Homeschooling preschool links

This is a handout I provided to attendees of a session I did about Homeschooling Preschool at the 2010 VaHomeschoolers Conference, which I updated for the 2013 conference

Homeschooling Preschool

Helpful Websites:

VaHomeschoolers -- The Organization for Virginia Homeschoolers has a page with tips and links for homeschooling preschoolers

http://homeschoolnewslink.com/ -- The Link is now a website with an e-newsletter that has many resources and ideas for homeschooling; I especially loved this preschool article, Wax On Wax Off from Vol. 7, Issue 3

http://www.universalpreschool.com/articles/time_and_freedom.asp - an article about considering the preschool decision; this was the first article I read that lead me to choose not to send my child to preschool

www.unclimber.blogspot.com. This is my personal blog. Posts labeled preschool, resources and reading lists will have the most useful information. Posts labeled homeschooling tend to be about educational philosophy and can be emotional. You've been warned. If you like my writing but find my unclimber persona a bit abrasive, check out my posts (and those of others) on Life Without School. I was far better behaved over there.

Books to inspire or support you:

Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk by David Elkind -- this may put you at ease if you are worried about that your child may be left behind by skipping preschool.

How Children Fail, Learning All the Time, Teach Your Own by John Holt. How Children Fail is more of an indictment of school and how the system can be harmful to children. LAtT and TYO are more helpful as to how to homeschool.

Local support groups: whether you consider yourself a homeschooler and plan to continue homeschooling beyond preschool, you may find support groups helpful. The VaHomeschooler website has a listing of Support groups

On-line support groups. If you are not are not familiar with yahoo groups, it is easy to sign up for a free account. VaEclecticHS is an especially good group. You can also find local and specialty groups on yahoo.

General Preschool:

Scope and sequence - what preschool kids should be learning; World Book, other websites

Get Set for Kindergarten Series by Rosemary Wells - these are set in a school environment, but will cover typical preschool subject matter.

Helping Your Child Learn - free publications from the Federal Government

            Available on pdf at http://www2.ed.gov/parents/academic/help/hyc.html

Homeschooling the Early Years by Linda Dobson

Preschool Power videos - kids engaged in Montessori activities; we found these at our local library; YouTube has a channel with clips from the series; you can order the DVD with all the episodes

Games: dice, playing cards, board games, puzzles, play dough, arts and crafts

Placemats - Wal-Mart and K-Mart are good sources, as are toy stores.

The public library - you can likely find books on any subject you'd like to study. Befriending the librarians is not a bad idea, either.

Math:

American Library Association list of picture books that teach math concepts

Math Start series by Stuart Murphy

Anno's Counting Book - or anything by Anno; many of his books are wordless

Swan Harbor by Laura Rankin -- a counting book but also ties in nature themes

Loreen Leady - author of many math picture books

Eenie Meenie Miney Math, Math Play for You and Your Preschooler by Linda Allison and Martha Weston

            out of print, but the library may have it. Helping Your Child Learn Math from the Federal Government is similar.

Reading:

The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

Book lists - Chinaberry catalog; Sonlight catalog - the curriculum is Christian but includes many books that are not, click "included items" to see a listing of the books; other search terms to use are "living books", "Charlotte Mason", trivium, classical.

Videos for learning to read: Read Alee Dee Da Lee; Leap Frog - Letter Factory, Word Factory 

Scholastic books videos are read-alouds; turning on the captions may help some kids learn to read

Stories and books on tape

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201002/children-teach-themselves-read

            "The general assumption in our culture is that children must be taught to read...., Here [] are seven principles relevant to the question of how children teach themselves to read without formal instruction."

           

Fine Arts:

Classical Kids CDs - we've enjoyed introducing our kids to classical music through these. They pair the music with a story; most of the stories follow part of the composer's life in a tale directed at children. One exception is Mozart's Magic Flute, which tells the story of the opera rather than the story of Mozart.

My blog has a post listing storybooks exposing young children to the world of art (9/21/2004).

Cross-curricular:

Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola -- takes you through the process of making a cloak -- shearing the sheep, spinning, dyeing the wool, weaving, sewing. What’s also nice is that it takes you through the seasons of the year. Available as a book and in a Scholastic video

Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle -- Jack wants pancakes and he has to cut the wheat, get it milled, get eggs, milk, etc, all the ingredients of pancakes.

How to Bake and Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman - a trip around the world to get ingredients for an apple pie.

Books featuring kids that do not romanticize school or take place outside of it:

Prairie School by Avi. A skillful teacher fosters a desire to learn in her pupil, without forcing lessons on him. Set in the 1880s.

Sailing Home told by Gloria Rand. Out of print, unfortunately, but may be available at your library. This is such an interesting story and a beautiful book (the Rands have many books to their credit and I've enjoyed those that I've read). The schooling aspect is that the children learn their basics from their mother; after that, a tutor is hired. I liked the idea that perhaps the tutor wasn't necessary and that structured learning can be tedious while life itself can be far more educational.

Abigail Takes the Wheel by Avi. Another sailing book set in the late 1800s. In this one, a girl takes the helm of a steamship boat in New York harbor. There is a brief mention of a test at school, but I felt like this book showed how much more interesting and important real life is than being in school.

The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola. I found this book to be deliciously anti-school, though I'm not sure it was the author's intent (maybe it was and its point is to encourage kids to overcome the obstacles that school presents). The story is about a young Tomie who has to wait until he is in first grade for art lessons at school and then is bitterly disappointed by the lack of artistic freedom the lessons entail. A workable solution is found, but the blaring message I got is that institutional school only pens in your true talents.

Homeschooling Preschool - article

I wrote this article for The Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers and it appeared in the Summer of 2008.

Ed Pubs Resources for Preschoolers

The Helping Your Child series were not designed with homeschoolers in mind, I'm sure, but they are free publications available from the Federal government. They are now available as pdf files, but when my kids were little, I ordered printed copies of the books. They may be useful in their suggested activities and worth a look.

If I recall correctly, I found the Helping Your Preschooler and Helping Your Child Learn Mathematics most useful.

Adventures in Arithmetic

This is a post I wrote for the community blog, Life Without School. It tells about our approach to math. I notice that one link in the post is dead, but I will update it here.

The excerpt from my post with the working link:

I also found a great article in Book Links, a publication by the American Library Association, that lists and summarizes a number of books that help preschoolers through elementary aged kids learn about math.

Homeschooling Preschool

This is a post I wrote for the community blog, Life Without School. It may be a bit repetitive of some of my posts here and I notice the post has many links to this blog. But I wrote it and I want to link it here.

From the preschool books I read, I learned about circle time and finger play and snack time and arts n' crafts and the various areas within a preschool -- dress up, kitchen play, the 'members only' block corner, etc.  None of these things seemed beyond me.  

Hurry Up or You'll Get Left Behind in Kindergarten!

Oh please. My husband brought home the Wall Street Journal just so he could rile me up. He subscribed so he can read it on the train on the way to work and it usually does not make the return trip. Not today's paper, though, the possibility of an entertaining dinner hour was too tempting for him. Preschoolers' Prep made the front page of the Marketplace section today -- below the fold, but the color picture is in the center of the page, so maybe it counts as above the fold -- across the fold?

Hmmm...seems the WSJ is not feeling generous enough to make this gem available in the free part of its website. No bother, I'll summarize for you. The article discusses the growth of various tutoring and learning centers as parents fret about whether their kids have learned enough to succeed in kindergarten.

What the article neglects to mention is whether and what preschools these children have attended. Its moot to me but suggests a certain deficiency in reporting for not addressing the obvious question of whether it was the preschool that failed or the child. Opps -- there was one mention of preschool. The mother of a 4-year-old and a high-school English teacher who panicked when her son's preschool teacher reported that he couldn't write his name, identify his letters, count to 30 or wield scissors. Not that I think any of these things are panick-worthy, what I want to know is how could she not know the skill level of her child? She's a teacher and doesn't know what her own child can and cannot do? Sorry, but I can't help but read a bit of commentary into the quality of the education system itself given that she's a teacher.

Anyway, the part that chaps me is when the article gets around to presenting the "opposing view." You know, those oafs who don't care enough about their kids (or themselves, really) to pressure them to excellence; those losers who can't fork out $45 an hour for tutoring in basic skills; those idiots who couldn't possibly review colors, letters and numbers with their children themselves. They trot out David Elkind, a professor of child development, "whose books lament that children no longer have time to play." What, no column space for the titles after including important quotes like PR fluff from Sylvan and Kaplan?

I'll help you out, WSJ, Elkind is the author of Miseducation: Preschoolers at Risk and The Hurried Child , among others-- and no, these books don't help sell tutoring services. Also, his point is not that kids should be sitting around 'playing' all day (the horror!), its that overcompetitive parents may actually be harming their kids when they pressure and overschedule them and don't leave them time to play, think, and dream. Maybe a 30- or 40-something has the time, understanding, and money to put into therapy but they should lay off their kids.

Honestly, the kids will learn to read, but maybe not early enough for you to brag about it to all your friends. They will learn their colors and letters and numbers -- but they may not be doing it aloud at age 2 so that you can feel proud in the grocery store or other public venue.

Elkind points out (I believe, I've only read Miseducation and that was a couple of years ago) that while you may not be able to prove that the parents are harming their children by pressuring them, they are risking it for no reason at all. Early learning and achievement are not accurate barometers of future success. The kid may go on to do wonderful things, but might have done them anyway without the pressure. Maybe they could have enjoyed their childhoods more and the parent could have enjoyed the child more without all the worrying and stress. Maybe for some kids the pressure actually prevents them from achieving their potential -- that’s the real horror and Elkind says its pointless to risk it.

Am I getting Elkind wrong? Maybe, read him for yourself, but don't dismiss him as some wacko who thinks kids should play all day -- he's got reasons for saying what he does. He's not anti-education or anti-school, he just wonders what the rush is all about.

I'm the wacko who says let the kids play all day.

Learning Log -- early January

We've had some nice, unseasonable weather recently, so we've taken walks and played at playgrounds and gone to playdates. Lots of socializing. We had one great day at a mall playground last week. Suzanne (4 1/2 yo) had fun running around with a few other girls. She even had a suitor -- some cute little boy that she taunted into a frenzy. Reminds me of meeting her dad so long ago. Poor boys, they have no idea what they're in for...

Suzanne has been showing an interest in writing. It began a few weeks ago when she wanted to write words on the computer. I told her she could look in a word book (Usborne's First Thousand Words) and copy words if she wanted (I think she had started asking me to spell words for her). She spent quite a while consulting the book and typing words. We have several pages printed with words like amusement, merry go round, sandwich, and toilet.

The other day, she was writing on her MagnaDoodle and showed me that she could write the letters H, I, L, M and O. This is huge progress for her and it thrilled me to see that she would get there when she was ready, that its okay that I'm not sitting her down and telling her to practice. Today, she found the workbooks that are all around and was doodling in them. Sometimes she holds the pen correctly, sometimes not. I credit her Paternal Grandmother on the interest in writing, one gift she received from her was a board game that involves tracing letters and she recently played it with her dad.

Gabrielle (2 1/4 yo) is jabbering all the time. She is mainly saying words, but will come out with a short, simple sentence now and then. Its a bit frustrating to ask her a question because she doesn't answer but will repeat the words of the question. I remember Suzanne going through this, its all part of learning. It might be annoying not to get the answer, but it is fun to watch her learn.

She's also learning the alphabet. She received LeapFrog Fridge Phonics. Its a set of magnets with a player. You select a letter magnet, put it in the player and push. It plays a little song about the letter's name and the sound(s) it makes. She's played with it at other people's houses -- kids seem to really like this toy.

My husband enjoys working with her -- he'll go through the alphabet, one letter at a time and she'll repeat back the letter. She can say nearly all of them, W is a bit of a challenge, sometimes she just says 'double.' Maybe she's just not a Bush fan (ha ha).

So, we're having fun around here. Lots of playing pretend and dress-up and listening to music and story CDs. They learn when they want and I'm so happy to be able to watch and help when they want it.

DISCLAIMER: these Learning Logs encapsule about 15 minutes or less of each day. While our home life is fairly pleasant, it isn't all sunniness. I'm no paragon of patience, but it does get easier when I hold myself back a bit and just watch. I lose my temper sometimes and yell. These posts are to remind me that they are learning and to encourage others who may want to try homeschooling but who are worried. I don't think my kids are better than your kids ;-)

Learning Log -- December

Not too much to report this month. Suzanne (4 1/2) has been very interested in doing art projects and has asked for one almost every day-- she's painted, she's colored, she's painted and colored. I don't give her projects, I just ask her what she wants. I'm sort of anti-projects to the extent that I think its nice to let her choose what she wants without showing and telling her what to do, but I'm also lazy and don't feel like going to the trouble of setting up a project in which she may or may not be interested. Though she does enjoy that kind of art as well, but she gets that at Sunday school and library story time. One piece of note -- she received a stuffed dog and named it Fetch. She decided to make a house for Fetch. Luckily I'm a sloppy pack-rat who keeps boxes and paper towel tubes and sundry items on hand in case they are needed, but frankly, I like the look of empty boxes cluttering up my hallways... I showed her various boxes and she made some choices and started coloring Fetch's house. After that, she wanted to make a blanket under which Fetch would sleep. Now, while I don't set up activities for her, I'm always reading preschool activity books so I have ideas floating around in my head. One of these ideas is for weaving paper and I suggested to Suzanne that she could do that and thats how she made Fetch's blanket.

We've read books -- lots of Magic School Bus Books. I'm a member of the Scholastic Book Club so we always have new books coming into the house. I figured the MSB books were a good buy because she loves them and the library copies are all pretty worn. However, I don't really enjoy reading them, they exhaust me. As to other books, I enjoyed Squirrel and John Muir by Emily McCully, but I don't know that Suzanne got much out of it. Beautiful watercolors of Yosemite. Another book we enjoyed is Frida, about the artist, its a bit intense but Suzanne liked it.

My 2 year old, Gabrielle, has been enjoying the video Richard Scarry's ABCs and she seems to be picking up some letters. I'm a big believer in learning by video. Suzanne learned the ABC song from I don't know where, but she was watching lots of PBS (bad Mommy) and I think Barney may have had something to do with it.

Which reminds me, we all enjoy Mister Roger's Neighborhood. Its calm and soft and soothing and has wonderful piano music in the background throughout. Its pretty interesting as there is often a short video detailing how something is produced in a factory (it was toilets today, but we've seen apple juice, fig bars, paper bags...). If not that, then they might examine music or artwork. The land of make-believe might be a bit much for adults, but I think the kids really like it because much of their world is their own make-believe.

We've been listening to Classical Kids CDs, when Gabrielle is not screaming for Bruce Springsteen (more on that in a future post). I really like these, they overlay a story onto the music of a particular composer. We especially like Mozart's Magic Fantasy based on his opera The Magic Flute. We've been listening a lot to the Christmas album put out by Classical Kids, it has a lot of Christmas lore on it and explains the genesis of some of the songs and traditions.

Finally, just a bit of truth in advertising -- these Learning Logs encapsule about 15 minutes or less of each day. While our home life is fairly pleasant, it isn't all sunniness and sitting around reading. I'm no paragon of patience, I lose my temper constantly and yell a lot. But there are these little moments in the day, and thats what I choose to write about. But there will be a future post on my parenting style, which I've dubbed Old Testament parenting.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention playing Dominoes, playing with stickers (great for fine motor development) and all things ballet (DVDs, books).

The Magic School Bus books

The Magic School Bus is a series of books and a television show that addresses science in a story format. This is important to me as I find science textbooks and non-fiction writing to be deadly dull (and my father is still upset about the C+ I earned in Earth Science as a high school freshman. Did I mention I got an A in phyics? No, he doesn't care about that.) Anyway, science stories are far more appealing to me. The MSB is set in a school classroom with a very enthusiastic teacher who is always taking her kids on fantastical fieldtrips to learn about science subjects on a bus that is able to do all sorts of amazing things -- so there is a strong dose of fantasy with regard to the trips they take. I'm not thrilled about the school setting, being a homeschooler, and some of the kids are a bit snotty, but its not too bad. The science covered in each book is interesting and digestible, at least to me.

There are several kinds of Magic School Bus books -- I believe the originals were simply books by Joanna Cole. Later, a series of television shows were made and there are some MSB books based on episodes of the show and not written by Joanna Cole. Being an anti-television snob, I automatically assumed I'd prefer the Joanna Cole books, those being 'pure' and not an adaptation of a TV show. Well, I actually prefer the adaptation book. The original Magic School Bus books are very distracting to me -- there is the text of the story, dialogue and thought bubbles within the illustrations, and 'school reports' on the sidelines. There is a lot to look at and read on each page and thats very unsettling to me. I think it might be appealing to the more kinesthetic learner because it allows the eye to jump all around the page whereas such a learner might find the more traditional picture book a bit boring. In the adaptation books, there is a lot less going on -- there is text and fewer thought/dialogue bubbles but there aren't reports sprinkled throughout, simply one report at the back of the book after the end of the story.

The MSB is expanding with different kinds of books. There are chapter books which we have not read because I think they might be too much for us. There are also readers which are simpler than the original series. The stories might be a bit too simple, but there are lots of little fact reports that give it some substance. I think my favorites are the TV adaptation books.

We have not seen any of the TV shows or videos. I don't think our PBS affliates carry the shows, I wouldn't mind seeing some, but I suspect Suzanne might be a bit young.

Learning Log -- November 5, 2004

Nothing too exciting -- my 4 year-old has been asking me to read to her in the afternoons, so we've been doing more of that. One book she asked me to read had card games in it, so we've played War, Crazy 8s, and Go Fish several times this week -- I figure that covers math with all the numbers involved. She figures out which number is greater much more quickly than she did months ago. I wonder how well she'd do with cards that didn't have the corresponding number of 'dots' on them -- it might be too abstract for her -- I can test it because we have some playing cards with pictures in the center, so there is nothing to count.

Creativity Log -- November 2, 2004

Today we went for a walk around the block. My 4 year-old collected fallen dried-out pine needles and leaves. When we got home, she told me she wanted to make a stage (she's very interested in ballet). I wanted to check my e-mail. I asked her what she'd need and she said a top from a shoebox, crayons, and tape. I was at the computer when she came up, instead of waving her off and being annoyed at the interruption (as is my wont), I asked her what she needed. She asked for scissors, I got them for her and she was off again. When I finished on the computer and came downstairs, I saw quite a creation. Golden leaves with stems taped down, leaves leaning against the sides of the box top, an empty paper towel tube taped upright with pine needles taped all around the top edge. The leaves, which looked like scenery, were actually there to provide cover for the ballerinas from their teachers, so Suzanne told me. The upright tube, which looked like a tree to me, was a dancing pole, the pine needles were there for the dancers to grab ahold of when they leap into the air (I think this may have its genesis in the idea of a May pole which she and I discussed before). She asked for construction paper which she cut into a few pieces and taped down for ballerinas.

I was so pleased to see her creation and all the thought and work that went into it. This helps assuage my guilt for not providing prepared art projects for her to copy. I think its laziness on my part for not having projects for her to do -- I read plenty of books with projects and activities, I just don't set them up for her. While its partially laziness on my part, its also partly because I want her to have the freedom to do what she wants and allow her to use her creativity for herself and not to copy what someone has told her to do.

Learning Log -- October 27, 2004

[I keep a handwritten journal, which is why some of my posts are a bit dated]

We received a book order in the mail today which included the Scholastic Atlas of the United States. My 4 year-old was flipping through that and was inspired to work on her U.S. map puzzle.

Suzanne seems more interested in reading again -- she's been asking me to read aloud to her as well as reading a lot on her own (she's still at the developmental stage where she reads out loud to herself. If I don't hear her, I assume she's just looking at the books). We've been reading Nate the Great and Magic School Bus readers, which are simpler than the usual MSB books. She really likes Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms by Christine Cole MacLean about a boy and his sister engaged in all sorts of imaginative play.

My 2 year-old gets short shrift in this blog. Her favorite books include Goodnight Moon (I can hear her saying 'moon' now), Corduroy's Party, Wibbly Pig's Presents, Baby Bop's ABCs, and Spot Looks at Colors. She says lots of words but isn't really talking in sentences yet, so she's a bit behind where her sister was at this age. However, Gabrielle has very good fine motor control, almost as good as her sister's at age 4 1/2. Its interesting to see the differences and appreciate that we are all unique.

Skipping Preschool

Are we homeschooling preschool, homepreschooling or skipping preschool? Take your pick. An interesting article on preschool and the home appeared in the most recent issue of The Link, by a mom who sent her son to preschool but withdrew him because he was bored. [if the link to the article doesn't work, try this one, its a different article, but she mentions this about halfway through it.]

I appreciate all the resources available on the web (many are also available in print, but its so easy to websurf). I like checking the World Book scope and sequence to see if we're missing anything. By their list, we're on target except for writing -- of course, this doesn't really help me because I'm not going to push writing, her muscles aren't ready yet. I think its a natural drive to want to communicate with others and I'm certain she will write when she is able -- she's at the scribbling stage where she claims its writing (though she knows it isn't), a developmental stage on the road to writing (just as pretending to read a memorized book is a step on the road to reading). At least the list gives me something to look at to see if there are any dreaded gaps (learning gaps is a fun topic on the hs e-mail groups).

Broadly speaking, the World Book scope and sequence for preschool lists skills pertaining to: size, shapes and colors, numbers and counting, reading readiness, position and direction, time, motor skills, and social-emotional development. There's really not all that much to it and nothing that requires any specialized tools or teaching. Most of this stuff can be learned by a child on her own or with demonstration and a few pointers. I love 'strewing,' so when I read on some list that preschoolers should know their address and phone number, I simply left a lot of at-home cards (business cards with our name and address on them) lying around for her to find -- it worked.

There are plenty of other lists out there. My state has its Standards of Learning listed on its Board of Education website and I imagine many other states do as well. There are also numerous differing philosophical approaches to education and most of them have skills lists. I was going to post a link to another list, but when I was going through the various homeschool websites, I was overwhelmed -- there is a lot of information out there.

Other items I've seen on preschool skills lists include: major holidays, days of the week, months of the year and seasons. We've learned these through reading lots of books that either directly address the subject or that include the subject. For instance, Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is about a catepillar's diet and his eventual change into a butterfly. The book progresses through the week as the caterpillar eats different things (On Monday...., On Tuesday...). Eric Carle's A House for Hermit Crab does something similar with months of the year.

As to writing, how are we working on that? By sitting with a pencil and workbooks, of course. No, just kidding -- by playing with playdough and cutting and pasting. Peeling and sticking stickers is another great way to work on fine motor skills. Its interesting, she can zipper and button, but her drawings are definitely in the abstract phase, though I can see her progressing -- she just added arms and legs to her figures.

Finally, who can ignore the importance of socialization? I don't think any homeschoolers disagree with the importance of socialization, we disagree with the assumption that proper socialization occurs only at schools (or that proper socialization even occurs at schools). Socialization opportunities are provided through playdates and park days and library story time, dance class and visits to the grandparents and Sunday school. How will she ever learn to sit down and be quiet -- not that it takes all that long to learn this important skill -- library story time and Sunday school. What about waiting in line? Go to the bank or the grocery store or almost anywhere. Take turns? Have a sibling or play with other kids.

One deficit we suffer by not going to preschool, we don't get invited to anywhere near the number of birthday parties that our preschooled friends do.

NOTE: this post is a work in progress, I plan to add more books to the subject areas noted above. I'm just sick of saving this post as a draft. If you're looking for books, check for updates or e-mail me.

NOTE to DH: your 2 year old nudie daughter just peed on your office floor. Apparently, she's untoilet-training herself. I preferred her sister's method of training after the age of 3 but with no accidents. Sigh. But I'm sure glad I'm not in an office somewhere doing real work. Grrrr.

What Are You Doing In Your Homeschooling?

This is a question I have a hard time answering. I realize that saying "nothing" is probably socially unacceptable, but its the truth, so I'm trying to work out an answer to this question so that I don't fail in future social encounters.

First of all, there really doesn't seem like there is anything to be 'done' in preschool. Reading books about preschool, I've learned that most (non-Montessori) preschools allow the children free time to choose activities such as dress up, building with blocks, doing artwork, a library area with books, etc. There is circle time, which can involve show and tell or storytime or learning songs or games. There is snack time and maybe some outside time on the playground. All this for two or three hours, three to five days a week for at least $200 a month (and Montessorians are laughing because Montessori is twice that). I'm not really sure why people send their kids to preschool, I imagine there are lots of reasons, including getting a break from the kids, socialization with a class of the children's peers, and perhaps for learning. However, I have to question if learning is the main reason anyone sends their child to preschool because kids learn just by living -- I'd even argue that they learn more outside of a classroom than inside it. For instance, why make a child who has known the alphabet for a year sit in circle time and review what the letter A is, what sound it makes, words that begin with A, etc? Perhaps there is a hierarchy of things parents what their children to know, the child who does not know the alphabet in preschool may not be interested in it for several years but might be captivated by nature and learn all about science that way..... Opps, I'm not supposed to be telling you why I homeschool, but what we're doing.

Nothing, we're doing nothing. When the 2 year-old naps, my 4 year-old and I read books together, if she's in the mood. The other day, we played Go Fish -- a couple of good games after we got past an initial argument when she told me I could not put down a pair from the hand I was dealt at the beginning of the game. It was interesting, because we didn't really talk about winning or losing, other than I noted that I won the first game because I wanted her to know the game was over since I had no cards. The second game, she got rid of all her cards first, she won and I noted it, but I don't think she gloated over it. When Daddy came home she told him about the game, noting that I won the first game and she won the second. Its funny to hear what your kids learn -- it was definitely significant to her because she reported it, she wasn't asked the outcome.

We cook sometimes, she helps me stir or measure and looks at the recipe with me.

She plays and tells stories. Once, she wrote a book (dictated to me which I wrote down).

The other day, I got four books from the library. The 4 year-old was holding two and her 2 year-old sister was holding two. My 4 year-old told me that they each had half. I was pretty impressed with that.

What are we doing? Nothing, but I've got to come up with a better answer than that.

Learning Math

We had a playdate with homeschool friends of ours today. I was recommending my blog to the hsing mom for some of my hs posts and I mentioned that I had done a few on hsing math. To my horror (overstatement), I've noticed that I haven't done a post with resources for helping your child learn math -- I thought I had. Well, now's as good a time as any.

My oldest is 4 years-old and I take an unschooling approach. What this means is I don't try to teach her math, but I do acquire lots of math stuff -- books and manipulatives and toys; we have a 100 chart on the wall in the kitchen that she looks at often and uses as a guide. I try to strew my daughter's path (an unschooling term coined by Sandra Dodd, I think; definitely not original to me) and let her find things she wants to play with or books she wants to peruse. When she has questions or wants to play or read, I'm all hers, or I try to be.

So far, she seems be learning counting, greater than/less than, sequencing, matching/sorting. She's getting interested in adding and realizing that numbers can be added up in various ways -- today she was noting that 4 can be 3 plus 1 but also 2 plus 2. I figure thats progress.

Ah, yes, I must also admit that we have plenty of workbooks lying around the house which she'll pick up and work on when she's in the mood. I'm not thrilled with workbooks, but if she wants to do them and learns something, thats great.

Books:
There are lots of books about math out there. One source is the library, under the subject term Mathematics -- Children's Material. Rosemary Wells wrote a Get Ready for Kindergarten Series which has a couple of math books, outside that series but by the same author is Bunny Party and Bunny Money. The Get Ready Series is not as interesting, its not much of a story and its set in a classroom -- something hsers may not want to push if they are worried it will make their children feel weird for not being in school. The Bunny books are cute stories about a big sister and her troublesome younger brother and their ever-understanding grandmother. Definitely cute and worth a look.

I just ordered 10 Friends by Bruce Goldstone -- its illustrates the various ways numbers can add up to ten.

Math Start Series by Stuart Murphy -- he has written a lot of books and sorts them into a few levels. Each book focuses on a single math topic, like sequencing, sets, matching, counting, etc. The stories vary, some are cute, some are sort of lame, but my DD likes them. What I really like about them is that each book has a parent page which suggests activities and a few other children's books that address the same math topic.

Eric Carle has wonderful books, some of which focus more on math than others -- there is one about the zoo thats especially math oriented.

Anno has wonderful wordless picture books dealing with math -- we've used Anno's Counting book, but he also has books involving math puzzles that are more advanced.

Loreen Leedy has written several books about addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. These are pretty active looking books, probably better for older kids.

I think that Bruce MacMillan and Pat Hutchins have books that address math topics. Hutchins has The Doorbell Rang, about a batch of cookies that keeps getting divided into smaller servings as more children arrive at a party.

Greg Tang has several math riddles books that are probably fun for older children. I have another math games book called Midnight Math by Peter Ledwon that might be useful in a few years.

Marilyn Burns has lots of books on math, though they are probably for elementary aged kids. She has some readers with simpler concepts as well.

Toys/Manipulatives:
Playing cards, dice, dominoes -- really basic toys that teach math.
We also have an abacus, which I don't really know how to use, but I was able to use it to demonstrate how 10 can be arrived at by lots of different ways (9+1, 8+2, etc.). This was handy after DD made her comment that only 7+3=10. I think it helped her visualize.

I really love playing cards and even came up with a few games (probably modified from games I'd read in resource books) teaching ordering. I'll post those some other time. If you want them and I haven't posted them, e-mail me and I'll do it. Even basic games like War and Go Fish teach concepts like greater than/less than and matching.

The Leap Pad toy for which you can by books and cartridges. She's asked for a few of the math games, so I buy them and figure she's probably learning something from them. If not, she's at least working on her fine motor skills with the stylus.

Resources for Parents:
These are hsing and other books for parents/teachers and are either all about math or include sections on teaching math.

Helping Your Child Learn Mathematics -- free from the feds.

Eenie Meenie Miney Math, Math Play for You and Your Preschooler by Linda Allison and Martha Weston

Homeschooling the Early Years by Linda Dobson

Peggy Kaye wrote Games for Math to help teachers and parents.

The Complete Home Learning Source Book by Rebecca Rupp

Cathy Duffy and Mary Pride author hs curriculum guides that include math resources.

I love John Holt, and in Learning All the Time and Teach Your Own, he has some hints for unschooling math. One suggestion I really like is doing a multiplication grid -- numbering from 1 to 10 across the x and y axes and filling in the products and the intersecting grids. I love the idea of seeing the relationships of the numbers as opposed to writing them or doing flashcards (ugh).

Websites:
I saw these listed on a hsing group, I don't know much about them.

http://www.livingmath.net/Index.html

http://www.naturalmath.com/

Unschooling at Work

I started feeling a bit anxious a few days ago that I haven't been doing anything with my 4 year-old DD that would count as homeschooling. I wasn't teaching her, didn't see any learning going on, I must be failing. Later, I talked with a good hs friend of mine and she suggested that this is just a year when I can practice my hsing technique and not worry. Really, what do preschoolers need to learn? Not all the much and DD is right on target, at least. FYI, there are lots of websites that have skills lists for different ages, so I'm not flying solo on this, I check them now and then.

While I'm not a high energy arts and crafts type, I've been thinking that my 'read only' approach is probably not enough at this point. DD hasn't really felt like sitting down for long reading sessions like she used to. My DH reads to her at night and perhaps thats all she wants right now. Maybe she was more interested in being read to months ago because she was learning to read and now she's interested in developing other skills. All I really know is that I keep checking out loads of books from the library and we're not reading them. Maybe its time to change course a bit.

Monday, we had a couple of hours at a playground with friends and in the afternoon, DD and I made pumpkin bread from a mix. We had to add 1/3 cup oil, 1/2 cup water and 1 cup of pumpkin. As we added the oil and water, I took advantage of the opportunity to point out the fractions on the measuring cup. I pointed to the various measures for oil and water and asked her which we added more of. She said water, score one from hsing mom. As she stirred the mixture, I mentally noted that she was working on fine motor skill development. I set the timer for the bread to bake and talked about how long it would take -- more math.

While the bread baked, I decided to start dinner. She got more fine motor development by mixing (the recipe is an old favorite, so I no longer measure anything formally).

Yesterday we had more spontaneous hsing. She wanted to do a leaf collage, so she collected leaves and pasted them on paper on the porch. I told her she could not bring the leaves into the house (they were moldy and disintegrating) but that if she wanted, she could make a leaf collage out of construction paper that she could bring inside. I have cookie cutters that look like maple leaves, oak leaves and acorns. For each shape, there are 3 different sizes, so I had 9 cookie cutters. While she was working on her real leaf collage, I traced some leaf and acorn shapes of various sizes and cut them out. She started playing with them. She compared the various sizes of the leaves, she sorted them in different ways -- by type, by size and by the color of the construction paper. She matched them to the cookie cutters. She had a lot of fun with all this and I never suggested any of it -- I thought she'd just glue them on paper. I was very pleased because these are the sorts of activities that are suggested in various books for learning math skills and I didn't have to force them on her, she did it on her own.

So I'm feeling a bit reinvigorated about hsing. I prefer a low key, unschooling, literature based approach. I'm all for reading and researching activities, but I have a hard time making myself do them and I really don't want to try to make her do them. Its very encouraging to know that it all works out. Even though I didn't set up the learning activity, she found it for herself.

Art Appreciation for the Very Young

The following is a list of picture books that are helpful for exposing young children to the world of art.

Story books:
Laurence Arnholt is the author of several books, including The Magical Garden of Monet and Camille and the Sunflowers. These are cute books about a child who meets an artist. The child differs in each book, sometimes its a boy (Camille, hey, he's French), sometimes its a girl. The illustrations are derivative of the painter's style and also feature some of the famous works.

James Mayhew also has a series of books, such as Katie and the Sunflowers and Katie Meets the Mona Lisa. Mayhew uses the same child in the various titles. Katie has adventures that involve going into the pictures she sees at the art gallery. The characters Katie meets are the subjects of the various paintings. Katie sometimes meets the artist himself, though this is only incidental to the story (as opposed to Arnholt's books where the story centers around the child meeting the artist).

You Can't Take a Balloon into the National Gallery by Jacqueline Preiss Weitzman and Robin Preiss Glasser. This is a wordless book in the format of a comic book about a girl who visits a museum and her balloon that escapes and the adventure that ensues. There are lots of pictures of works of art as well as illustrations of various parts of Washington, D.C. and events (the Cherry Blossom parade, picketing at the White House, a session of Congress, etc.) This book is especially fun for those familiar with the city. This series also includes You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum (New York City) and You Can't Take a Balloon into the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston) [I may be a tad off on those titles].

Non-story Art Books:
Julie Aigner-Clark of Baby Einstein has produced a few art books such as The ABCs of Art and Master Pieces. The ABCs of Art is pretty simple, one painting per letter and a couple of simple questions about the painting. Master Pieces is an oversized board book which features only five paintings, each with several questions and answers in a lift-the-flap format. These books are fine, but I'm not a big fan of Baby Einstein, I'm especially suspicious of them since they've been acquired by Disney, that behemoth of children's entertainment. Have no doubt about it, folks, Disney is trying to steal your money and your children's minds.

Lucy Micklethwait has lots of art books. Micklethwait has a series of I Spy books about art -- I have I Spy an Alphabet in Art, this is very similar to Aigner-Clark's book, one painting per letter, but without any questions. She also offers a few other themes in her I Spy series -- I think she has I Spy with transportation in art. A Child's Book of Play in Art is an oversized book, with several paintings per page, grouped by a common theme. A fun book for an adult to peruse, though I can't say that my 4-year-old has shown any interest in it yet.

Learning the States

And now for something completely different...i.e. no rants in this post.

I just thought I'd share some sources for learning about the States and an instance of natural learning; the following took place over a couple of months.

To read more, click on the Xs
I read aloud to my DD a lot. As a result, I sometimes get bored of some of the picture books or juvenile readers we read, so I start looking for themes or books that interest me. One book that interested me was The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller. DD had been playing with a wooden puzzle that is a map of the United States, so she was familiar with the concept of the States and I thought she might enjoy the book, but really, I wanted to read the book myself! The book is a pretty cute story of how the states get bored of their locations and decide to switch places with each other. Perhaps its a bit old for a 4 year old, but you never know what they'll pick up. My DD enjoys this book and it was a good starting point to learn about the states on a very topical level -- what they are and where they're located. Its great for me, too, as an East coast dweller all my life, I used to get a bit confused about the States in the heartland.

Another easy way to learn about the states is to use USA map placemats. Every morning DD chooses the stateon which to place her vitamin pill. We also use this map to point out all the different places where her various friends have moved :-(

A song I learned in elementary school was Fifty Nifty United States (an audio clip is probably available off the internet). In this song, one sings the names of all the states in alphabetical order -- pretty handy. I sang this often to my 4 year old. She's an early reader, so I typed up a list of the states which she looked at whenever she felt like it, it was just strewn around the house (those who know me, know that my house is quite strewn). She learned the song and can name all the States (or at least, sing them all). Hey, why not, she knows the words to lots of ABBA songs, so she might as well learn something useful. Of course, who am I to say that "money, money, money, always sunny, in the rich man's world" is not useful?

One set of books that looks like a good source to learn more about the States individually is published by Sleeping Bear Press. There are lots of books based on the alphabet, such as A is for America, an American Alphabet; L is for Lone Star, A Texas Alphabet; M is for Maple Syrup, A Vermont Alphabet. They don't have a book for every state yet, but it looks like they're working on it. The authors for the various books differ, but the Dewey decimal number is J 977.4. The books have poems that go through the alphabet, noting features of the state, history, and famous people. It seems like a great way to learn some geography and history. In addition to the simple poems, there is additional information on the sidebar of each page. I think my DD is too young for them, but I like them.

Finally, who can ignore the State quarters? My mom bought us lots of books and maps for collecting them before either of my children were even born (yes, she was really ready to be a grandmother). Its fun to look at the different designs and find new ones in pocket change and it just reinforces the learning. Fun for the whole family.

Great children's book -- counting and more

I plan to do longer lists in the future, but I ran across a book at the library today that I've checked out before and love.

Swan Harbor, A Nature Counting Book by Laura Rankin. This is a beautiful picture book but its more than merely a counting book. The illustrations are detailed and the setting is lovely. What I really like about this book is that, in addition to counting, it takes you through the seasons of the year, so there are plenty of details to notice and discuss. Also, one quickly notices that as the pages progress, a hint of the next picture is given. For example, one sees a bird flying to a nest in a tree, 2 shows the baby birds in the nest in the tree and you can see a squirrel peaking out. For 3, you see 3 squirrels, and so on. There is probably a term that succiently describes this...I'll have to look for it. Alison Jay also does this in some of her picture books -- there is an alphabet book, I'm thinking of specifically....

Unschooling Math for Preschool

Today my 4 year old and I opened up a math game that I bought this weekend at the Homeschool Conference (more on the conference in another post). The game is Math Play from DK and it includes brightly colored cards with numbers, number names, and pictures of the same number of items, in correspondance to the number on the card. There are also some other kinds of cards in this game kit. Its cute and bright and if you feel like spending about $13, not bad, but doesn't have much that can't be played by using a regular deck of playing cards and removing Jacks, Queens, Kings, Aces and Jokers.

One feature of this game are a set of cards that have a number of objects on one side and a sentence asking how many objects. Flip the card over and you see the answer -- the number. My daughter is completely capable of reading the question and counting the items for the answer, but she doesn't -- she reads the question then flips over the card and reads the answer. This bugs me. I have enough of an unschooling philosophy that I'm okay with her playing with the cards any way she wants. However, it annoys me that she asks a question, makes no attempt to answer it, but immediately flips to the answer. Why? I don't know -- it makes me almost feel that she's being lazy -- but I don't know any lazy 4 year olds and she certainly isn't one.

To read more, click the Xs...

I'm intrigued with this because I noticed the same thing with a set of Brain Quest books she received [these are cards that are hinged at the bottom. Each card has three simple questions on it. The answers are on the following card]. She loves these cards and they are great for the card, very compact. I always thought she was doing them, but once when I paid attention, she was really only reading the question cards and immediately sliding them over and reading the answer. To me, its like cheating to do that, but I don't think thats her intent at all. Maybe she's practicing reading, maybe she sees no reason to find an answer when its provided to her -- maybe she even thinks that the game is to read the question and then the answer -- perhaps it makes no sense to a 4 year old mind that you would work out an answer which is provided on the next page. Dunno.

Anyway, long story short is my irritability at how she was playing with the cards led her to pack up the game and not want to play it anymore. She conducted herself with a lot of maturity considering I probably frustrated her and ruined her fun.

I know I need to leave her alone on things like this. So long as she has other toys or things to play with where the answers are not provided for her, she will work them out. I know her well enough that I should not have gotten on her case about not 'working' the cards properly.

Bad mommy, go read more Holt.