Recently my 4 year old son (Bubba) has been showing interest and readiness to learn at a higher level then I’ve been presenting to him. I’m really excited to see the changes over the past few months:
He will sit for extended periods of time
He can hold a pencil the correct way most of the time without help
He knows his letters and the sounds they make
He is writing his name and other short words
He is beginning to recognize common words (Thanks Starfall!)
He is showing an interest in having “HIS OWN” school books (instead of sharing with Sissy)
I’m really excited because he has been such an “Energetic” little scout, and it’s been really hard to even attempt to lead any type of learning experience that required “FOLLOWING INSTRUCTIONS”
SIGH.
But I see that we are coming around the bend, and my little Preschooler just might be ready for some more one-on-one instructional learning.
Thus, I’ve been spending the past couple of weeks RE-Arranging my LIFE Homeschool schedule to fit him in a bit more, and of course researching curriculum choices that I could use for both children. I haven’t got it all just perfect yet (do we ever) but here are a couple of new additions to our Homeschool Curriculum that I wanted to share:
I love this book not only because it is in full color (total score for entertainment factor) but it has 12 different sections that provide hands on learning alongside worksheets and reproducible charts and diagrams. One of the first topics we started with this book was “Our Human Body” and we made these life size representations of our organs, bones, and muscles. You can imagine that both kiddos were giggly excited to do this. (Now, we’re learning about Rocks and Minerals) You can read sample pages here….
I saw this book at a thrift store (after I read that a friend picked it up at a thrift store) and decided to give it a shot. I mean $2 is worth a shot right? Totally worth it. I love this book already, it has transformed Math time at our house in a matter of days. Both of my kids love the hands on activities, and they love learning alongside eachother when an activity fits both their ability levels. The best part about this book is that it tells you very clearly, what ages each activity is for, and then it has pictures and additional ideas for how to explore the concepts with each child. Here is Bubba playing one of the sorting and counting games:
Okay, I know…we don’t really need books to teach children art do we? Aside from subscribing to Art Projects for Kids, I’ve been using this book to make sure that the kiddos recieve some sort of formal traning on Art (you know like color theory and all that technical stuff) So far we’ve done a couple of lessons as a family, and both children have been very interested. Here are some photos of them learning about line (horizontal, vertical, and diagonal)
And for Geography…..Did you see? I won the 6 month Subscription to Little Passports, and should be receiving some fantastic learning materials soon! I can’t wait, so stay tuned for photos of those!
I’ve added all of our new books and resources to our Homeschool Curriculum page, in case you’re interested in what we’re using for the other topics too!
