We finished our FIRST week of Homeschool and I am just so excited for this journey!
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Our first week of Homeschool didn’t exactly go as planned. We experienced so many technical difficulties trying to prepare our curriculum and set everything up. TWO of our printers died, and with the majority of the world now homeschooling and working from home, finding printers to purchase was almost impossible. Eventually we found one, its on back order and is due to arrive weeks after we had originally planned to start.
Initially I thought to myself, “i’ll just wait until it gets here”. But truthfully, we got so relaxed with our schedule during quarantine my toddler and I BOTH needed some sort of rhythm. So I came up with fun ideas to start us off, using things we already own.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a cute first day picture with the “my first day” sign, but the important thing is that we HAD FUN! The first few days have been going really well, and i’m so excited to share with you what we have been doing. My daughter is doing a combo of preschool/pre-k , and in reality at 3 or even 4 years old you don’t NEED to have a structured curriculum ; and at this age, you don’t need to spend hours and hours doing school or tons of worksheet. With that being said, we did put together a curriculum mostly consisting of free or very inexpensive resources from teachers pay teachers, which we will incorporate as soon as our printer gets here, but like I said, its totally not a necessity. You can absolutely start with things you may already have at home.
If you haven’t already watched my video on how to Homeschool your preschooler you can watch HERE.
Here’s what we’ve been doing this week:
1) DEVOTIONS:
After breakfast, we get ready for our day and head to the playroom. We set up a little corner of ‘school’ that houses our books and supplies. We start off with our Morning Devotions and Prayer. You can skip this part if you are secular, or opt for doing morning words of affirmations or going over a positive quote for the day.
2) FLASH CARDS:
We purchased flashcards when we noticed our toddler had not started talking, like many small children her age. She was late to talk and we read that flashcards would be super helpful in encouraging her, even if it was just making the animal sounds. Funny enough she recognized every flash card by the time she was almost two, but didn’t actually start talking until passed two years old. Which leads me to say, you can totally use these at truly ANY age. We are currently working through these in Spanish. On the back of the flash cards you’ll find a guide with pronunciation in several languages. We just do one box a day, and they’re pretty quick to go through.
3) Wipe-Clean Workbook :
There are a TON of wipe-clean workbooks on amazon, some of our favorite items in our homeschool come from the Priddy Brand. We love this workbook because the pages are sturdy and of course the re-usable aspect. We absolutely do not work through the entire workbook in one day. Truly, I let my child pick whatever pages she likes to do, and we spend as much time or as little time a she wants working through it. I will say, the reviews about the marker are hit or miss. In our experience it wasn’t actually dry-erase, more so wet-erase, but that honestly didn’t bother us. Because it came with only one marker, and we’re notorious for losing writing utensils, we purchased this pack of expo markers and they literally wipe off SO easily with minimal effort.
4) GUIDED READERS:
We actually aren’t using these as curriculum to learn to read just yet. We’re more so using these tiny books to help build reading confidence and a love for reading, which I can 100% say is working. These books are perfect for small hands, aren’t over crowded with a lot of words, the font is large, and they have very nice large pictures. We love looking at the pictures and talking about everything we can find. With these we’ll read as many or as little as she wants as well.
5) CHARACTER BUILDING BOOKS:
Character building, life skills, good citizenship, and learning about emotions and diversity are something we try to incorporate daily. Whether be it leading by example, educational shows, or books! Here are some of our favorite books that we are currently using.
6) Crafts and Activities:
Homeschool is more than books, workbooks, and lesson plans. Its also great to incorporate some fun activities that involve the whole family. Going on nature walks, enjoying some fun in the sun, crafts on rainy days, board games, etc. Homeschooling can be a wonderful opportunity for everyone in the family to grow closer together. And while teaching core subjects is obviously essential, that doesn’t mean learning stops there.
And there you have it, our first week of homeschool, and how we’ve been doing it WITHOUT a curriculum.
Have you all started your first day of school? If not, when do you start and what are you most excited for? Share down below!
Grace Mccoy 