I'm planning on blogging through our preschooling experience to keep records of what works, what doesn't and to keep track of what different things Logan is learning each week. I'll label the posts Preschooling: ------- so that if you're not interested, you can just scroll on down. Though, I will promise to post pictures of the cute preschooler in action, so you may just want to follow along for those.
My first post is going to about the planning/choosing the curriculum. I've decided to use the Pre-K curriculum over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I have pretty extensively researched homeschooling preschool curriculums (I'd love to be a resource for you if you're looking for one) and this one fit all of our needs and our budget. Things I was looking for: something that fit in easily with our daily schedule, something that covered all subject area, something that fit in our budget, something fun, something that didn't have a lot of workbook work, and something that was easy to follow. I also really wanted something that had some sort of Biblical curriculum-- this has a verse of the week included, however, I'm looking at creating more of my own curriculum for this area because we really don't like the idea of straight Bible memorization without any context. More on that in further posts. I love that the curriculum comes from someone who blogs about it because I have the added benefit of being able to reference her posts when I may have a question/etc. She also is easy to contact if I have questions/need advice.
Now, she has most of her printables available free on her blog. She also offers to send them all to you, plus several extras, if you purchase the curriculum for $10. Let me tell you--it's totally worth every penny. Along with having all of the things you need in a couple of files, she also includes detailed lesson plans for the entire 26 week curriculum. Everything is laid out plain and clear for me so all I have to do is follow along. It wouldn't be hard for me to come up with lesson plans, I'm a teacher, so it really is second nature to me, BUT I also have two young children and to be able to take that out of the equation makes things so much easier.
So, I set the printer up and went to town. I also borrowed a laminating machine and did quite a bit of laminating. I'd like to be able to keep a lot of the activities so that we can review them or even so I can use them in the future. Aren't they pretty?
I've only got two weeks worth curriculum printed and set up to go. My plan is to always stay 2-3 weeks ahead. I bought this nice little file organizer and set it up for each week so that I can keep them all in one small area.
I will mention that the first 15 minutes of cutting laminated activities is a bit of a stress reliever, but after that it's a little torturous and reminds me of the hours and hours I spent slaving over the melted plastic when I taught first grade. The memories aren't great. These brownies were absolutely 100% necessary to my sanity during the two hours I spent cutting, sorting and filing two weeks worth of activities. They are incredible (1 cookie dough square, 1 Reese's cup and a dollop of brownie mix and you'll never eat plain brownies again...ever).
Today we started our first week and so far, it's gone very well. We're enthusiastic and excited about this new adventure! I'll try and post weekly updates sometime on Fridays. But don't hold me to that. Remember, I have two small children. Happy Monday!
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