Looking for preschool recommendations

[Rnejic]

*

[jenfl]

I have a 2.5 year old and we're "homeschooling". Right now it mostly just involves letting her play imaginatively a lot and enlisting her help around the house. We answer any questions she has about the world and try to tie things together and elaborate if we think she'll understand.

If she likes bats today, we talk about where they live and what they eat. She pretends to be a bat, and we help her out with terminology (batlings, guano). We'll get bat books out of the library. And tomorrow, we know, it'll be something new.

DH takes her for hikes and helps her explore the outdoors. They watch for the frogs that live around the house and help turtles cross the street.

We go to weekly storytimes at the library and listen to stories and do crafts.

We count everything we can see when she's interested, and drop it when she gets bored.

The most formal thing we do is letters, when she requests to "do school". We learn one letter sound at a time, writing the letter on the easel and drawing pictures of things that start with that sound. Then we go over the letter on starfall.com.

We play the "begins with" game whenever it occurs to us.

She does occasional worksheets, mostly things to refine her fine motor skills (drawing lines between matching items).

We do any seasonal crafts that I get an idea for. And LOTS of stickers. We "write letters" to family that lives far away.

Mostly, we just try to take it easy and follow her lead. At 2.5, she's not ready to sit and concentrate on anything, and trying to make her do something or learn something she's not interested in is just going to backfire. I've got all sorts of plans for starting her on Montessori-style homeschooling, but I've put that on the back burner for now. Right now, we're keeping it light.

[LuxPerpetua]

At this age I think it's best just to do lots of fun things at home. There are some books called Wonderplay that we got through our library that have some fun and easy ideas. I like to focus on the seasons so we decorate for the seasons, cook seasonal food, read seasonal books, do seasonal crafts.

LillianJ has some good ideas on her website: http://www.besthomeschooling.org/art..._ps_kdgtn.html

We use Seasons of Joy http://www.naturalfamily.50megs.com/ and really like it. It has stories, crafts, poems, etc.

Also there are some seasonal books from Wynestones Press that are similar: http://www.novanatural.com/creativit...e=21%2C30%2C73

We are Waldorf so we emphasize learning through play and living, a whole body experience. My dd is nearly 4 but I'm pretty sure at 2.5 we dug in dirt a lot, washed her animal collection with soap and water, did fingerpainting and playdough, cooked/baked together, and just did lots of imaginative play.

[onyxravnos]

i totally recommend littleacornlearning.com a 2 year old can do almost all of the activities and you can reuse it next year. It is nothing formal. very waldorf - ish. but gives you one thing a day for 'school' I use it as my base curriculum and from there you can just add one or two 'school' things for each day. Board games, block play, sand play, etc.

it lets you get your feet wet, makes you feel like you are doing something, but doesn't put pressure on your toddler/preschooler.

they have two sample weeks on their website so you can get an idea of what it's about.

[pigpokey]

It's beneficial to start a foreign language with a native speaker at this age; also music and movement (balancing, using a two wheeled scooter, swimming, gymnastics free play). Other than that, you could do something like Your Baby Can Read, but we didn't.

[KinderKim]

Originally Posted by onyxravnos

i totally recommend littleacornlearning.com a 2 year old can do almost all of the activities and you can reuse it next year. It is nothing formal. very waldorf - ish. but gives you one thing a day for 'school' I use it as my base curriculum and from there you can just add one or two 'school' things for each day. Board games, block play, sand play, etc.

it lets you get your feet wet, makes you feel like you are doing something, but doesn't put pressure on your toddler/preschooler.

they have two sample weeks on their website so you can get an idea of what it's about.

I really liked this curriculum. It is so laid back. There is no focus on academics but the children can learn so much. Thanks for posting this!

[greenthumb3]

I used this article as a guide for me when my oldest was 2 and I was thinking ahead to preschool-at-home, and really just thinking, in general, what we'd do together all day and what it might look like.

http://www.universalpreschool.com/ar...l_pressure.asp

I recall wondering if I was going to need to have a special skill set or curriculum in order to ensure he wasn't "missing" anything his peers in formal settings were getting. I soon discovered that I didn't need anything "special" or extra, and he did just fine--he's 7 now and sharp as a tack ; in fact, I found he received an excellent start to learning with most of the simple things we did together. I advocate the natural, child-led/Mom-inspired approach, especially for the younger years. It really does work.

[Lillian J]

Originally Posted by greenthumb3

I used this article as a guide for me when my oldest was 2 and I was thinking ahead to preschool-at-home, and really just thinking, in general, what we'd do together all day and what it might look like.

http://www.universalpreschool.com/ar...l_pressure.asp

There's another good one that article linked to, but the link was broken. Here it is - Preschool Homeschooling, by Bev Krueger, publisher of Eclectic Homeschool Online. - Lillian

[annettemarie]

In my opinion, the absolute best thing you can do for yourself and your toddler is to use the early years to create rhythms and routines that you will carrry with you when you begin formally homeschooling. Daily routines, weekly routines, yearly routines, cooking routines, bedtime and rising routines, birthday and holiday traditions, cleaning routins-- this is the perfect time to get all that into place so that when the time does come to begin something more structured, you'll have a good, strong foundation.

When my first was that age, we decided that Monday was the day I told a story and we did a craft that went along with it. Tuesday we colored. Wednesday we painted. Thursday we used modeling beeswax, playdough, or clay. Friday we did some sort of handwork together (at that age, it was more likely that I did handwork and he imitated me. For example, I would sew something and he would pretend to sew with a lacing toy.)

Beyond that, we got in the habit of having a daily circle time and going for a daily walk. We told and read lots and lots of stories and sang lots of songs. We cooked and baked and cleaned together. A two-year-old really doesn't need much beyond that, IMO.

[greenthumb3]

Originally Posted by annettemarie

In my opinion, the absolute best thing you can do for yourself and your toddler is to use the early years to create rhythms and routines that you will carrry with you when you begin formally homeschooling. Daily routines, weekly routines, yearly routines, cooking routines, bedtime and rising routines, birthday and holiday traditions, cleaning routins-- this is the perfect time to get all that into place so that when the time does come to begin something more structured, you'll have a good, strong foundation.

When my first was that age, we decided that Monday was the day I told a story and we did a craft that went along with it. Tuesday we colored. Wednesday we painted. Thursday we used modeling beeswax, playdough, or clay. Friday we did some sort of handwork together (at that age, it was more likely that I did handwork and he imitated me. For example, I would sew something and he would pretend to sew with a lacing toy.)

Beyond that, we got in the habit of having a daily circle time and going for a daily walk. We told and read lots and lots of stories and sang lots of songs. We cooked and baked and cleaned together. A two-year-old really doesn't need much beyond that, IMO.

Yes to routines! They help to make some really good memories, too, like stories at bedtime, pancakes on Sunday, raking leaves in the Fall, library storytime during the week, baking cookies together, etc. And I agree with you, Annette, it really has helped us set the stage for other kinds of learning as we are accustomed to doing things together, as opposed to just having "lesson".

[Rnejic]

*