What to do for preschool?

[snipsnsnailsx5]

The thought scares me. That may seem silly, but you have to understand that my oldest three boys have gone to kindergarten at a public school and someone else taught them the basics and how to read. I have my 1st grader homeschooled now as of this fall, but he's already gotten a lot of the basics at public school last year....

 

So now I have my next youngest coming up to kindergarten age soon (he's only 3.5 now) and I'm faced with trying to figure out what's the best way to teach him the basics, like colors, numbers, ABC's, and beginning reading lessons. I was taught to read when I was 3 yrs old, and my oldest son was taught in daycare to read at 4 yrs old (he ended up started kindergarten, 5 yrs old, reading at a second grade level lol...everyone praised me, but I kept saying that I didn't do anything! He just really grew with the little instruction he got in daycare on his own and took it from there).

 

I have some preschool workbooks but I'm not sure what/where/how to start?!

 

Thanks!

[mommy4ever]

Lots of PLAY!

 

OPGTR would be a gentle start to reading, moving at whatever pace you need. But I wouldn't worry too much about that :) Carol's Affordable Curriculum could layout a year of preschool easily and include all the crafts you need to keep it fun for that age.

 

Little unit studies on something that interests. Dinosaur non-fiction books, paired with stories about dinosaurs, playmobil dinosaurs, coloring pages, cookie cutters (for cookies and playdough), themed worksheets. If his interest were dinosaurs.

 

Or monthly themes like a preschool would do. There is so much fun stuff you could do with them!

[sagira]

Letter of the Week is a nice curriculum for the pre-K set. My dd (3) is currently doing the following:

 

1 letter a week (last week was A)

1 number a week (last week was 1)

1 activity a week of Preschoolers' Busy Book

One short reading lesson in my native language (not English)

Beginning Spanish lessons with Muzzy and with ds

At least 1 coloring page a day

Read aloud every day

1 poem a week

Singing lessons (this week I taught her Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

Beginning piano

Once a week, story time and craft at the library (didn't make it last week - don't know if we'll stick with that).

Art lesson with Daddy once a week

 

Plenty of time for play, drawing, helping out, cooking, baking, outdoors. She also goes to ballet twice a week.

[jewel7123]

http://www.bright-beginnings.net/

 

Also, the LeapFrog DVDs are awesome for teaching the letters and their sounds!

[MissKNG]

Carol's Affordable Curriculum

[m0mmaBuck]

DD and DS do Bible together (short reading. a related-coloring sheet, and memorizing a short verse). She usually chooses to listen to the SOTW reading and related books, does the coloring pages, and helps with whatever activity we use. While she is free to play, she often chooses to work at the table. She colors, works on letters, numbers, cutting, and other crafts.

 

Some of the choices she has available to her:

www.starfall.com

The Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD

Schoolhouse Rocks DVD

Dry erase letter, number and maze workbooks

Kumon coloring, cutting and maze workbooks

CLE/R&S Kindergarten level workbooks (as she did the preschool ones last year and over the summer)

Coloring, cutting, crafts

Lots and lots of books-- I use many off the Sonlight reading list

[MusicMama]

Donnayoung.org has great stuff for getting organized, and worksheets for pre writing that I love. enchanted learning.com, starfall.com is great for learning abc's and first-school.ws has great worksheets for preschool. We do 20 minutes in the morning, a tracing page, OPGTR for learning vowels and letters, simple number games using construction paper, paper plates and a marker. Some bible memory and read a science or history book for the week. I'll through in a craft that goes along with the science/history or bible memory. Hth!

[Tidbits of Learning]

A fun, inexpensive curriculum for k3 is Landmark Freedom Baptist Curriculum. It is a lot of coloring pages and guided instruction for the teacher in the teacher's guide. It is written for a classroom but it is easy to adapt and does not take that long with a child of 3 or 4.

I am using it with our preschool co-op this year as well. It really is fun and not stressful. Your child will learn the letters (capital and lowercase), numbers to 20, colors, shapes, and it has little excerpts on manners and health.

Pennywise learning sales it for a good price with free shipping. For your child's age, I think it would be perfect.

[Mert]

Here are a couple blogs that gave me great hands on learning ideas...

 

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TotTrays.html

 

http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2010/07/letter-of-week-curriculum.html

 

http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/2009/05/preschool-corner-favorite-preschool.html

[MamaHappy]

Another vote for Carol's Affordable Curriculum. Awesome, awesome program. So much fun for the kiddos and barely any work for mom. :) It's not a highly academic program however, so if you're wanting to get him started on reading, you would probably want to supplement.

[Amy Jo]

I'm using this: http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/bible_and_rhyme.html for my 4 year old, and we are doing Five in a Row (for my 4 & 6 year olds - even though I know my 8 year old will listen). It's ABCs, numbers/colors/sorting, etc.

 

Amy

[Joyofsixreboot]

Lots of play of course. I think all my kids have figured out shapes/colors/letters just from hanging out. It's normal mom talk to kids (Get me the red spoon., etc). I have begun using the ideas from weefolkart http://weefolkart.com/content/harvest-time-week-one-tops-and-bottoms My dd just turned 3 so some of it is over her head but it's fun. I really don't worry about 'academics' until K or later here. Playing and hearing stories are our favorite ways to learn.

Edited September 12, 2010 by joyofsix

[Guest]

My boy is 19 months but he has stared earlier than his brother learning his letters and numbers (Adrian started just after turning two) so I will be starting a program I am putting together on my own for him using the following resources:

 

Pam Schiller books

Totline books

VanCleave books (her Play and Find Out series)

 

I will be making some worksheet type stuff for him too but that will be mostly so that he can feel that he is doing what his brother is, since it is so important to him. Other than that what I am setting up for him will be totally theme and play :D based and I plan to follow this until he is at least three but of course it all depends on him and what he wants to learn also. The books, I got from the library for the most part but I have purchased one of Pam Schiller's books. This one:

 

The Complete Book of Activities, Games, Stories, Props, Recipes, and Dances: For Young Children

 

and this Totline book:

Toddler Theme-a-Saurus

 

and a couple of the VanCleave for my oldest, but you can check them out from the library for ideas :).

 

ETA: and lots of RA's :D

Edited September 13, 2010 by Guest

[lea1]

I am doing OPGTR with my two four-year-old sons. We do it 2 or 3 times a week and they also spend time reading their little practice readers to me at different times. We also work on learning to write letters a couple of times a week and we do Bible readings and devotions.

 

We spend a lot of time reading. We just finished Little House in the Big Woods and James and the Giant Peach and we are in the middle of Little House on the Prairie and Dr. Dolittle. I try to keep one to three chapter books going, we always have one going in the car and then we also have time when we just read whatever happens to catch their attention.

 

Both of my sons are almost five. I thought this would be the year when we started a structured daily school time but it has not worked out that way. It seems to be working though and we are all enjoying it so I guess that is a good thing.

[Tracy]

After getting some experience under my belt with my 5yo, I think I know better what to do when my now 2yo is ready. For a formal curriculum, we will do only Before FIAR. And we will also do some of the reading preparedness activities from SWR to learn the phonograms. (I wish I knew about both of these when my oldest was pre-school age.) We will do lots of other informal stuff, but that is all I plan for preschool.

[Guest]

For reading, in preschool, I used HOP with Adrian just after he turned 4, and will be using the same with Malcolm when he is ready. I love how the program progresses in difficulty, rather than introducing all the sounds all at once like some programs do, introducing short sounds with long sound and hard sounds with soft sounds. While introducing all the sounds I find, would probably be ideal for an older child, a young reader I believe would quickly get frustrated and bored. The young ones want to feel like they are reading now, not months from now, and that was what HOP did for us. I also like that it works for all different learning styles, incorporating audio with visual and tactile materials. It worked well for Adrian and I am comfortable using it to start reading instruction with Malcolm too. I also find it more fun for the kids, incorporating games etc. for practice, rather than dry scripted instruction. But that's just me ;).

Edited September 13, 2010 by Guest

[MeganW]

I cannot say enough good things about The Learning Box Preschool. Covers everything academic (letters, shapes, colors, beginning handwriting, etc.), PLUS the best part - the crafts!!! Everything comes in the box. If you need 4 Cheerios, they are in a baggie. If you need a 2x4" square of tin foil, it's in there. Yarn? You guessed it - it's in there! There is one baggie for each day, and everything you need for that day is in the baggie. So you open the curriculum guide to the date, open the baggie, and go!

[mom2denj]

I am using HOP. Lots of workbooks because she loves them. Here are some of the workbooks we use:

 

Explode the Code(Book A)

Can you find me? (Critical thinking company)

Singapore Earlybird Math 1A

Mathematical Reasoning Beginning 2 (The critical thinking company) Love this one!!

Rod and Staff Prescool workbooks,

HWT K

Lots and lots of reading!!!!

 

Sounds like a lot, but we do a page here and there and she loves, loves, loves workbooks!

We do a lot of crafts.

[In2why]

I am not in favor of using a curriculum with my little guy. He just turned 4 and we are learning letters and sounds together and recognizing numbers. Other than that we are just playing, and he joins our 7y/o for history and science when he wants.

 

We use Get ready for the code to teach his his letters and sounds, and Walmart workbooks so that he can recognize and write his letters. He also gets to cut, paste and color a lot.

 

Perhaps if he was an accelerated learner I would look into more options, but I am not into lots of early tasks for preschool. He is thriving.

[DragonflyAcademy]

I have gotten some great ideas from No Time for Flash Cards http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/

[Guest]

I have gotten some great ideas from No Time for Flash Cards http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/

 

Cute crafts! Thanks for the link :)!