preschool homeschool

Those that know me know that I am a pretty big proponent of homeschooling for many reasons. I have wanted to homeschool my children since before I was even married, even though I was never homeschooled myself.

Now that Charlotte is official preschool age, I guess I need to step it up a bit in terms of the schooling. :) I consider myself more of a "better late than early" believer as it relates to education and really just following the child's lead. Earlier this spring I ordered the Sonlight P4/5 program (we already own the P3/4 program and have been reading through it for the past year or so), but I quickly realized that Charlotte just isn't quite ready for it, so we will be waiting until her K year to start that. I've read many (most?) Sonlight folks do this because it requires maturity on the part of the child that many 4 year olds may not have yet. And, well, I know my girl and I just don't think she's ready to sit through some of the longer books.

SO... Here is our little plan for this year:

1. Work on reading. I found this great book, The Reading Lesson, that boasts a lot of good reviews online. We are slowly working on it one page at a time. She knows most of her letter sounds, and *almost* all of her letters, but we are working on it. I hope that by the end of this year she will be reading, but if not, I'm not going to rush it.
2. Go outside and play! A lot! Alright, so we're pretty good at this. Living in California, the weather is always beautiful and conducive to playing outdoors. We're always at the park, the pool, going for walks, or they are outside riding their bike and scooter.
3. Have fun with our Activity Bags. I found the idea of activity bags on Pinterest and I knew I had to do it. I even organized a little Activity Bag Swag with the playgroup we are in here in Cali, so that gave me a head start to my Activity Bag stash. I then got some more ideas on Pinterest, spent an hour in Dollar Tree gathering the materials (only cost about $45 to do) and then just put different activities together in gallon size ziploc bags. Puzzles, colors with paper, cut up sponges that make "blocks,", scissors and Kumon cutting book, plastic dinosaurs for imaginative play, Mighty Mind puzzle, workbooks, dry erase boards, etc. My plan is to grab one or two bags a day and let the girls work on them and just rotate the stash throughout the year. I am NOT crafty at all but I think this will help with that!
4. READ! We are reading through our Sonlight P3/4 program again and also we plan to go to the library a bunch. I already have a huge list on my library account of books to check out. The girls aren't the best at sitting still during reading time so I hope to work on that a bit. We also plan to go to the library storytimes that are offered.
5. Bible verses. I recently ordered some Seeds Family Worship CDs (Seeds of Character and Character of God) so my plan is to type up some Bible verse pages to go with them and work on those throughout the year. It will help me with my verse memorization, too. We also plan on putting Charlotte in Awana at church so she will have verses to memorize with that, too.

 

Well, that is our little plan. It might not sound like much but I'm a big believer in just living "real life" and letting learning happen naturally. At this age it's important that they just play a lot so that is what we will be doing!