God has blessed us with the ability to survive off of one income so that I can spend my days with my children rather than at an away-from-home job, so I am already home with them, why not educate them as well?
We want the ability for our children to grow and thrive educationally, emotionally, spiritually and morally. We don't feel this could be accomplished in a public school setting.
We've made the decision. Now what? I am very overwhelmed. There is so much information out there and I don't really know where to start.
Luckily, Squirrel is only four, so starting with a Pre-K program isn't too difficult. I researched many different pre-k programs online.
There wasn't one that I felt completely worked for us. So I took ideas from a bunch of different programs and blended them together, as well as adding in my own ideas and other activities I see fit.
As of right now I have it set up so we work on the same things for a whole week.
Every week we have a different:
- Theme
- Number
- Letter
- Color/Shape
- Bible Verse
These are laid out on a bulletin board that is right above his desk.
Mondays we head to the library to get books that relate to our weekly topics.
I try to plan a project for every day. I try to incorporate projects that utilize scissors and glue, painting or some other craft project. At this point Squirrel is loving cutting things out and is asking all day if he can cut something.
Throughout our day we look for things that have our letter/number/theme of the week.
We work on writing the number of the week. He has four writing work books. One is capital letters, one lowercase, one a mix of both and the other is a write and erase (white board style). Each of the capital/lowercase books has two pages. We work on the first page of capital on Monday, second page on Wednesday. First page of lowercase on Tuesday, second page on Thursday. Friday will be for the book that contains both capital and lowercase as well as practicing all the letters we have learned so far.
Another thing I would like to incorporate is sign language. This seems like the hardest part. Mainly because it isn't something I use regularly and I forget it easily.
The first day went well. Squirrel enjoyed learning and looks forward to school time every day (for now anyway).
Every week I will try to put a post together that includes everything we did for that week in our home school preschool program.
Have you thought about home schooling? Do you home school? Any tips or advice for us as we start this journey?
My husband and I homeschooled our 3 children (now 34, 31 and 20) and never regretted it. My daughter in law plans to homeschool their boys. I always give a little smile when I read/hear about decisions to homeschool. I feel that it is best for children. Just remember, a lot can be accomplished in less time when there is no need for 'crowd control', so be flexible and teach to the opportunity rather than a 8-3 schedule. They learn better and more thoroughly when their mind is receptive!
ReplyDeleteOh that's great to hear. I love hearing about families who start homeschooling from the beginning. I wish I could've done that too. I started homeschooling when my oldest was at the end of 2nd grade. My next child has never been to school (she's 15) and my next went to an excellent special ed preschool. We had to move a few months in though and his next preschool experience was awful. It made me realize how rare it is to find a good preschool like the one we originally had.
ReplyDeleteMy oldest has flown the nest, my second, like I said, is 15, my next is 9 and we just started K with my almost 6 year old with baby girl (11 mos) toddling around and getting into things.lol. There are times when it's been tough to keep going but so far I'm glad I'm holding fast. I hope you enjoy those younger years. I so wish I could go back and do it all over again. :)