Category: K4

Preschool Curriculum for Homeschool: a plan for playful learning

Tracy

Preschool Curriculum | homeschool preschool

It feels as though my Littlest should still be pulling tupperware out of my kitchen cabinets and beating on pots and pans while the olders do school. (Although I’m not entirely sure he won’t be doing exactly that. Ahem.) But the baby of the family is feeling the urge to grow up. He’s begging to do school with his brother and sister, wanting his own lessons and supplies, and pretending to read whenever he can. I’ve let him set the pace and started with some preschool activities.

Still, this year will be focused mostly on playful learning, putting learning in front of him in a lot of different forms of play and seeing how motivated he is. My preschool learning goals for him are very fluid: learn to count and recognize numbers as high as he can; learn the alphabet and sounds; love to learn!

So my preschool plans and resources come with this disclaimer: we may or may not use everything and/or finish our books. And I’m okay with that. When he’s ready, he will take off. But right now, he needs to play. And I’m always so surprised by what a preschooler can learn when you least expect it. They are “ninja” learners. 

Our pace for preschool is very relaxed; we get out the activities when he asks to do them. Usually, he chooses at least one activity everyday, and we get through all of our preschool lessons about 2-3 days out of the week, which is plenty! I’m not planning on starting the Foundations textbook until January, and even then, I’m taking it very slowly. Whatever we have left, we will finish next year along with the level B book for kindergarten.

I really do love this stage, where “school” is playful and fun and creative and colorful. I’ll miss these days. I may just have to pre-homeschool someone else’s kid when mine have outgrown all this. I’ll need the excuse to keep playing with counting bears.

Up Hill Battles

Tracy

We’ve been struggling through long vowels with Middlest over the last several weeks. It’s a battle I remember having with Oldest, too, the mental struggle to separate short vowel words from long vowel words. Except Oldest was extremely motivated to learn to read, and Middlest? Middlest likes to play and to be fast.

After several teary lessons, I drew her a picture on our whiteboard, a colorful picture of a little girl at the bottom of a big hill. I explained, as I was drawing, that sometimes in life and in learning we have to go up big hills, like the hill in front of our house. It’s hard work. And sometimes, we have to take breaks. Sometimes, we have to look for other ways to get up the hill. We might have to get off our bicycle and push our way up the hill. But one thing we never do is give up and decide not to go up the hill at all.

Then, I went “back to the drawing board” (or rather, Google and pinterest) to look for new and different ways to teach her this concept. I also called my mom, who is an ever-present wealth of homeschool know-how. We pooled ideas, and I had an inkling of what I needed for Middlest.

I made up a few worksheets from the words in her reader that were giving her trouble. I also made up a few games from resources I’d found on the internet.

Long Vowel practice

 

Marking and reading her words (without pictures, so she can't guess)
Marking and reading her words (without pictures, so she can’t guess)

By the end of the week, she was making some progress. And by the next week, she was reading her story to Daddy and clipping along through her game, even after I added new cards. But I knew that we really had made some significant progress, when I saw a picture she was drawing at the end of that week.

Look who made it to the top of the hill!
Look who made it to the top of the hill!

It brought me to tears, folks. Those up-hill battles are totally worth it.

 

Core Tour: Keeping K4 Busy

Tracy

This is post 2 of my short tour through our core subjects, what I’m using for phonics, reading, and math for my first grader and my preschooler.

Most of this year has been, in a way, free for Middlest. She has been using a great deal of Oldest’s left over pages from both K4 and the beginning review in K5. But she has absolutely flown through the material, which left me in a bit of a straight. Should I purchase new material and move her into kindergarten or push through this year with free pages I could find and print off the internet? We chose the free option.

So, my two primary sources of free work pages has been here and here. I’ve also made a few of my own when we’ve needed them and scoured both pinterest and the internet for other resources. Phew! It’s a lot of work and a lot of time, but it can be done. K4 has been virtually free of charge!

cuisenaire rods

For phonics she worked through left-over pages in A Beka’s ABC-123 book and Letters and Sounds K5 (review pages). Now, she is working whatever I can find from the internet. Right now, we are working on long vowels in two-vowel words, silent e and silent second letters. I’ve googled both long vowels and silent e for activities and found quite a few resources. We’ve also used the little A Beka K4 readers.

For math, she used the left-over ABC-123 pages for this, too. Then whatever I could scour off the internet. I either look up kindergarten math (much of which she is ready for) or will search for particular concepts (time, pennies, beginning addition). For our time together, we count to 100, sing skip-counting songs that I’ve downloaded on iTunes, go through some flashcards, and maybe review a concept or two with clocks or money, etc.

Her day is not long at all. I probably keep her busy with handwriting (again, left-overs from K5 and even 1st grade manuscript books) and other worksheets for about 30 min. Then, we spend another 30 minutes together (15 min. for phonics and reading, 15 min. for math). She is my flighty little butterfly, and it’s really all she needs and all she is ready for right now. The rest of the time, she plays while I work with Oldest. She uses the ZooWhiz subscription that we got for free as a review product, or she plays at one of the activities I have pre-approved for her. She listens in on Oldest’s stories and lessons; she cuddles up for our Tapestry reading; and she memorizes our Scripture as well as quite a few of the history and science facts right along with Oldest.

Now, I’m really desperate to know—how do you keep your kindergarten-ready preschooler busy? Where do you go for free resources?

Activity Stix: a pinterest inspiration

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I’ve been perusing Pinterest lately, and collecting some really great ideas. These activity sticks were one fantastic idea from Keep Calm and Teach On.

 

Source: keepcalmandteachon.blogspot.com via Tracy on Pinterest

 To make my own, I made a list of all the activities that I had for Middlest to do—play do, lacing cards, threading beads, scissor skills, even playing with Littlest. Then, I pulled out my colorful popsicle sticks and my sharpie. I wrote the activities on each popsicle stick. Then, I took three plain sticks (in other words, the original kind without all the bright color) and wrote “activity stix” on them. (I know, I’m confusing the child’s spelling. But she can’t read yet, and it looked so much more exciting!) I’ll use the plain ones for her workbox pockets.

The idea is that she can trade in her plain stick for an activity, up to three each day. She’ll hand the colored stick to me, and at the end of the week, I’ll add them all back into the jar. That way, she won’t be repeating the activities throughout the week.

It’s a fantastic idea to add an element of surprise to the day without a lot of extra effort on my part.

Want to see more ideas I’ve been collecting? Follow me on Pinterest!