New to this and need lots of info and resources!

[ColeParkerMason]

 I joined this group awhile back, but I ended up sending my son to a preschool. I loved it, but the price was over the top and we just couldn't do it anymore. He learned a lot in that preschool and had a great teacher.

So we have decided to homeschool and I need all the resources I can get. I am unsure where to start and what he needs to be on the right track. I am hoping I can talk to his teacher and she can tell me where he's at and what he is and has learned so I can continue on that path.

I am also wondering what kind of system is good to use. My son has a very hard time sitting still and wanting to do things. His teacher has commented to me that he is a "scribble, scribble I'm done" kid, which I knew. He does not sit well and color or do repetitive worksheets well (such as trace the letter worksheets).

As you can see, I'm a little lost... so advice would be much appreciated :) 

 

[metooo]

Welcome! I know the feeling about pricey preschools!  Here's my blog with what me and my not quite 3 yr old are doing.  The most important things to remember about preschool is preschool should be fun for your child, should work at where they are at regardless of where that might be and should be  about readiness skills. They don't need to learn to read and write. They need to get their muscles and brains ready for reading and writing! They don't need to be solving math problems they need to be ready to solve math problems. The focus areas are different with preschoolers then with older kids.  For preschoolers you should try to touch on these areas every day. 

Social/emotional/self help- This does not always have to mean time with other kids his age. Every Time you teach him manners, how to behave in public, how to pick up after himself, how to put his coat on, and pour a drink.. He is working on these skills.

Language- This covers, speech, vocabulary, reading readiness skills, etc. Activities would be reading stories, songs, poems, puppet shows,  him dictating stories to you,  ABC recognition/sounds, rhyming....

Large and small motor skills- Kids need to run, climb, jump etc. It gets their brains ready for reading and their muscles ready for reading. Kids need good core strength to beable to expand their fine motor skills. Playing outside is school for a preschooler. :) Fine motor skills is anything that takes finger and hand strength, cutting, rolling out playdough, working clay, stringing beads, playing with small legos, drawing etc.

Creative-art, dramtic play, etc. etc. this is more important then it looks at first glance. In order to be a good reader in 5th grade your child needs enough imagination to be able to picture the story in their heads. 

Cognitive- this would be things like problem solving, puzzles, patterns, sorting, counting objects, etc..

This looks over whelming but it truely isn't.  A lot of these things over lap each other. For instance I started having my youngest keep a "journal" i.e sketchbook she draws in lol. From this she is working on her small motor skills, creativity, and language skills ( she tells me about what she writes and I write it down, we also work on adding more details which is a prewriting skill). Make sure you start where your son is at and with things he would enjoy! If he is active and you want to work on letter recognition, go fishing for letters, or play freeze dancing with letters, or jump like a frog to different letters, etc. Preschool should look very different from primary learning. Kids this age need to involve all their sense and their whole bodies in their learning. they need to touch things, explore objects, move things around..... Just going about their daily lives is a huge learning experience for someone who has only been around a few years. ;)  

Here's a great website with lots of fun ideas. the calendars have fun activites to do with your child for everyday of the month. :) 

part of an article from that site. I think this illustrates so well the value of hands on learning. :) 

THE LESSON OF THE ORANGE
Explain to your parents that tomorrow you are going to bring some oranges to school to teach the children about oranges.  Ask the parents if they can help you list all of the things the children might learn about oranges.  As the parents think about it your list will grow and grow.  Children could learn about their shape, their size, their weight, their color, their texture, their taste, their design, their ability to roll, their ability to knock things over, their number, ect.  I have seen lists of over 30 things children could learn from a group of oranges.

Then, when your list is complete, suddenly remember that you forgot to buy oranges and that you will now have to substitute the real oranges with some plastic ones you have in your home-making area. Ask the parents to help you make up a new list of all of the things that the children could learn from plastic oranges.  Believe me your list will be much shorter this time, but the children would still be able to count them, roll them, learn their color and size.

Finally, remember that you loaned out your plastic oranges to another teacher and now, the best you can now do is to show a picture of oranges.  What would their list be like now?  Probably the best they could come up with would be one, counting oranges.

When working with preschoolers, real hands-on experiences are always best!

again I'm super long and annoying lol. I just can't help myself. lol 

[metooo]

Oh as far as the system a good routine is important IMO. We have wake up time, tv time, breakfast, tv off time, outside times, shelf/project time, lunch, story, nap. that's how our mornings go. If we are taking a day trip it will generally replace outside and or shelf/project time depending on where we are going.  I choose to set up a shelf with my youngest because we are in a small space and don't have a playroom. A preschool school room should look a lot like a neat and organized playroom. Preschool teachers are facilitators. Discovery is an important part of preschool.  

Anyway, for us we don't have the space for a playroom, so I set up a shelf in my dinning room for her. It generally has 3-5 different activites on it. She is free to pick and choose what she wants to do. We have been doing it this way since before sh turned two so it's very familar to her. She is required to clean up on activity before moving on to something else. the shelf generally has on some sort of art project/sensory activity, some sort of open ended toy, and some sort of cognitive/small motor activity.  I like to see her working at least 30 mins on her shelf. 

[ColeParkerMason]

 Thanks for the info girls! I went over things he had covered with his teacher today.. and she gave me his "report card". He had almost all "o" for outstanding. I am hoping this works well. Part of the reason we sent him was because his dad was deployed and I had such a hard time getting him to do anything, I just thought he needed the outlet and he did so well there.

A local bookstore supplies lots of the local homeschoolers, so I will be checking that out too. We were paying $25 for 4 hours. So it equaled out to $200 for 8 mornings a month. It had to go. Thanks again!

 

[metooo]

Here's a cool site for educational toys. :) Magnatiles and marble runs are to of M's favorites at the moment. :) 

discount school supply