Preschool at home

Right now we are in our 5th week of doing preschool at home, so I thought I would share a bit of our experience. With my background in education, I believe that it is so important for little kids to start learning early. Their tiny minds are made to be like sponges, soaking up information and making connections all the time. I get asked fairly frequently when Eva will "start school," meaning when she will actually go to school. Honestly, I'm not sure. For now I want her at home with me and I feel like I can do a good job of teaching her. Also preschool programs aren't free so that makes a big difference for us. I know there are tons of fabulous programs in our area and sometimes I'm torn because I know she would love the social side of "going to school." Right now our plan is for me to home school her for most of preschool, possibly send her to pre-k a couple of days a week the year before kindergarten (she still has 3 more years) and then have her go to public school for kindergarten. But, who knows? I really want to just take things year by year, considering how she is doing, what she needs, and what our family life looks like.

For this year I looked at a few curriculums and decided to go with ABC Jesus Loves Me. I like this curriculum because it includes Bible stories, music, art, lots of literacy activities, number concepts, and ideas for gross and fine motor skills. You can find everything on their website for free, so if you're looking to sample some ideas I would really recommend it. I chose to order the printed version because last year I always took time to print off things and put them in a binder anyway. Plus the printed version includes a layout for what to do each day and I like that to help me organize our days. You do not need a curriculum to work with your child at home, especially now that there are so many great ideas on the internet, but it really helps me to focus on specific skills and have an idea of what to do each week.

The content doesn't have tons of science, so I plan on using pinterest to find activities that would be interesting for Eva. She also is really into helping me in the kitchen, so I am hoping to cook with her at least once a week. Cooking together is good for teaching listening, following directions, measuring, and observation - plus it ends with a yummy snack!

We do school for a couple of hours a day (spread out into a couple of chunks) 2 or 3 days a week depending on what our schedule looks like. The curriculum we're using has built in weeks for review, which is nice because you can go back and reinforce concepts. We start our school days by doing "calendar time" together on our refrigerator. I decided to do this since it is what most schools do, and it helps her get into "school mode" I also have a pocket chart on our refrigerator where I put cards that list each of our activities for the day like Bible, letters, numbers, art, etc. Eva really likes to see what we are going to be doing and will go back during the day and say, "Let me look at my schedule, Mama," to see what we still have left to do. She cracks me up.

If you're thinking about doing preschool at home with your child, here are my thoughts on what is most important. Play time. Hello, she is three years old. Her days should be full of play. Children learn so much through play time! Reading. Fill those little minds up with books. On school days I try to spend at least 30 minutes reading (spread out through the day) but even on days that we are just living life, we read a lot. Learning to be helpful. Not only do I want her to be educated, I want her to have age appropriate life skills. Lucky for me, Eva will shadow me all day long and ask to help me. So I put her to work! She is helpful in the kitchen and probably has more laundry skills than some college freshman. She's learning how to put things away and keep a house clean. When the baby comes in February I fully plan on using Eva to help me out, I might as well start training her now!

Which leads me to the one thing I'm most nervous about...doing home school with a newborn in the house. It is much easier now when I can focus on Eva and the house. My mind explodes a little bit when I think about adding caring for a baby into our schedule. But I know that mamas have managed multiple children for a long, long time. I remind myself that I don't have to be able to fully plan and picture how things will work. We will get there when we get there. Eva will be learning. Eva will be loved. Life will change but that will be okay.

And what am I most excited about for this year? To see Eva learning! Can you tell where she was trying to write the letters in her name???? The long lines with lines across are her "E's", the up and down diagonal lines are her "v's" and the circles with the line next to it are her "a's". I thought that was so awesome for a kid that just turned 3! Already she has been learning more letter sounds and her number recognition and counting have improved so much. The other day we were drawing letters in shaving cream and she was wanting to draw lots of letters and even a few numbers! Her ability to cut with scissors has improved so much over the past month and she holds her pencils and crayons with a more standard grip. It's so cool! Most importantly, I love seeing that Eva LOVES to learn! I want her to see working on school together as something she "gets to do" instead of "has to do." Ooh, I am so excited for this year!