RainbowSprinkles Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 My just turned 3 year old DS cannot wait to do "schoolwork". I'm not worried about it, but was thinking it'd be nice for for him to have something of his own that he does with me when we start our new school year. I saw that Confessions of a Homeschooler has a program for 3-4 year olds. Has anyone here used it? How did you like it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anmom Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I love her materials! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teeniebeenie6 Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 If you search on her site you can download much of what is in her program for free. I bought the K4 cause I wanted to support her but enjoyed looking at what her curriculum looked like on her site. I haven't started it yet but plan on soon with my 3 and 4 year olds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moxie Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I used it last year for my pre-k student. It is a lot of work to put together (printing, cutting, etc.). It was worthwhile for me because I have at least two more pre-k students coming up. My son liked it. I give it two thumbs up just be ready to do the prep work over the summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tuckabella Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I used it last year for my pre-k student. It is a lot of work to put together (printing, cutting, etc.). It was worthwhile for me because I have at least two more pre-k students coming up. My son liked it. I give it two thumbs up just be ready to do the prep work over the summer. I agree. Totally enjoyed by my DD. I have at least one more that needs to go through it, so it was def worth the work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeganW Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I absolutely loved it for about 2 weeks. I hated the work but the kids still loved it and got a lot out of it for about 2 more weeks. I had burned out and bought a pre-packaged program by week 5. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mergath Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I've never used it, but from looking at the sample week, there's no way I'd consider that unless I had a good color laser printer. I can't even imagine how much it would cost to print all that out with an inkjet printer. And then you have to laminate so many things, too... :eek: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teeniebeenie6 Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I've never used it, but from looking at the sample week, there's no way I'd consider that unless I had a good color laser printer. I can't even imagine how much it would cost to print all that out with an inkjet printer. And then you have to laminate so many things, too... :eek: I print draft quality and it looks fine. I also plan on using page protectors with dry eraser markers for much of it rather then laminating. Some I will laminate such as flash cards. We also have some great Crayola dry eraser stations that we can slip worksheets in and write on the plastic top. Saves us so much. Laminating costs add up fast! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aspasia Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 My daughter liked the weeks that we did use it. I think it's really cute but there were a couple things I didn't love. First, the level of difficulty never seemed to increase--it was just the same activities week after week, with only the letter changing. Second, SO MUCH INK! I think cutesy is...well, cutesy. But honestly, rainbow borders around several pages and a lot of unnecessary extras make a lot of her materials sort of unusable for me, simply because I don't want to pay for the ink to print them. I always found myself wishing she would eliminate some of those ink-heavy extras and just leave the stuff that mattered. It was still super cute all by itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moxie Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I think I probably spent $75 in ink with my super cheap printer. Lots of things got printed in b&w, especially if it was a one-time use thing (anything he wrote on or poked a pin into). I didn't print everything, just what I thought was educational. It was so cheap to buy, I figured that pre-k for a year for under $100 was worth it. Plus, like I said before, I'll use it more then once. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teeniebeenie6 Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 If you decide to do use her program, the blogger 1+1+1=1 has a free tot program that compliments Confessions program. I plan on doing a mix of both. http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2011/03/tot-school-printables.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrsKriknav Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I'm using her Letter of the Week and her K-4 curriculum right now. I agree, it is a lot of work to prepare everything, but if you do it over the summer and organize it, everything should flow quite well! I have at least 2 more children that will be using it so it's definitely worth it for me! Also, we have a black laser and a color laser printer...so this helped out quite a bit with all of the printing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slavila Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 We used it for about 3-4 weeks and then I just couldn't keep up with all the prep work (I have 6 kiddos)!! Lots of printing, cutting, laminating. And it's just the same activities over and over again!! Now I'm doing a mix of HOD - Little Hands to Heaven, A to Z Toddler and Preschool Curriculum, Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum by Brightly Beaming Resources, Read to Me & ABC (using her craft, and Let's Make a Memory ideas). This isn't along the letter a week theme, but this book has some great ideas to go along with story books. Not sure if it's in print anymore, but you could get a used copy from ebay or amazon. Picture Book Activities: Fun and Games for Preschoolers Based on 50 Favorite Children's Books by Trish Kuffner HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicA Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I am using Letter of the Week with my ds3, and he loves it! It does take some time to get everything printed and organized, but it has been worth it. We are on letter t this week, and I am kind of sad that it will be finished soon. There are a lot of activities every week, so I mix them up and add in some other things as well so it doesn't get monotonous. I have a color ink jet printer, but I don't feel like my ink spending has gone up that much at all. I also don't laminate most of it since he is my last preschooler, but I definitely would if I had another child who was going to use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eloquacious Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 My daughter liked the weeks that we did use it. I think it's really cute but there were a couple things I didn't love. First, the level of difficulty never seemed to increase--it was just the same activities week after week, with only the letter changing. Second, SO MUCH INK! I think cutesy is...well, cutesy. But honestly, rainbow borders around several pages and a lot of unnecessary extras make a lot of her materials sort of unusable for me, simply because I don't want to pay for the ink to print them. I always found myself wishing she would eliminate some of those ink-heavy extras and just leave the stuff that mattered. It was still super cute all by itself. Yes, THIS. I printed most of it in grayscale anyway, but I remember thinking how much I wished that there were graphics tailored for b+w printing. Then my son could color it ... or, who am I kidding, I could color it. ;) ETA: I think the difficulty level never changing is what got me in the end. There is only so many times you can do the same activities before burning out. A similar thing happened to me with the Raising Rock Stars Preschool program, though we're going to go back and start it again, only using the verses and none of the handwriting/activities pages. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicA Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I agree that the borders are kind of annoying! In Acrobat you can just choose the area that you want to print, so I never printed anything with the borders. Maybe that is why the ink didn't seem like a problem for me. I also agree it would be nice if the level of difficulty increased as the program progressed. When my ds3 started with letter A, I only chose a few of the easier items and then started adding different things every couple of weeks. Now I have added in some of the K4 pages as well, so the level of difficulty has increased since the beginning but it did take extra time to go look for more on her website. If you buy the program, there is a review section as well that has a bunch of good stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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