NBR: Homeschooling a 3 year old

Kboyce08 · August 2014

Has anyone homeschooled their toddler? I'm trying to find a good curriculum to base our school year off of since I've never done this before. We are only homeschooling him this year and then sending him to school for kintergarden. Anyone have any good resources they could post? When I look stuff up their are so many different directions I could go its almost overwhelming!

SusieBW · August 2014

I have no advice or experience, but maybe try also posting this on the Pre-School Board. I think there are some homeschoolers on there. GL!

SCMomma · August 2014

We are going to homeschool both kids for at least a few years, and I'm not planning on using a curriculum until (maybe) K5 and beyond. My homeschooling friends have done the same with success. My daughter is only two, but we spend some dedicated time each day with what I think of as "learning time." We trace lines, cut shapes, play color matching games, make letter sounds, etc. We read stories, and I try to really engage her. ("Where is Curious George going?" "The library!") I focus less on having a planned lesson and more on utilizing whatever the day brings. Strawberries are red, fruit, sweet, this one is sour, what's another red fruit... We pass a field with cows, and we talk about baby cows being calves, cows make milk, do you see a BULL??...you get the idea. You could also emphasize things like using the bathroom alone, how we wait in line nicely for our turn at the store, how we stay in our seats for lunch.

Sorry this is so long without including a link to a single resource like you asked lol...MY BAD.

krazyinsane · August 2014

I bought Alpha Omega PreK4 last year for DD#1 (she was still only 3) and liked it well enough. This year I'm getting her Math U See and Spelling You See. DD's #2 and 3 will be sitting with us and will benefit as well. I'll also have coloring activities, dry erase activities etc. DD#2 is much less interested in writing etc than DD#1 and I'm not pushing it. She has time.

pnwlover12 · August 2014

I feel sort of guilty that we aren't doing homeschool for DD, I mean, I am a SAHM and it would save us $250 month...but we are sending her to a preschool and I can't wait. I'm mostly excited because she will have friends to play with and the school we chose is also a gymnastics academy so they get 30 min of "free" gymnastics each day.

wearenutts · August 2014

We use Horizons by Alpha Omega for our preschooler. Horizons has a lot of "meat" to it so we cut out what would be too much and add in more play time/exploring time. We also go to the library once a week and I let her pick out whatever books she's interested in. We have a story time everyday so it's nice to have a new bunch of books to pick from. The nice thing about homeschooling is that you don't have to feel strapped down to whatever curriculum or books you purchase. If some teaching method is not working for your child you can try something else.

Edit to add:

Check out https://www.theoldschoolhouse.com They have some great resources, newsletters etc. to help you along your way.

Emerald27 · August 2014

There's a homeschooling board. It's not too busy, but the moms there may have some great ideas. There are lots and lots of preschool curriculums. You can get an inexpensive book of lesson plans where you have to acquire craft materials and books and such for yourself, or you can buy a "boxed" curriculum that comes with everything you need for the school year. Those are more expensive, but a lot of moms like that everything is done for them.

We're homeschooling DS this year for his first year of preschool. He'll be 3 in October. We are using a Catholic curriculum because we're Catholic and the faith lessons do appeal, but this curriculum would be easy for anyone to use (you could just leave out the faith activities and do the rest).

It's a "letter of the week" curriculum that includes a weekly book list, recipes, prereading, math, science, art, and other activities for each letter.

We're on the letter C (our first letter - this is week 1 for us). We introduced the letter and "built" letter with candy corn and glue on craft paper. We colored a picture of a crane, and made a caterpillar out if craft paper circles. Later this week we'll bake cookies, make a crown, do a sorting and counting activity with candy corn, sort circles of different sizes, and a few other things. The faith activities for each week are a saint of the week (St. Clare is this week, so we read a simple story about her and color her picture), a faith-related craft, and a virtue (this week is charity). The books for the week all involve the letter, like The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Millions of Cats.

I'm supplementing the curriculum with some activities on my own. We have a weather chart, we'll learn to tell time, days of the week, and other things like that. We also joined some homeschooling groups on Facebook and are planning to do weekly play groups and some field trips and other activities.

I'm really looking forward to homeschooling!

Sorry for the novel!

Emerald27 · August 2014

Nicb13 said:
Some people don't even send their 3 year old to preschool so do you actually need a "curriculum" at this point? I wouldn't consider that homeschooling but just teaching your kid stuff at home right?

This is very true! Some people skip preschool altogether and just make sure that their kids are always learning while they play. I know a number of homeschooling families who didn't start anything until kindergarten. They did read books and do crafts, but in a totally unstructured way. The kids had a good vocabulary and were basically reading by the time they started kindergarten, but just because they learned as they played.

Other people do prefer the structure of actual schooling: some make up their own lesson plans and activities and others purchase a curriculum so there's less work to do.

I was going to create my own lesson plans (I'm a former teacher) but decided that that was crazy with baby due in the middle of the fall, so I bought mine. I did search for something close to what I would have done myself, and I'm happy with what I've been able to find!

Homeschooling preschool is important to me as much for myself as for DS. I want to discover now whether this is something I really want to do, whether it works for DS, and I want to get in the groove of "doing school." It's really only a couple hours a day, and it's lots of fun!

wearenutts · August 2014

My daughter will be 4 here in a few days but I think I needed a curriculum more for me than for her. This is our first year of homeschooling and I just wanted to get the hang of it. We have already done a little over a month of school (because of babies arrival I plan on taking a couple of weeks off of school) and I now have a better understanding of how my daughter learns, what works and what doesn't. Also, having a curriculum for me helps me to stay on a schedule. I think if I created my own in full I would get off track. Just my personality.

samanthak2525 · August 2014

https://learningboxpreschool.com/preschool-curriculum-kits/

We use this they send you a kit every month, it's really helpful.

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