Pre-School Home School

[BrookesMommyJ07]

 What's in your "classroom" ??

Like what supplies do you keep on hand.

And any tips for a newbie.

Planning on setting up an area to dedicate to preschool for my 2 1/2yr old DD.

[mellowmommy64]

At this age it is all about hands on.     I would stay away from the work sheets and other traditional teaching methods.

Instead have plenty of temper paints and clay and crayons , makers and safely scissors.    Take nature walks and collect leaves and small bugs to study and leaner more about once you get back home.

Have her help with simple cooking projects in the kitchen while teaching nutrition and counting and measuring.  Grocery store are fun too!!   Reading the prices help teach number recognition.   We also buy a new fruit or food we havent tried yet.  Learn about the fruit or food and then have a tasting.

My 2 guys also had acces to a computer by the age of 3.   There are alot of great free websites for kids to teach reading and math skills as well.

Dollar stores are a great place to pick up cheap books and work books as well.  You dont really need alot at this age.    The world around them provides enough stimulus for most children of this age.

[SheHoldsTheKey]

Quoting mellowmommy64:

At this age it is all about hands on.     I would stay away from the work sheets and other traditional teaching methods.

Instead have plenty of temper paints and clay and crayons , makers and safely scissors.    Take nature walks and collect leaves and small bugs to study and leaner more about once you get back home.

Have her help with simple cooking projects in the kitchen while teaching nutrition and counting and measuring.  Grocery store are fun too!!   Reading the prices help teach number recognition.   We also buy a new fruit or food we havent tried yet.  Learn about the fruit or food and then have a tasting.

My 2 guys also had acces to a computer by the age of 3.   There are alot of great free websites for kids to teach reading and math skills as well.

Dollar stores are a great place to pick up cheap books and work books as well.  You dont really need alot at this age.    The world around them provides enough stimulus for most children of this age.

I agree that for MOST children, at 2.5 it's all about hands on. However, my advice is to be flexible. Try a little bit of everything and see what works best for your child. Don't commit to anything too much until you've tried it for awhile. When I asked this same question when my daughter was about 2.5, I heard over and over again "Stay away from worksheets". Even now, at 3.5, people will tell me, "Stay away from worksheets". Except.... SHE LOVES WORKSHEETS! lol. She has probably.. 10-15 workbooks that we rotate working in now, and I bought her 5-10 new ones (these are first grade, for when we are done with the kindergarten ones) for Christmas. And they will probably be her favorite Christmas present!

Everything else mellowmommy said is pretty spot on. What I've done with my daughter for the last year is let her be my guide. She's not into coloring, so we don't do much of it. She REALLY wanted to learn to write, so even though she has a tough time with it because her fine motor skills aren't quite there, every couple days we work on writing skills for about 15 minutes a day (broken up into 5 minute increments). I work at her pace. Some day's we will sit and do workbooks or art projects for hours, other times we won't do any official learning for a couple days at a time. (Although she doesn't realize that she's learning through the games we play, and her online games, and just everyday play!)

OH, and the library is the BEST resource EVER! We use the library heavily. We live at the junction of two counties, and within a 25 minute drive of a larger library, so we regularly visit 3 different library systems. I get homeschooling resource books, books to read to Jenna, lesson plan books, educational videos to watch, etc.

Good luck!!!

[BrookesMommyJ07]

We do a lot of that stuff normally... I let her help me cook, clean, we color and when we do we talk about the colors or even how many crayons she has out at one time, we play play-doh, I cut shapes from construction paper and we practice with those nearly every day.

I did buy 2 pre-school work books to see if she liked them. I'm all for hands on stuff really anything that wont harm her I let her do or at least try. She loves to help so anything I ask her to help with just lights up her face.

She is 2 and 3 months she knows most all her colors, she can recognize shapes out and about, I think the only one she doesn't really know quite yet is the rectangle... she's always pointing out that the stop sign is an "occagon". She knows number 1-20 and can count from 1-10 without messing up sometimes higher. She points out amounts like saying "there's 3 there" (that one amazes me) She know red light means stop and green means go, and tells us so at street lights. She colors all the time and is starting to color specific parts rather than just scribbling all over. She sometimes counts backwards from 5-1 (then she says blast off, lol) She recognizes a few letters B, R... I know I wanna work on that more (like what it looks like and what sound it makes) She can recognize most everyday animals (domestic and zoo) and can tell you what kind of sound they make. She knows the difference between on, off, up, down, left, right, full, empty, open, close, hot, cold, in and out. She always says please, thank you, excuse me, sometimes you get a "no problem" lol.

There may be more, its hard to think of it all at once, I feel like I'm gonna repeat myself.

Not bragging... I hope that's not how that came off...

Really after reading, is there anything that we could work on that I maybe haven't thought of??

[takinpictures]

Great advice from everyone above.  I agree with it all.  Being a previous preschool teacher, my first tip should be to "stay away from worksheets" at that age, but I agree that it's all whatever works best with your own child.  My daughter loves her workbooks.  We have about 15 minutes of sit-down-and-work time per day, and she loves it!  She begs for more.  But, at this age, typically everyone will tell you that it's all hands-on.  Laynie's 3 1/2, so older than your kiddo, but I started with her at 2 1/2, working on workbooks that I bought at the drug store that's leveled for 4 year olds - they're remarkably easy, LOL.  I also began a book "Teach your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" with her then, too, and she loves it and is now reading lots of words.  But, that's just my child.  Every child is different.  Whatever you think your child is ready for - go for it!  We do hands on stuff too - all the hands on ideas above are perfect.  Just have fun!  We do TONS of hands-on and play-learning everyday!

 

Deana

http://www.thefrugalhomeschoolingmom.blogspot.com/

[Zoodles]

Set up a Zoodles account in your house, and your dd can play fun, educational games for preschoolers online, and on her own, whenever you need a break!  It's free!!  :D

[luvmycutebaby]

Here are some great resources for home preschooling: http://homeschoolingadventures.webs.com/preschoolk.htm (Sorry, the link button isn't working so you'll have to copy/paste.)