Pre-schooling at home!

September is here and the school year is in full swing. I know my girls are still very little, but I really wanted to do a bit more in the way of "official" preschooling with them this year. Mostly because I don't want to feel like I'm being thrown in the deep end next year when we start kindergarten and it actually counts! We go to our little preschool on Mondays where I teach Spanish, but we are at home the rest of the week. We've always tried to do some "learning time" in the mornings, whether that was Alpha Phonics, or educational games, or fun worksheets or crafts, but this year I actually have a plan =) So...here's what we're doing for K4 with Anna Kate and K2(?) with Caroline.

Math
Anna Kate is doing Math-U-See Alpha. We started it a couple weeks ago and she is loving it. It comes with fun brightly-colored manipulatives, and a big workbook (her favorite thing ever). She also likes to watch the 5-10 minute video at the beginning of each weekly unit.

Caroline is also working on math skills using Unifix cubes. She can count them, match patterns that I make, or create her own patterns.

Phonics/Reading
Basically my plan for Anna Kate is to just keep getting library books as fast I can. She LOVES to read and goes through quite a few books each week. Her favorites right now are the Betsy and Eddie books by Carolyn Haywood. We also do dictations from Scripture passages in her handwriting book.

Caroline and I do lots of letters and sounds games using flashcards, puzzles, toys, etc. She knows all of her letters and most of her sounds, but isn't quite ready to sit through phonics lessons. When I feel that she's ready, we'll start Alpha Phonics. For now, we'll just do lots of reading out loud!

Other than Math and Phonics, the only other official curriculum we're using is Five in a Row. This is a literature-based curriculum for 4-8 year olds (although Caroline enjoys participating as well!) that covers language arts, math, science, social studies, and art. Basically it takes a classic children's book each week and uses it as a springboard for a few lessons in each of those subjects. We have now completed our fourth book and the girls are loving it. Last week we read the book "Grandfather's Journey" which is set in Japan. To finish our unit, we had an authentic (take-out) Japanese dinner at our house, complete with chopsticks and sitting on the floor!

Of course, we also do a number of other subjects, like PE (soccer, park days), Music (violin, church children's choir, pitch/rhythm games with Mommy), Spanish (circle time at the preschool on Mondays, DuoLingo on the iPad with Daddy), and Bible (morning devotions, and family worship).

And just to keep it real, usually while we try to have school time, I'm also having to chase around a very mobile and mischeivous 8-month-old.