We have been busy. And yes, I know everyone is busy. But we have been especially busy with Hanes Academy. As previously stated, we still have not made a decision on whether or not we plan to homeschool our girls forever. But we have always known we wanted to do preschool at home...and boy have we been working hard.
My Adelaide is 3, turning 4 in October and has already mastered more than half on the requirements for EXITING kindergarten. We are currently debating whether or not to put her in preschool next year, because we fear she might actually be bored. Posted below I have included the two photos I snagged off Pinterest as a guide to what we needed to be learning:
The first being goals for entering kindergarten and the second being the goals they should master before the 1st grade. From the first, we have mastered everything except: address, phone number, and read a book with mom or dad. However, I am kind of confused myself on the explanation of the last. We read. We read A LOT. Sometimes several hours a day. But maybe they mean the child reading without mom and dad helping? Maybe YOU have a better understanding; let me know. She knows a small amount of sight words and knows the sounds for all her letters, but has not mastered putting them together to sound out words. From the first, we have mastered all except: vowels (currently working on), CVC words, reading all sight words, segment words, counting by 10's (also working on).
Here some of the things we have been working on over the past 4 months:
Weather, days of the week, patterns, living/nonliving, months of the year, geography, personal information, the five senses, direction/positional concepts, counting to 100, simple addition and subtraction, writing letters and numbers, scissor skills, rhyming, reviewing letter sounds, opposites and more.
Most if not all of the tools/equipment/etc. I use are from Pinterest. I have a few things I have purchased, but mostly we use worksheets printed from sites found through Pinterest.
Here are some photos of what we use:
Don't judge my horrible photography "skills." I have no concept of light, exposure, etc.
Teaching preschool at home does not have to be a hassle or inconvenience. I have actually found recently that I enjoy it much more now that we have a designated room for school. The girls' demeanor changes when we enter that room. They become focused, attentive and dare I say, behaved. They know mama means busy when we do "school." Additionally, it takes up an hour (sometimes two or three hours) of the day...and that's a good thing. As a stay-at-home mom, sometimes I would struggle trying to find things to occupy all the hours so that no one gets bored and time moves a little more quickly (i.e. until dad comes home and can take over the chaos). School has definitely helped with that.
Thus far, we use the classroom first thing in the morning, which honestly surprised me. But it has worked well. Sometimes before anyone has even brushed their teeth, we are in there learning or creating. Then in the afternoon while my youngest sleeps, Adelaide and I use the room for at least an hour, sometimes two. Once Blair wakes up, she joins for school for 30-45 minutes. Adelaide is usually done by this time which works great. She works on her own or does crafts while I can focus on Blair. The schedule aspect was something I intentionally did not push in the beginning because I did not want the rebellion. I have allowed them to use the classroom whenever they see fit and that actually allowed us to not only enjoy it more, but to also "push" us into a more organic schedule of our own.
Blair mostly works on letter and number recognition, colors, shapes, counting and a few other small areas of learning. We also do a small amount of bible study. I encourage use of PlayDoh, Legos, ABC Mouse (online learning source that we have used with Addy for about 18 months and just recently started using with Blair; we LOVE it) and as always, the Teach My Baby (Toddler, Preschooler) kits.
What kind of preschool tools have you tried? Any teachers of elementary grades have any tips or preferences for what your entering students should be proficient in?
