Day with an only

[rebcoola]

So my youngest is 3.5 and next year and will be the only one at home.  So far she has spent her life mostly tag along with her siblings.  

Its been a while since my others where this age. Our days need some structure and I would like to do some light preschool. Heavy on hands/games/manipulatives on and read alouds no workbooks or writing.  

Help me switch my brain back from Algebra and Latin to ABC's and 123's

[HomeAgain]

We did a themed week/month for pre-k.  DS loved it.  I'd get classic stories from the library, some other books to go along with them, and do activities that went with.  We built homes for the 3 pigs out of straws, legos, and sticks, ground wheat in a little spice grinder and made bread for the Little Red Hen, planted a garden and made veggie soup with Peter Rabbit...it was really relaxed. 

I intentionally set up our weeks to be "exploration within defined activity", meaning that there were always options for ds, but everything I presented I had other goals in mind: fine/gross motor development, memory development, exposure to the arts, concentration, pattern recognition...

I know that Before FIAR and others do this, like Wee Folk Art (loved their materials when we used them).  It just took a bit of extra stretching and creating a routine for our own home that helped ds fall in love with all of it and get the skills in that I wanted him to develop.

[hi.im.em]

Some of the Waldorf info on creating a rhythm for the early years is lovely. Seasonal themed crafts, circle times, outdoor time etc.  Melisa Neilson’s podcast/youtube videos are good.  

Montessori practical life activities are awesome if you have the patience.  Watering the plants or folding laundry can take half an hour but they love working alongside you and I like that they give these activities the reverence of a ‘lesson’. Shelling peas, chopping fruit for a smoothie, learning to put their own coat/boots on - that sort of thing.

The montessori nomenclature games are great and resource-light. Just print out and laminate pictures of things in themes and play ‘find all the things that belong in the bathroom, or begin with the letter D, or are red’. Play snap with them. They love learning new vocab at that age. 

Learn a few songs or rhyming poems off by heart. 

For numbers you can do thing like ‘bring me three forks’, ‘How many petals on that flower’. 

More aimed at home-life than Waldorf or Montessori (which is designed for a preschool but can be easily adapted) is Ella Frances Lynch. I think her book is called 5 minute lessons for the under 5’s or something - it’s dated but kind of spells out the obvious and is a nice reminder. 

I love how i sound like I do all these things. Usually i skulk in the corner of the (enclosed) garden reading and hoping she’ll leave me alone. I only do official ‘activities’ if independent play is a non-starter. I do go to stay and play groups though, and the playground, and for a lot of walks. 

Edited June 12, 2022 by hi.im.em
Added more

[hi.im.em]

I’ve always thought that having older siblings around is so beneficial to little ones at home (makes their environment naturally language rich and stimulating). To me it’s a real plus point to homeschooling. Has that been your experience op? I have an only little one at home and I’ve scheduled in stay and play groups and activities just to get us out and about and interacting with others. It gets kind of lonely otherwise. 

[Clarita]

With an only 3.5 year old I think I would just have a weekly routine with things like library story time, play group, type stuff. On our days without those things it would depend on the child. My eldest and my youngest are so different.

I just do "school-time" between about 10 am- noon. Just a little bit of time where we focus a bit more on things being educational. I'll ask a few more questions during play or reading. There's a few (or one) parent directed activity. So much of this is more for me so I don't spend the whole day "testing" my kids.   

With my oldest he did most of his ABC and 123 learning orally. No part of him wanted to a craft or anything "preschooly" thing. So for ABC we started with a lot of phonemic awareness playing "sound games" orally (we never did letters after he figured out initial sounds and letters make words he learned his letters by himself in a week). For math I started with Kate Snow Preschool Math and went into Montessori math sequence. 

With my youngest she does tag along with her brother, but she likes all the crafty "preschooly" stuff. With her I do Hooked on Phonics, which is just like a letter she can trace, match initial sound to letter, rhyming and other phonemic awareness stuff. For math I'm more haphazard with her because I have all the stuff already. She likes paper/crafty work more so I use a lot of counting stickers, dot pens, we play a game snacks with friends and she has to math things to give out food to stuffed animals/paper animals/farm animals (count out, add, divide food evenly, shapes, colors).  She's a little more creative so somedays she's just pulls out a bunch of construction paper and glue and tape projects together. Sometimes I have her describe these to me and I write it out for her.

[rebcoola]

5 hours ago, hi.im.em said:

I’ve always thought that having older siblings around is so beneficial to little ones at home (makes their environment naturally language rich and stimulating). To me it’s a real plus point to homeschooling. Has that been your experience op? I have an only little one at home and I’ve scheduled in stay and play groups and activities just to get us out and about and interacting with others. It gets kind of lonely otherwise. 

Yes it's been lovely having the orlder kids home.  She has good language skills and it's been great for all 3 of them in many ways. It's a big gap and it will be nice to have some time to really do little kid things.

Right now life is very Montessori-ish for her she does cooking and laundry helps with the dogs. But our whole schedule is wrapped around taking the others to their activities and classes and their school time.  Next year oldest will be driving and in school full time and middle will be doing a university model program 3 days a week. 

So it will really be about giving some structure/routine to our days.  

Edited June 12, 2022 by rebcoola

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, rebcoola said:

So it will really be about giving some structure/routine to our days.  

Have you looked at cute little programs like

https://blossomandroot.com/curriculum/ (this one is secular)

https://shopgentleclassical.com/ (religious/protestant) - I did parts of this with my kids I did not do the math or reading portions.

https://plus.pambarnhill.com/product/little-explorers-early-education-program/

I kind of like someone else thinking of little "morning basket" things to do for me. These might be nice to bring a little structure without you having to figure it out. 

[Momof4sweetkids]

Busy Toddlers Playing Preschool is nice. Lots of sensory activities, weekly poem/song, letter of the week, booklist that matches a weekly theme. No workbook, very hands on and all stuff you have around your house.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Momof3sweetgirls

[rebcoola]

12 hours ago, Momof3sweetgirls said:

Busy Toddlers Playing Preschool is nice. Lots of sensory activities, weekly poem/song, letter of the week, booklist that matches a weekly theme. No workbook, very hands on and all stuff you have around your house.

This looks perfect thanks

[Malam]

Playing Preschool, IIRC, teaches things like counting and abcs. If your child already knows this, it might be better to use a more play-based curriculum like "playing skillfully", and then supplement with fun games that may or may not have extrinsic educational value