Homeschool Preschool

We had gone back and forth for several months trying to decide if/when we should enroll our daughter (3 yrs) in preschool.  One night while I was at work I was talking with a coworker about it and, while encouraging me to do what I thought was best, she told me of a time her mother had told her that children should be home with their moms, not in preschool.  It really struck a chord with me as I thought back to my own childhood.  I was never enrolled in a day of preschool and I learned so much about day to day life from my mom, particularly in my early years.

Now I won't get all preachy--especially considering that there are a lot of moms out there who do enroll their kids in preschool early and have great success at it (and we've already tentatively decided to do the same immediately before she goes to Kindergarten just to adjust her to the situation)--but it has been so nice having her home.  I haven't regretted our decision at all.

Obviously I feel like this puts a greater responsibility on her parents to teach her not only the ins and outs of life but also her ABCs and 123s.  I started doing homeschool preschool awhile ago (I blogged about it here or on my personal blog...I can't remember.)  But I thought I would share what I've done.

Basically, every week we choose a theme, find books at the library to go with that theme, a few new vocabulary words, a poem and song or two, and an art and science project to solidify the theme (science is my favorite part!)  We also learn a color, shape, number, and capital/lower case letter.

I made a poster that I found at this website to present all of the things she's learned through the week.  My daughter also loves to draw so I hung a clothesline for her drawings and school "assignments."

Here is how it looks at the end of the week.  Each unit has a different theme (I get most of my ideas here.)  This particular week was around Mother's Day and I chose a theme based on mothers.  (In this case we didn't have a rhyme that week so the color went on the purple square.  My OCD daughter can't have blank spaces.)

Here are some closeups of her work for the week.  These were 6 months ago.  She is freakishly good at drawing stick figure people and animals now.  I mentioned my mom is an artist.  I'm guessing those genes skipped a generation because, while I love arts and crafts and sewing and the like, I suck at drawing  people and animals. 

We took this hectic summer off and focused on worksheets from a preschool workbook.  I started up again the first week of traditional school for our area.  I started over at the letter A, choosing Airplanes for the theme (which was timely since her daddy was flying on an airplane that week for work), the number 0, etc.  The next week was the letter B for Birds, the number 1, etc.

I used to choose themes based on seasons, holidays, and events.  Now, it is a little easier to prepare with a systematic approach.  Plus, it is a whole lot easier to find books at the library about "eggs" while the whole community is scrambling for books about Halloween.

Each unit takes 2 weeks.  We aren't home every day and I don't generally do school on days that she has dance, toddler time, and church.  My work schedule has me home  through early afternoon so we usually have plenty of time to get ready for the day and do school as well.  It is especially nice having that mommy/daughter time on the days I have to go to work.

So there you have it.  She is having a lot of fun learning and I am having a lot of fun teaching her.   Plus, I'd like to think that I've done a little bit to help her to prepare for her academic future.