Homeschool Preschool Pre-K

When my kidlets were 3 and 4 I sent them to a local preschool. I really needed the break from them and they school did all the messy art projects that sent me running for the bottle of Tylenol.

However, once they became phonetically aware I started teaching them to read and did very simple workbook pages with them that I found at Walmart. That is the only formal stuff we did and it took no more than 20 minutes total which a broke up into smaller bites. I know it is tempting to jump in and try to do something formal but try to resist. They can learn a ton just by living right now. The last thing you want is for them to look at school as something to be endured. Asking them to sit and focus for more that 10 minutes or so is, more than likely, too much to ask of them developmentally. Look for the sparkle in their eyes. If it has dimmed... rethink what you are doing and how it is presented.

Just SOAK it in right now.

I started this book when my kidlets became phonetically aware which was at 4 years of age. However, don't be alarmed if your kiddo takes longer to be phonetically aware. Spend your time going to the library each week. Don't pressure yourself to think that you've got to get things moving or you'll be behind before you begin. At this age you've got the luxury of time. Wallow in it!

For our reading lessons with 100 EZ lesson, I'd sit down with them one on one for 20 minutes a day. For my kids, I think that was incentive in and of itself. 20 minutes all alone with mommy? COOL! After they were finished they got to put a sticker on the sticker chart and at lesson 50, 75 and 100 they got a toy as a reward. That was the only formal lesson they had.

In hindsight, I would have used this computer based curriculum that uses the same approach as 100 EZ lessons. It is written by Siegfried Englemann's son and has color animations and other rewards for today's modern kids who are used to video games and cartoons. We used Funnix2 after we finished Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

This book contains themes that can be extended through gross motor, fine motor, music and play activities. It contains a lot of information on how to appeal to different learning styles. It is a wealth of ideas and great fun too. I used it as a launching pad to my activities with my kids.

The other thing to do is focus on your discipline. Are they obedient? Is there something you need to focus on so that they see Mommy as an authority? Take a hard look at their willingness to follow your direction and look for ways to praise them for this first step of preparing to learn. For us, that meant teaching first time obedience. You do it when Mommy asks. Not when Mommy counts to three.

Some fun "school" things to do right now include going to the zoo and having a "tail" day. Just look at tails. Long tails, short tails, furry tails, no tails. There are tons of opportunities to talk about animals and habitats and why certain tails would be useful. On a different day just look at ears or legs or feet.

Go for nature walks and take time to bend down and pull the grass apart to see what critters are down there. Go to the library every other week and let them pick out 2 books. I always reserved some good books online that would be waiting for me behind the counter before we got there. That way I didn't have to worry that we weren't bringing home quality stuff.

I tend to look at homeschooling as pushing a snowball off a hill. I put things in their path for them to trip over and they start rolling with it. Pretty soon they've turned it into a much bigger snowball than I had ever intended. For example, we went to Target and there was a bird feeder on clearance. I decided to get it and it would be a good lesson in "Birds Have Feathers, Not Fur". Instead, they started asking questions about the birds that visited our feeder. What were their names?

So I got a field guide of birds. Then they wanted to know if that was a momma bird or a daddy bird. Then they wanted to know where it liked to spend the winter and where it liked to spend its summer. Pretty soon, we had maps up in the dining room that overlooked our tricked out birdie observation area complete with binoculars!

What they really enjoyed doing was keeping track of which birds visited our feeder each day. I made a bird log that I kept by the window and they would fill this out daily. It gave them a sense of accomplishment when they identified a bird and soon they were teaching the grown ups in their lives about birds. I've posted our bird log. Feel free to use it! Oh, and get a suet feeder AND a seed feeder. The woodpeckers are incredibly impressive and much easier to identify the boys from the girls.

I adore the preschool years. They are enchanted by the world and can finally communicate enough to let you in on depth of the the magic they see. Some of you are flirting with the idea of homeschooling right now and others were determined to journey down this road from birth. I needed encouragement to take on this challenge by reading everything I could find on learning styles and approaches to home education.

I recommend spending the preschool time researching. Read everything you can and see what approach to homeschooling appeals to your family. There are a myriad of choices and one will click with you. Then throw yourself into it and start stalking your librarian. Get books about teaching and learning styles. Hang out in homeschooling message boards and ask every question that comes to mind.