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What would you suggest for a secular preschool schedule? (M)


rafiki
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Have you looked at I'm Ready to Learn from WinterPromise? It does have a Bible portion but I think you would be able to leave it out. I considered this for dd and it was a top contender but I concluded that she wouldn't like anything that structured yet. We do own a few of the books that they recommend and dd enjoys them quite a bit.

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I'm not a formal pre-k person but a have a dd that age.

 

I am working with my pre-k to try to have good future study habits.

So here is the basic way I work her into our daily routine.

 

  • She sits in on the morning read aloud then gets to chose a story herself while her sister does seat work.
  • She gets a quiet activity to do, like playdough, cutting and pasting, drawing, or playing with stuffed animals or her babies while I work with her sister on math.
  • I "do math" with her. Which right now is playing with Anno's Counting Book or with the bead counters we made last week after her sister's math is done.
  • I do a content subject reading or activity with them both - she just tags along but has to be quiet if we are reading.
  • She sits in while we are doing memory work and gets a turn reciting the poem for the week if she wants to, she is pretty good at memorizing them.
  • I have her sister read aloud to her a book from the Ambleside Online Year 0 list. This gives them time together and gets her sister to practice reading out loud which she doesn't like doing for me.
  • When she wants to, I work with her on the Leap Frog Talking letter factory to learn her letters.

 

 

So we don't do any formal program, but I try to work in a short time for her after every time block that I give to her sister. It helps with teaching her take turns and respect her sister's learning time. Some days she hangs out with us most of our school day now. Some days, she will just continue her playing and not rejoin us.

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If you don't want something that is all scheduled you could just use some workbooks. Here are some that we've enjoyed - Rod and Staff Preschool Series (some religious content - just don't get the Bible stories to color and read), Kumon workbooks (pick up at your local bookstore - they have some beginner books that are smaller than the regular workbooks, dd really enjoyed those), Get Ready, Get Set, Go for the Code series from Explode the Code, The Never Bored Kid Books from Evan-Moor (dd really likes these), Singapore Earlybird math or Total Math PK.

 

I just kept a basket with various workbooks in it and made sure to read to her everyday. That was enough for us. This year we are starting a little more formal K4 - with All About Animals from Around the World (evan-moor). I do have a schedule for that if you want me to email it to you - it might give you some ideas (I don't actually include page numbers for workbooks because dd will do 5 pages one day and 2 pages the next - I don't want to force it at this age).

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I'll just throw another one out here. It is not workbook based so it might not work with your family. We have always used the FIAR books for pre-school and K. I used as much or as little as I wanted to for each book. It was just a laidback way to introduce them to school and learning. There is also the online version of FIAR, Homeschool Share It is free.

 

Julia

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With juggling three close in age, I need a schedule to get me used to having my preschooler in the mix next year. I've tried Letter of the Week this year and it was too much to gather for me, it didn't happen. I used Calvert Pre-K and K last year with my middle and would rather not go that route again. I'm considering Horizon's Pre-K, just skipping the bible portions, but wanted to know if there are any other options I haven't explored?

 

If I were to do it all over again, I would get "Slow and steady get me ready" and do the weekly activities from that book. I also would add in Before the code by EPS, Handwriting without tears and simple readers from the library. That's about it. Pre-school is too young of an age to stress about. There is plenty of time to go over everything in the grade school years.

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Oh you're both very welcome, I wanted to see it too! :) I love his books, we have Mother Wind, The Children's Book of Birds and Children's Book of Animals. For my youngest, I think we're going to read The Children's Book of Animals for 1st grade animal study and branch off that instead of branching off an encyclopedia. My oldest will be doing Prentice Hall Science Explorer and I think it will be nice to have a read aloud for both of them. Of course this is WAY more than anyone wanted to know but really...who else will listen? Lol!

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We're using Abeka's K4 program as well as FIAR. Unless you purchase the Bible Supplement, FIAR is secular and a lot of fun for the kids. My preschooler loves to just spend that one on one time with me while we read, and then she's content to play while I work with her sister.

HTH

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