Thanks! I was already planning to hit the zoo and COSI at some point, but I didn't know about the homeschool classes. I'll try to plan around that. We are in north Columbus, close to Westerville/Worthington. Been to the play area at the Polaris mall (just a couple of miles away), but it's only been a couple of days so not much other than that.

I find myself somewhat unexpectedly in central Ohio for a month. :) The internet has plenty of suggestions for what to do in the area, but I would really like to meet some actual people. We don't know anybody in the area and definitely no homeschool families. Are there any regular group meet-ups? Places to meet kids to play with? Anyone want to hang out? :) Thanks!

Thank you for the recommendations! I tried randomly searching for digital versions of popular curricula, but didn't have much success. Nothing like second-guessing all your choices at the last minute (we start September 1) :D

Any ideas? I have some math workbooks from the local school system, but no actual curriculum. I just explain the concepts as they come up. We use an abacus as a manipulative and I'm thinking about getting some Cuisenaire rods. I like the look of Beast Academy or Singapore, for instance, but they start in later grades as far as I can tell. I guess the first question is - do I even need a curriculum? Do you feel like your math curriculum was very helpful for first grade or is it more important for later math? The second question is - do you know of anything available on Kindle, pdf or otherwise not involving shipping? I'd rather something I can download and use right away if possible. Thanks!

This is reality for me as well.

I tried to introduce Morning Time, but it was kind of a flop. "Okay, today we're going to start with Morning Time. First we --" "What do you mean? I thought we were going to do school." "We are! We're starting with something called Morning Time." "But it is morning. Can we do school now?" "Right, we do Morning Time in the morning as part of school." "But it IS morning. What's the point of calling it morning time when it's morning just like every day?" "It doesn't really matter what we call it; the point is that we start out our school day with (insert what I had planned)." After we did the few things I had in mind, the child failing to see the point the entire time, we finished and she said, "Finally! Can we do spelling now?" :-D I clearly need to come up with a new name if we ever try it again!

I outsource during the preschool years, too. Part of it is for them to learn the community language - I could teach it myself, but it wouldn't be as authentic from me as a non-native speaker, and I'd rather concentrate on providing a rich English environment in our home. The other part is the more interesting activities and things going on there, as mentioned above. I don't do sensory bins (etc.) and can't handle the crafts and mess that I believe are beneficial to little ones. I am planning on bringing my younger one home once he is more fully bilingual and ready to learn at home. My older one mentioned the other day that her brother will sadly be forced to go to public school (first grade in a few years), because I'll be busy teaching her and have no time to do anything with him. I said maybe she will go to school then and I will teach him and she answered, "Um, no. I'm never going to school." I guess it's first come, first served as far as she is concerned. :-D Another vote for "preschool is fun" from me!

Both our kids have always woken up at the same time (6 or 7 am) no matter when they went to bed, whether 7 pm or 11 pm. She hasn't seemed very sleep deprived so far, which is why I wondered if going to school had just been taking that much out of her before. It could be age-related or even sun-related (the sun is usually still up when they go to sleep, which doesn't seem to bother them, funny enough), but it seems funny it would show up specifically the week she starts staying home! I take her to the park when I can, but we don't have any playgroups right now (hoping to put one together this fall) and we live in the city, so I can't just send her out to the back yard to run around. I'll try to hit the park for longer tomorrow maybe.

This is my six-year-old's first week home full-time. For the past couple of years she has been going to a half-day kindergarten (European, play-based) and her last day there was July 31. Her bedtime seems to have somewhat unexpectedly shifted - she has always needed an early bedtime, often requesting to go to bed when tired, but this week she has been up an hour or two past her usual bedtime more than once, unable to fall asleep. Does anyone have experience with something like this? Am I looking at a change in activity levels and maybe she needs some more exercise at home? Could she have needed more sleep to deal with a second-language (nearly native, but not quite native, I suppose) environment all morning, and now she doesn't need as much rest? Could she be stressed at the life change and unable to express it except by lying in bed awake? Total coincidence? :)

Would it be mean to read/tell your kids the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf? :)

My (almost) first-grader is like that. She just finished (private) kindergarten and is coming home for first grade, but she has been lobbying for MONTHS to drop out of kindergarten and start first grade already. We have been doing some work all along, but she is super incredibly way excited to start officially. I think for some kids it is normal. I'm kind of worried there will be some disenchantment and resistance once the magic wears off, but at least we're starting off happy, right? :)

I attended an American kindergarten of the "letter of the week" variety in the 1980s. I was actually reading by first grade (maybe by kindergarten), but that was by no means expected. My husband went straight into a European first grade with no kindergarten (apparently he refused to go and his parents didn't push it) and learned the alphabet there in first grade with all the other kids. We now live in Europe and send our little ones to a play-based kindergarten/preschool of the type others have described - no academics, plenty of art and play. So we have no direct experience with the US education system in recent years and all our information comes from threads like this, online articles and conversations with friends. I read the opening post to my husband yesterday and he looked at me like WHAT SORT OF COUNTRY DO YOU COME FROM ANYWAY? I have to say sometimes I'm not sure myself. We are homeschooling starting in first grade because we want to, but if it doesn't go well then public school here is always an option. If we move to the US later, it is looking more and more like homeschool will be our only good option. I guess I could look at it as good motivation to make homeschooling work for us :)

My son (2.5) has been a late talker. He is easier (for us) to understand now and uses more complete (still not very grammatical) sentences, but still leaves off consonant sounds or replaces them with other consonants. He has apparently been listening as his sister was learning to read, though, because the boy knows most of his alphabet. He can't say all the sounds, but he knows what they are and 'corrects' you if you say them wrong. As someone mentioned before, I think it is helping / will help him with his own sounds. He can also count and knows his colors and some shapes, if you can understand what he's saying. I'm not going to sit down and teach him to read at this point, but on the whole I will not be at all surprised if he ends up being the earlier reader - and maybe overall the more academically minded - of our children.

Do they do study abroad programs for preschoolers? :)

As someone mentioned above, the multilingual parents are coming in and recommending that you speak your own language to your kids. :) I think it's fine to speak a foreign language with your kids if you speak it well (which you do, although with a noticeable foreign accent you say), as long as you ALSO speak your native language. Especially if it's also your children's native language. It is important that they become comfortable speaking English, yes, but it is also important that they remain comfortable speaking their first language. It's good for their brains. Consider, for example, reading or watching a video in English and then talking about it in the other language. You will cover the topic in both languages and you can be sure that your explanation is appropriate and understandable (as far as your own English goes and also because you say your kids are not totally fluent in English yet). I would also take advantage of any homeschool groups available where you are stationed, because I figure learning a language is best when it comes from native speakers. You can get your husband involved in discussing things with the kids in English, too, provided that he is available and interested. My oldest is at the end of kindergarten, so I'm still figuring things out like you are, but I'm in a roughly inverse situation to yours - native English speaker with fluent but non-native command of the language of the country where we live. Somehow I have to keep these children at a respectable level in both languages. :)