Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Our Pre-K Homeschool

My oldest daughter's birthday is in June, and she will be 5 this year. Last year I went to my very first homeschool conference looking for direction because my daughter had begun to demand to "do school" every day.

This might have been every homeschool mom's dream, but for me, with 18-month-old twins and another baby on the way, I was already overwhelmed. I have always ascribed to the idea that children should learn through play as long as possible. I was an exchange student in high school to Finland, and there I saw first-hand how gentle school was in the elementary years, and children are not taught to read until they are about 7 years old. Finnish children also test at the top in the world, so clearly their gentle approach is working. With Victoria's birthday falling in June, I had thought to simply make her "older" in her grade, and start kindergarten with her right after she turns 6. 

Two things changed my mind about that: 
-Victoria loves sitting at a table and doing worksheets and workbooks. She began asking me to teach her how to read, and at 4 years old, I thought she was just too young. Then my husband reminded me that one of the reasons we've wanted to home school is because it allows us to move at our child's individual pace. That means allowing her to go ahead too!

-The 2nd thing that changed my mind wasn't that big of a deal, honestly, but it did help push the decision. Victoria is very tall for her age, which isn't surprising since I am nearly 5'11" and her dad is 6'3". At 4 years old she wears size 6/7 clothes and is often mistaken for a 6 or 7 year old. Even though we plan to homeschool her, she will still involved in things with other children her age, and she is already much taller than most of them. I thought it would be kinder to move her along into school while she is only a bit taller than everyone, rather than wait for that gap to get bigger. 

The problem was, I went to a homeschool conference and received the same advice from nearly everyone: "Read books to her and play"

Which is what I was already doing, and she was already wanting more. Many children have to be coaxed into a school routine when they get to Kindergarten age, but Victoria was roaring and ready. No one seemed to have any idea of how I could gently satisfy her desire to "do school" in a way that was structured enough for my tired pregnant brain. 

Then another amazing blogger who has homeschooled her children, told me about the Rod and Staff preschool books. She said her children all enjoyed them, and they looked just simple enough to appeal to me. 

They have two sets of books, this set is meant for 3-4 year olds, and all 4 books cost only $10 total
I purchased this set to see how Victoria would do, and she finished them all in about a month. I would say they are perfect for a younger 3 year old. 

The 2nd book set they have, which we moved on to, is meant for 4-5 year old, and has been expanded to include 12 books, named sequentially with titles that begin with the letters A-L. (the B book is Bible stories and has an accompanying coloring book that you can use while you teach the other books). 
The entire set costs only $45 and is such a wonderful and enjoyable set of books. Victoria has been loving using them, and I love how simple they are, without a lot of busy-ness to the pages. Each book is full of fun learning activities, but also reinforces great new challenges, like learning to write your name, memorizing your phone number, scissor skills, and logic puzzles. 

We just finished the G book, as we took a bit of time off for Alexander's birth, but we plan to finish the rest of the books and begin an actual Kindergarten curriculum this fall. 

We also began using the Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons book to learn how to read last Fall. 

A few positive notes on this book:
-It is extremely popular and has been used to teach children to read for decades. 
-It is very easy to teach. You as the teacher just literally read the prompts and your child learns how to read. 
-It is very affordable ($16) 

But, a few not-so-positive words on this book:
-This book is very dry. VERY DRY. Every lesson is not very long, but I had to cut most of them in half in order to keep it somewhat enjoyable for my daughter, and she is very good at sitting and doing school work usually. As she got better at reading, we were able to do the full lessons most days. 
-It is not a good program for a child with speech issues. I know this because it was given to me by a friend who purchased it and ended up not being able to use it with her children who have speech issues.
-It works at teaching your child to read, however, it does not teach phonics at all. This bothered me because although my daughter was learning to read, she wasn't learning the why behind anything. 
-It doesn’t teach sight words or blends like you find in most reading curriculum. 
-It is very repetitive, which again, helps them learn to read, but I noticed my daughter was not enjoying her reading lessons at all. 
And ultimately, at this young age, a love of learning is the most important thing to teach, I believe. We made it just past halfway through the book before I abandoned it. We will be starting a phonics book this fall and backtrack a bit to the beginning, reteaching her with an understanding of the "whys" of reading. I was not taught much phonics in school, and it is a lack in my education I hope not to repeat for my children. 

SO what are we using for Kindergarten this fall??? If you are following me on Instagram (send me a follow request, as I had to make it so I approve followers when I noticed all sorts of shady accounts following me), you may have seen my post from this last weekend, when I attended a homeschool conference and got the chance to purchase our kindergarten program from Masterbooks! I will write about this decision and why I finally settled on Masterbooks in my next post.

Any other homeschoolers out there? What has worked for you in the early years? Do you have an eager young learner or a reluctant one? I can already tell one of my twins will be eager to get going and the other may need a little longer. 


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