample lessons that you could do for L/A, Art, History/Geo, etc. There's also these "discs" which you can cut out and color and stick on a map of the world to map your trip. I think Volume 1 is expected to be the first half of a school year, and Volume 2 is expected to be 2nd half (I could be wrong on that, we only used Volume 1 and I stretched it out to a whole year and added a bunch of my own activites not outlined in the book). I'll tell ya, one thing I wish I knew about at the time was lapbooking. I could see doing a lapbook with each of the FIAR books. It is not a pick up and someone tells you what to do book....but it's a great spring board. When me eldest was in Kinder I had a 3 year old, and was having a tough pregnancy with my 3rd child. We were still able to do school after the baby was born (March, so mid school year!). We took 6 weeks off...then went back to where we were. I liked the Literature approach...but looking back see how I missed great opportunites for teaching. If I'm not mistaken, Sonlight is a very literature based approach BUT...they do all the prepping for you. I'd like Sonlight, I think...but it's a little too expensive for us.
I think MFW's K program would be great for a pre-K kid!! You can do it as slowly as you like, and you don't have to do EVERYthing it says to do. We did their 1st grade book last year for kindergarten and are doing their 2nd grade material this year and we really like it a lot.
I love FIAR. This is our third year with it, and we have no plans of moving on to something else (other than literature based unit studies) on this side of elementary school. It's not as much planning as you might think. Lots of lessons can be done conversationally on the couch right after you read the book. I won't drone on (and on), but my kid is SMART and over and over again on the FIAR boards we hear of the HUGE success the kids have when tested...and here is the biggest perk-- THEY LOVE SCHOOL...even ask for it. You build great memories while learning TOGETHER. If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer.
