Does anyone use a homeschool preschooling curriculum? DD was in daycare until December, and now that she's home with me full time, I think she gets a little bored! I try to do fun/interesting activities but I think I need something a little more structured/formalized to go off of for activities, crafts, etc...
Any recommendations?
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
Ooh, good question! I don't have any answers, but I'll be excited to see what you find!
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
Second thought, I wonder if there is some Montessori curriculum out on the interwebs that you can borrow?
pomelo / 5178 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: ooohhhh good idea!
Did I tell you we're considering starting DD in the Montessori program down the street this summer? We have a tour set up for March, but it will only be part-time. I'm excited about it for her, though!
blogger / pineapple / 12381 posts
@Honeybee: Awesome! I bet there's something good out there, and I'll save all my "Tomorrow's Child" magazines for you.
pomelo / 5178 posts
@Mrs. Jacks: Thanks! I'm looking right now for a curriculum; I'll let you know what I find.
persimmon / 1479 posts
I have my 4 year old home with me while I am on maternity leave. I didn't want her to be bored or get behind her class that she will be rejoining while I am on leave so I try to follow their schedule and the send out a weekly curriculum.
Most of what they do is calendar (they go over the months and days of the week), practice writing a letter and number of the week, read a story, do an art porject, and usually do some sort of science experiment. This is mixed in with playing out side a couple of times, pretend play and lunch/snack/nap.
I have an activity book that she really like to do with color by numbers, tracing, cutting. I have used this website a couple of time for ideas too.
http://www.nationalkindergartenreadiness.com/category/educational-games/
pomelo / 5178 posts
@mrsmenow: Where did you get your activity book? That website looks great, thanks!
persimmon / 1479 posts
I think I got one at Barnes and Noble and Target. I got some cool toys from here, DD loves these!
http://www.growingtreetoys.com/product/pattern-blocks-boards
I haven't ordered from here, but it looks like it has some toys DD would really like
http://www.fatbraintoys.com/toys/toy_categories/early_learning_toys/index.cfm
persimmon / 1479 posts
At DD daycare they order toys from here. She loves some of the manipulative play stuff that we are ordering it. This site has a tons of great toys.
http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?product=23792&category=837&CategorySearch=&Brand=&Price=
This is her favorite.
http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?Product=29720&rec=PDHtop
cantaloupe / 6164 posts
I have a degree in Education, so I'm planning on doing preschool at home when Sadie gets old enough. My state's department of education provides curriculum guidelines for preschool-12th grade. I plan on using the Virginia preschool rubric to plan a flexible curriculum, since this will best prepare her for public Kindergarten. There are lots of awesome resources online to supplement the DOE's curriculum -- even Pinterest has great ideas for activities, games, and assessments! I would check out your states DOE website to get an idea of what your state expects of preschoolers, and get some curriculum guidelines. There should be some resources available on there too!
cherry / 224 posts
@photojane- Great suggestion. I believe most, if not every state has some type of preschool standards to follow. In CA, we have what they call preschool learning foundations which provide specifically which skills/knowledge preschoolers should be developing. Also, if your child is more advanced academically, you should be able to reference the kindergarten standards and teach your child from it instead.
If you are interested in specific curriculum philosophy, you can look into high scope, emergent, scholastic big day, project approach (more supplemental) etc... these I am familiar with and you can't go wrong with them. They provide a good mix of information and activities to support your child's development cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically. If you search them online, you should be able to buy them.
As for getting school supplies, discount school supplies (mentioned above) is a great place to start. There's also Lakeshore, National School Products, Oriental Trading (great for art stuff and toys) are to name a few (easily search online).
Good luck and have fun teaching!
cherry / 175 posts
I'm definitely interested in this. I'm not at home with the kids but since my 2.5 year old is home with a nanny I'd love to have a resource to add a little structure to their routine. Even if it's just worksheets to guide them. I've done a little bit of research (I live in a BIG homeschooling area) but of course can't find the info right now. I'll keep digging and post what I have.
I never did make the time to thoroughly research and make a decision. Many of them seemed more complicated and time intensive than what I want.
I did order 2 workbooks online but haven't given them to my son yet. I still feel like they are a little too old for him: (I've seen these at target too!)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4774307076/ref=oh_details_o07_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1936022117/ref=oh_details_o07_s04_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
If you have a local small town toy store in your area they may be a good resource.
cherry / 175 posts
Found out some homeschooling info from work friends.
Five In A Row - http://fiveinarow.com/
Short summary, based on well known literature and reading the book everyday for a week. Focusing on different things every week. You can buy the books or get from the library. For example one day you can practice counting things in the pictures. One day you can expand on something for instance 'police officer' who is part of the story. What is a police officer, why do we have them.... etc etc.
A couple have used this for reading: How to teach your child to read in 100 lessons: (I guess late preschool)
http://www.startreading.com/
http://www.homeschoolreviews.com/reviews/curriculum/reviews.aspx?id=3
They all seem to use Saxton for math. Saying it's 'physical' and works really well for the kids.
http://www.nestlearning.com/saxon-math-curriculum_kindergarten_s1142.aspx
pomegranate / 3414 posts
We've enrolled DD in an actual pre-school but are thinking of using some of these materials at home in addition.
pomelo / 5178 posts
I guess I should probably update this thread. After a lot of research and trying out several different homeschool programs, we chose the month-to-month program available at: http://www.preschoolcurriculum.com . The program costs about $20/month for 1-2 kids, and it comes with 14 "lessons" and 6 additional activities for each month. I supplement with my own activities (reading books featuring the letter of the month, doing letter/number tracer activities, Montessori activities, etc...) and we do "school" every day for about 1.5-2 hours. I like the program pretty well, and it fits well with what I wanted (a program with ready-made lessons plans that was flexible, cheap, and easy to customize).
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