Letter of the Week from Confessions of a Homeschooler - We have been using the free printables from Erica's blog for just about a year now and we have thoroughly enjoyed them. They are colorful and bright and easily attract the attention of my very busy boy. Each letter themed week includes a ton of activities from letter tracing and puzzles to color recognition and pre-math skills such as number tracing and picture patterns. Up until this point I have just printed out what I wanted (for free) to do for the week and then laminated them. Now that we are adding a *bit* more structure into our school days, I went ahead and purchased the entire collection and uploaded it to our hard drive. It is 15 dollars for the files or 20 dollars for the actual hard copies in disc form. In my opinion, this is a really wonderful place to start.
Before Five in a Row- I have had my eyes on BFIAR for quite some time now. A while back when we made the determination and decision to homeschool Kai, I bought a book called 100 Top picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy (A revised edition of this book has since been released, 101 Top Picks for Homechool Curticulum). In the beginning of the book you are given a brief run down of the different styles of homeschooling. Didn't know there was more than one way to homeschool? Don't feel bad, I didn't know then either. After you are given an explanation of the different schooling styles the book has a questionnaire to help you narrow down the best style suited for you and your family based on your individual needs and desires. If nothing more, the purchase of the book was worth every penny because it included that questionnaire. So my husband and I sat down together and discussed and answered each question. When we were finished we came to the conclusion that the schooling style best suited for our family was an eclectic one. Followed closely behind by the Unit study approach. A Unit Study is an in depth examination of one topic (farms, dogs, treehouses, etc) that uses various academic avenues to approach that topic (math, science, geography, etc). It is a complete immersion into the topic so that the child can view things as a whole rather than disconnected tidbits of knowledge. Which now brings me back to where I began with all of this- BFIAR is a very gentle introduction into unit studies that uses beloved classic children's books as the center. The teacher's guide lays out activities for each of the selected literature choices and you can pick and choose between lessons at your discretion. It is best suited for ages 2-4 and includes books like Corduroy, Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon and The Snowy Day. The literature package currently contains 19 titles and is a total of $96.75. If you are on a budget, you can always check out these books from the library and just purchase the teacher's guide which is 35 dollars. I'm really looking forward to starting this curriculum!
Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten Math Standard Edition A- My boy likes math. It comes easy to him. He has known his numbers and has been able to count way before he ever started to recognize letters or letter sounds. I have done a lot of research and believe that this curriculum will be best for where Kai's math skills are now. Each edition is made up with different units to help lay a firm mathematical foundation. It is based on California state standards (a plus in my opinion) and contains a very kid friendly text book, activity book, teacher's guide, and teacher resource pack. You can take everything for Edition A home for a little over 100 dollars. I will let you know how we like it once we get started.
Montessori- I love love love the Montessori style of teaching and have been implementing it in our tot school from day one. I recently purchased an E-book from the Montessori Print Shop called Montessori at Home. I will be using that as well as a few Early Childhood Teacher's Manuals from Montessori Reserach and Development (Practical Life and Geography and History) in our daily school time. I will go more in depth on montessori style preschool activities in another post.
Mudpies to Magnets: A Preschool Science Curriculum- I purchased this book from amazon and plan to supplement it within our other areas of study.
NaturExplorer Studies from Shining Dawn Books- These are inexpensive Ebooks on various subjects that I also plan to use as a supplement to our areas of study.
Links
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/letter-of-the-week
http://fiveinarow.com/before-five-in-a-row/
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0929320158?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links
http://www.singaporemath.com/
http://shiningdawnbooks.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Mudpies-Magnets-Preschool-Science-Curriculum/dp/0876591128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371250741&sr=1-1&keywords=mudpies+to+magnets
http://montessorird.com/index2.php?cPath=2_17
http://www.montessoriprintshop.com/site/mobile?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.montessoriprintshop.com%2FMontessori_At_Home_.html#2812
