Deciding i wanted to do Homeschooling was not a decision I made until later on in my life. I learned about homeschooling when I was talking with some girls from church. That's when I realized that if I wanted my kids to learn the most they could out of life, I needed to put time and effort to invest in their education and in their futures. Homeschooling is not for everyone and I am just barely starting out but I can see the benefits from it already. I get to spend time with my kids all day everyday and everyday is so flexible! We wake up whenever, I get to exercise and then I start to teach after scripture-reading and breakfast. Not every-day is perfect but that's what is great about homeschooling-it doesn't have to be perfect. I have a 4-year old now and a 1 year old. Like I said i'm just starting out with my homeschool journey but i've already been able to implement a few things i've done to help my kiddos to learn and develop. I've started + finished a preschool curriculum with my 4 year old and now she is learning how to read using a special reading program recommended to me by a mom in my church My 4 year old would not be at this point in her learning if it weren't for the preparation I had her start with before starting with our preschool curriculum. Sidenote: I mentioned earlier that I started with a preschool curriculum that I purchased online from Confessions of a Homeschooler. However after purchasing, I realized putting that entire online curriculum would take FOREVER and would take a lot of work. I'm also one of those moms that needs a curriculum handed to me and then I follow instructions from there. So that being said, if you are like me, make sure to look at the new preschool curriculum I purchased, which was inexpensive + look at the additional curriculum add-ons I decided on so you can learn how to make an awesome overall preschool curriculum. Before I started a preschool curriculum with my 4 -year old, I started out with activities, fun ways to learn and a few Pre-K and similar books I purchased from Walmart and other stores Look at How to create "Hands on Activities" and Where to obtain "Teaching Tools" on our site to get to know the tools and activities I completed to get my 4 year old to the level she is at today.
What level is my 4 year old at today? Currently, my 4 year old can recognize letters, sounds out words, loves reading, traces letters and writes her own, writes her own name and has gained a lot of knowledge on other topics, such as the weather, how a calendar works, music, animals, outer space..etc Now, as for my 1 year old toddler, he participates in a few activities I complete and have completed with my 4 year old but he is barely starting to develop himself so I haven't focused too much on his learning yet, besides reading a few picture books, coloring, etc. Honestly, I love being with my kids and I love being the one to teach them! If you feel this way, then follow along with me on my journey! I'd love to hear from you!
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I came across the idea of homeschooling while living in Texas. So many moms around me do it. After thinking more and more about it, I realized this is what I wanted to do. I want to teach my kids to love learning. I want them to love exploring what the world has to offer and do it because they want to, not because they have to get an "A" on a test.
Once I decided this is what I wanted to do, I began to explore my options for homeschooling( there are so many). Look here for the 5 methods of homeschooling- I have yet to decide on a curriculum for my kids and I have yet to begin serious homeschooling. My adventure is only beginning. With a 2 year old girl and a new baby on the way, I realized I could start teaching simple methods to my 2 year old and have her learn that way( without a curriculum). I am not a teacher but I found ways to teach her the basics, ABC's and their sounds, numbers, shapes, etc. Then we started branching out to "days of the week", seasons of the year, vowels and their 2 sounds, etc. We also include singing in our learning and we do hands-on-activities to help her interact even more. These things are fun to do together, but i wanted to find a more concrete schedule to begin with for preschool. Like I said, she is only 2- we don't do learning time everyday but we find 1 or a few days to squeeze in some learning each week. Since I want to homeschool, I was obviously planning on doing preschool with her as well. So, I started looking around for preschool options and hopefully, a more concrete schedule for things to do with her once she got a little older and to help preoccupy her. I am expecting baby #2 in less than a month so I thought, why not have activities and a learning schedule available so she can do that to stay occupied( especially in those first couple of months when it is hard to get out with a newborn). Now, let me just say that Emma is a great learner! She loves activities and I feel that a preschool schedule with fun activities (that will help to develop her current learning) will be something she will absolutely enjoy. I decided to go ahead and purchase The Letter of the Week preschool curriculum ( it's only $15) off of "Confessions of a...Homeschooler" blog. Here is a direct link to her store. I still have so much more planning to do when it comes to future curriculums and teaching styles but I feel starting out with this preschool curriculum will help motivate me into homeschooling and will keep my child busy while she is learning and having fun. I will continue posting my personal insights on homeschooling and additional hands- on -activities we do together on my blog. Hopefully one (or more) will help you out as well! Here is a link to my hands-on-activities and teaching tools we have used so far! Note: **We've added additional teaching tools on our page. These include the link to purchase the new preschool curriculum we will be using to start out with a more concrete preschool-learning, a new maze-app, and sight-words app. Check it out! ...And we continue on with our learning one step-at-a-time. We sang some songs, did our scripture study and skipped straight to learning as we started off with a review of our letters on our # wall and then vowels. I also started to add some sight words and am in the process of creating small section of a wall with the vowels(short and long sounds) and a few sight words surrounding those vowels. Pictures to come. I figure if Emma is smart enough to memorize letters and their sounds, then she can begin to memorize sight words and vowel sounds. We also reviewed the numbers on our #1-20 wall. I've been using 2 new vowel sound videos to teach about short and long vowels Look on our Teaching Tools Page, or press the buttons below. We used one of those vowel videos today. We also reviewed some vocabulary and numbers using our android APPS on our Teaching Tools Page.
We are slowly progressing and we do not use a curriculum thus far, I only have a 2-year-old. I hope that some learning time a few times or so a week will encourage my 2-year-old to have good learning habits when she is older and when we start up with an actual curriculum. Need ideas for things to teach or do with your child? Read through our blog and look here for additional activities we do together. Today, I had Emma work on a shape-craft -activity and she loved using her glue-stick to glue the shapes on construction paper. Simple activities definitely make a difference and are fun and exciting for our little 2-year-old. Make sure to check out our Hands-On-Activities page for more ideas! All in all, start out with the basics and expand from there. Use your creativity! We started out teaching Emma her ABC's and sounds, numbers(adding more as we went) and shapes. In addition, I've added days of the week, seasons of the year, we've done "joy-school" with friends and she has learned about left + right, bugs and counting numbers #1-5. If we can do it, YOU can easily do it! Have some fun together and let your child's creativity soar! Here was our rough learning schedule for the day:
1.Singing-time 2.Scripture-time 3. Reading-time 4. ABC review( vowels) +sounding out 2-letters together off our ABC wall+ some videos to help with short/long vowel sounds 5. Shape- Activity 6. Write a Thank You Card/Note Activity Simple. Why do we take time to teach? Because our little one learns so much and loves doing it! It is also a preparation for when we start up with a curriculum. Since our little one is only 2, we still have time to research a curriculum and put that plan in action. For now, its not as serious-learning and we both enjoy it. What i'm learning so far: 1. Emma understands the letters and their sounds so now we are expanding beyond that knowledge and focusing on vowels and their sounds.It is difficult because vowels can have 2 sounds each. We are also trying to sound out words. I was trying to sound out 3-letter words before, but I realized it was a little advanced so we stepped back a bit and are now just picking a consonant and a vowel and trying to sound those two out together. Look at this video on our teaching tools page to help out with short/long vowel sounds. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. They will get it eventually. 2. I love starting out with singing-time! It's fun and interactive and leads perfectly into our scripture and reading time. Look at previous blog post and Teaching Tools page for links to tools we use for our singing time. 3. We cant do learning-time everyday. If we did, Emma would probably get bored and I would definitely go crazy. We leave time for going-out- days and friend- social-time. We do our learning 2-3 times a week. I'm ok with that. 4. Its important to incorporate an activity into your learning day. It helps your toddler to enjoy what they are doing and take a slight break from learning-time ( although they are still learning while doing activities and having fun!) Look here for more hands-on activities to do with your toddler/ young child. You've all heard of Joy school, right?
Joy school is when a few adults and their children get together. They rotate who teaches on a weekly( or even more than just weekly) basis and may even rotate where the joy school will be held for that week. The joy school can be held for as long or as little as you feel you want it to be. Adults can teach about anything and everything. From simple academics, such as ABC's to learning about days of the week, ANYTHING goes. Anyway, my little one and I have started a joy school with two other friends and its been fun for my little one to get the "social" part of schooling as well as learn about fun topics. Today was our "Joy School" day and my friend taught about "bugs", we had a fun, fun time. Last rotation was my turn and I taught about numbers #1-5. Let me give you an example of a joy school "mini" lesson. 1. We started with some singing or nursery rhymes: We sang "Old Macdonald Had a Farm" with a hand puppet, etc. 2.We looked at our number wall and counted up to 5: we used the song, "1,2,3,4,5...once i caught a fish alive to help as we counted. The song can be found here. 3. We looked at a number book we have and focused on numbers 1-5. 4. Activity #1: we traced our hands on paper and counted the fingers on our hands (#1-5) 5. Activity #2: We made cheerio-necklaces/bracelets and counted the cheerios as we put them on the bracelets/ necklaces. Look here to find how to make cheerio-necklaces/bracelets as well as other activities we use to supplement our academic learning. That's it! Simple, yet interactive and social. Of course you can always let your children play together with a few toys after the "mini" lesson. That makes it even better! Once you start up with a curriculum, you can find groups of mothers and children who also home-school in your area. You can get together with them and rotate or teach together. This can also help you to bring the social part of homeschooling. Nevertheless, this style of teaching may not work for you and you may wish to put your kids in outdoor activities or extracurricular's so they can get some social time. I feel that whatever method works for you and your family is best. Again, my child is only 2 so joy school right now works great for us. It's social and fun and just what she needs. I may feel I don't want to use homeschooling groups further down the road and once I start up with a curriculum. I hope this different style of teaching your little one helps you out in some way and encourages you to use your creativity! **Side-note: When we do learning time on our own, I teach Emma her ABC's and we put sounds together to make words. I realized that she needs to develop her vocabulary (especially since she is only 2). Expanding her vocabulary would help her to be able to read faster and know what more words mean. So, we started using this free Android APP to help with vocabulary. Go on over to my teaching tools page to find this and other APPs we use to help with our learning process (without a curriculum so far). Music is a big hit in our home and a great way to learn about academics or other material.
Through music, our 2-year-old has learned her ABC sounds, numbers 1-10( and now she knows up to 20!), about family, about church-related topics, how to follow along with a few actions, etc. Honestly, music has helped out a TON and I plan on continuing to use it throughout the rest of our homeschooling together! When we start out with our learning time together, we start out with music and singing. So,what kind of songs do we sing? These may include nursery rhymes, church-music and any others that are fun to sing along with! At our church(The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), children participate in singing time, which allows them to learn about church doctrine in another creative way and feel happy while doing so. Your church may have children participate in similar activities and that is great! There are also tons of music sources out there that provide you with nursery rhymes and other songs to use. I encourage you to use some of these songs as you start out with learning to engage your young learner and get off to a great start! In addition to singing songs together, some of our songs may include hand-motions to follow along with, which make singing more fun and interactive. These songs encourage the use of our fingers, body-parts and movement. Here are a few examples: "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider". You may feel intimidated to sing with your child, especially if you don't know how to sing or don't know any songs. This is ok. Let me add that my own husband is not a singer and would never EVER sing in public. However, after working with young kids in our church, he started learning some of the songs they sing there and now he can sing a few with our little 2-year-old! All it takes is a little effort and some practice and you don;t need to be a PRO! Now, if you don't know any songs, I can help to guide you. I've provided links to various sources we use or have used in the past that can help you out! Some may be videos, while others may be music tools you can play in your home and learn on your own. These will help you to feel more prepared when teaching your child a few songs! Singing together with your child is a great way to bond together and I hope you take advantage of the following links. Feel free to cruise on over to my teaching tools page to find other links and sources for teaching your young child. Keep in mind, my child is only 2 so our learning is simple, does not include a curriculum yet and is creative! I've been wanting to move beyond the simple teaching of the ABC's and numbers. Now i'm not saying we won't be focusing on these concepts at all. We absolutely will, however I wanted to add other things as well, such as weather, seasons of the year, etc. We have already done some "Days of the week" as well and that has been fun for my 2-year-old. This was our schedule for today: 1. We woke up and eventually ate breadkfast. 2. We started our "learning time" with singing time, scripture study and reading time. 3. We reviewed the ABC's on our ABC wall. I used flashcards to help sound out letters as I put together a few simple words, such as "CAT" and "RAT". 4.We then reviewed numbers on our # wall and used the tablet APPs to help emphasize numbers. Look at my "teaching tools" page for free APPS we use to review #'s and ABC's. 5. We danced in our living room music and made an "obstacle course" to play in. Look at my "hands- on activities" page for this and other hands-on activities. 6. We watched a video online about the 4 seasons of the year. It's full of music and fun so my 2 year old likes watching it. Check out the Teaching Tools page for a link to the video. I reviewed the 4 seasons with her after she watched it. 7. Lunch will watching the video + then naptime! Learning and Activities are fun when you do them with your child! It's always fun to come up with new ways to learn and find resources to teach with!
Now i'm not saying i participate in every single activity and game with my child throughout the day. She has free time to play, watch shows and be a kid as well, especially in the afternoons when I need to make dinner. It's impossible to be with your child and entertain your child every minute of the day. Coming up with some sort of schedule and with activities to do sometime during the day really make it fun for both you and your child. I like to do our learning time in the mornings and sometimes our hands-on activities happen in the mornings or in the afternoons. Other days, we don't even get to learning time because we have appointments or other things come up. I feel that once my child gets older(she's only 2) and I start up with an actual homeschooling curriculum, i'll become more rigid with our schedule and make sure we always work on learning each and everyday.. Nevertheless, any schedule that works for you is the right schedule,with or without a curriculum.. All it takes is a little time and effort on your part, but it's so worth it! The past two days have been exciting! We've done more learning and there are few things I wanted to share. 1. It's not always easy to teach, even if you are teaching simple concepts without a curriculum!. Kids get distracted so easily. My 2-year old has this problem. But don't let that stop you! Just keep trying! 2. Puzzles, puzzles, puzzles. After doing some singing/scripture study/reading time we got to do a few puzzles together. Puzzles are fun and they can teach a child about shapes, coordination, you can bring in some singing and music if a puzzle reminds you of a song, they are interactive and most importantly, you can do them together! Now isn't that what homeschooling is all about? Family and learning together. I love it. 3.Vowel sounds. I found this awesome new video (can also be found in my Teaching Tools page). The video helps to emphasize which letters are the vowels. Now that Emma has gotten to the point where she knows her letter sounds, I'm trying to teach her some vowels and how they are found in words as we practice easy-word reading through our spelling APPS, Click here to find spelling and other free APPS. In addition to APPS, videos/shows ( at least for us) are great ways to learn so check this one out! Summary:
We've started out with the basics. ABC sounds and numbers 1-10. Emma caught on pretty quickly. We are applying various ways to help expand beyond that simple knowledge by using APPS for the android, online shows and videos, and other teaching materials we have at home. These materials can include puzzles, books, number toy-tools, shape-toy tools and others. I've included several pictures of materials we have been using throughout my blog. In addition to our learning so far, we have done several activities to supplement our more "academic" learning. These can be found here. So far, we have been creative with what we have and have not started with any homeschooling curriculum...yet. Emma has learned a lot so far and she is only 2! The past 2 days were not easy ones. As many of you probably experienced, teaching kids is not as easy as it may sound. Our learning the past 2 days consisted of very minimal learning-time and not as much concentration on the material I was trying to teach. But we got something done. And something is something. Better than nothing. Yesterday, we focused more on ABC's and sounding words out. Keep in mind, my little girl is only 2 years of age so it's not easy teaching this topic. I decided to try out using some chalk and writing out words on our balcony of our apartment. Unfortunately, this method was not as successful as I thought it would be. First, it was cold outside. Second, Emma couldn't seem to concentrate on the letters that were being spelled and sounded out. Third, she got distracted with the chalk she wanted to use. At this point, Emma knows her sounds but putting letters together is not easy. Any advice for teaching spelling/sounding out words? I like to use Android APPS to accompany our learning. Emma seems to like those and hopefully she is getting something out of them. We use this APP for our spelling: Be creative with how you teach your kids their ABC's! Look at my Teaching Tools page up above for ideas to help with teaching your kids their ABC's! I also thought this bag was cute and it could also be used to help your kids look at the ABC's on a more-regular basis! Today, we focused more on numbers. So after a trip to the grocery store, we got to do a little learning time. Not the typical-learning-schedule we've been establishing but still something. After our scripture reading and singing some songs, we used a wonderful tool for teaching (picture up above). Not only does this number-shape tool/toy have numbers written all over it, you can also count as you place shapes in appropriate places and review some shapes as you use it! I found it in "Once Upon a Child". Some teaching is still teaching and some days are better than others at it. Get your schedule together and make time to teach your little one! I have found that although Emma is only 2, she is capable of learning a lot and we have fun together as we work on learning concepts and participate in fun-activities together. It's so worth it!
Here is some of what we worked on today: 1. Singing time( with some hand actions), scripture study time and reading time- music is important in our home. After we sing a few songs, both church-related tunes and others, we read scriptures from our animated LDS church-scripture book and then picked a few books we already have to read together. 2. ABC's- we are now working on sounding out letters and making words. I used my flashcards(stuck them together to form words) and my mini-chalkboard to spell out "Emma" (my baby girl's name). We worked on more ABC spelling with a few of our FREE android APPs (we use an android tablet). Both of these APPs can be found in the "Teaching Tools" page up above. The Kids ABC and counting was a fun APP for Emma and this led us into some of our number-learning as we continued to practice some ABC sounds. 3. I wanted to introduce a new topic today as well so I found a video I liked with a song about "Days of the week". We watched it several times and Emma seemed to enjoy this one. Click below for the youtube video about "Days of the week", you can also find a link to this video and other videos at my "Teaching Tools" page up above. 4.After some snacks and watching this video a few times, we worked on an activity together. We made cheerio-necklaces and of course she stuffed her mouth with cheerios. This led perfectly into lunchtime. Look at our "hands-on activities" page to find our fun-interactive Cheerio-necklace activity and others! Happy learning!
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