Thinking about keeping DD home...

duffmaker

Is anyone skipping/has anyone skipped pre-school (and/or Kindergarten) and just "taught" their kiddos at home? Can you offer up any advice? Good books, blogs or any other resources to look into.

M will be 2 in December so it's definitely early to be thinking about this, but it has been on my mind. Her and S are only 18 months apart though, so it might be tough putting the necessary effort in. Do you think it would be? We will most likely be in the city still when she would start pre-school and I would prefer to take the money we would put into a good Montessori pre-school tuition toward buying our family home. Does that make sense at all? I mean, if I can apply the same principles day-to-day, take some time each day for "learning", and find a play group/co-op to meet with once or twice a week... I don't see why I can't skip traditional pre-school all together. On the off chance we're still in the city, or at least not settled in a district that we approve of, when it comes time for kindergarten... I may even look into home-schooling for that too until we settle into our family home, in the school district the kids will graduate from.

wifeofadam

I haven't done preschool with any of my kids and I haven't done a formal curriculum or anything either.  At the most, I bought some of the workbooks on letter tracing and matching and let them work on those if they wanted to.  We have lots of learning toys around the house and they play with those too.  But really, they learn just as much through imaginative play.

Pinterest is your best bet.  There are ideas there for anything you want to teach a toddler.  If you're looking for specific curricula, I know lots of people around here love the 1+1+1=1 blog

calimama2007

I put my oldest in preschool, because that's what I was "supposed to" do, but it felt wrong. I pulled her out when she was 4, and I only wish I had done it sooner!