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.

homeschooling approaches - it's more than curriculum choice

I sometimes answer questions from new homeschoolers or those considering homeschooling as part of my volunteer work. Here is one response I wrote to a parent of a 12 year old who is considering homeschooling next year. This response was to his follow-up question asking me what curriculum I use. I know that I can sometimes be very defensive (and offensive as a result ;-0) and strident about homeschooling, but this is actually an even-tempered response that might be informative and helpful to some of my friends. That is why I am sharing it here [originally published as a Facebook note].

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We used Singapore Math last year. Before that, we didn't really use anything or you might say we used a bit of everything, just not packaged curriculum. My kids are self-motivated and we've always had lots of learning materials and books in the house and available to them. We love the library and its amazing the resources available there. We've also been involved in co-ops with other parents and homeschoolers.

What lead me to this approach was reading Mary Hood's book The Relaxed Homeschool -- she has a PhD in education and her book made a lot of sense to me. A very relaxed approach has worked well with my kids though I understand that others want or need more structure ororganization in their homeschool. I also enjoy books by John Holt, especially Teach Your Own and Learning all the Time.

Since your child is 12 and has been in school, this relaxed approach may be very unappealing to you (or might seem slightly insane). Also, you may have concerns about academic performance and having the ability to return to school in the future. This is why it's good to join the lists and talk to a variety of homeschoolers. There are many ways to homeschool and to prepare your kids for college and beyond.

I don't know your reasons for looking into homeschooling and this might not appeal to you, but if your child seems burned out by school and needing a new perspective, you might want to look into the concept of deschooling - the idea of which is to get one's intrinsic love of learning back. I just googled the term and found a lot of information--

http://www.justenoughblog.com/?p=68

What I love about homeschooling is the ability to question the educational assumptions of institutional school. We started our journey when the kids were very young, so I spent a lot of time reading educational theory and about various approaches to education and I didn't need to worry about what they were learning or how fast. Now, as my kids get older (I have a 12 year old as well), I am beginning to get a bit more concerned about whether our relaxed approach will continue to suit us well. You might want to think about your goals for homeschooling as well as for your child. My goals for my kids are that I want them to be good, honest, productive people with strong family relationships. I'm a little murky on how the whole college thing is going to work and I do expect that my kids will get at least bachelors degrees. I follow what the homeschoolers with older kids are saying on the lists and I know that it will work out. So far, our needs are being met.

Like I said, my approach might not appeal to you at all and that's why it's important to talk to other homeschoolers. There are plenty of people who use curricula that they love and are happy with (and they may have used several different ones over the years because what works well one year might not the next). I would suggest that you not jump in too quickly or spend too much money because what works for one kid might not work for another and you don't want to sink a couple of hundred dollars into one curriculum only to learn about another curriculum that might work better. One thing a lot of us homeschoolers like to keep in mind is that we don't really have a timetable like the schools do. You are not required to have math, science, language arts and history taught every day. If your child has a strong interest in a subject or topic, you might be able to use to study cross-curricularly, something that schools may not be able to do, especially at the higher grades where each subject has a different teacher (one approach that does this is unit studies; but you need not formalize it).

Sorry, I feel as if I've babbled a bit. I suppose my main point is that homeschooling is an opportunity for you to look at education from a different perspective than the school system has offered, if you choose. There are many museums to visit and activities to do and lots of ways to learn that look nothing like what an institutional school has to offer. Otherwise, there are a number of packaged curricula that might work well -- going on a list and describing your child (learning style, special needs or gifts, what they like) might help you find out what worked in families whose children are similar.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

I fell down the rabbit hole again. While writing my last post to share a link for preschool resources, I wandered across this link. It has extensive listings and I don't always trust the Federal government when it comes to education, but there might be something useful in there, so I'm posting the link here.

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.

Kids Are Getting Older Younger

so says an analyst discussing popular toys this holiday season as reported in the Washington Post.

Analyst John G. Taylor of Arcadia Investment Corp. said the trend is part of a broader sociological change that he calls "age compression."

The article goes on to say:

Toys R Us, for example, predicts that Mattel's shimmering doll Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (based on the best-selling DVD, of course) will be one of the top new toys for children ages 2 to 4.

In some ways, playing with Barbies at ages 2 to 4 seems about right these days and its a welcome relief from those slutty looking Bratz dolls (oh wow, there are some fun articles out there about this line). But it definitely is a downward trend. I was still playing with Barbies at age 11, I think, though that was definitely the twilight of my Barbie playing days.
I'm generally pretty neutral on the Barbie issue, though I remember reading someone somewhere (and I wish I could cite and give credit to the writer) bemoaning that younger and younger children are playing with Barbies because of her adult body (can't say adult proportions because those don't exist in nature -- hmmm...anyone study the link between breast augmentation and Barbie play? There might be one.). Food for thought. I played with lots of Barbies as a kid and other than a penchant for long, fluffy blond hair and tight clothes, I turned out fine.
Anyway, I thought that with the holiday season impending, I would share some venues for more 'childish' children's toys:
The Magic Cabin -- for those familiar with the Waldorf method of education, you'll find lots of Waldorf type toys here. Their toys encourage the use of imagination -- you won't find prepackaged Barbie or superheroes fantasy stories to reenact here. Its all about gnomes and elves and fairies and stories your kids make up themselves. Okay, so I've only purchased from them once, I bought a wooden nesting rainbow because I thought it would be great for open-ended play. My kids do play with it sometimes. Our home is filled with toys, so they go in cycles of what they play with. I will be placing another order as my daughter has requested a doll bicycle basket for Christmas.
HearthSong -- their offerings are similar to the above. In fact, I first received The Magic Cabin catalog in a shipment from HearthSong. My impression is that TMC is more overtly Waldorf-y. My dds each have a large doll they received as gifts that came from this catalog and they love them. I may have to place an order from here because my oldest wants an accordian?! I really don't know where that came from, but what the heck.
One of the best toys we've ever received was a large set of blocks -- these are played with almost on a daily basis (usually while I'm doing an exercise tape). Another set of blocks was a gift from HearthSong, these are nice because they are colorful.

Spanish

I'd like my children to learn Spanish. I don't know the language myself and I'd like to learn. I keep monitoring the class offerings in the area, but with a 3 year-old, I don't think now is the right time for it. I'd like for us all to take classes together in the future.

So for now, I'm strewing Spanish. Some things we have around the house:

A CD of Spanish songs by Twin Sisters productions that cover the basics like colors and the days of the week. There is also an alphabet song, which blew my mind, because I'd never known there was a different alphabet in Spanish. Its not much different, but it was news to me (I took 3 years of Latin in high school). I picked this up for a few bucks at TJ Maxx. It includes a little book with song lyrics and activities. We have some other Twin Sisters tapes that I got from Christian Book Discounters on sale. One of them is about Chemistry -- its pretty funny, I think. Another is about safety and another is about zoo animals.

Muzzy video tapes -- these are always being marketed to homeschoolers and we receive mailings about the program now and then. I got these for free at a homeschool curriculum swap. Each level contains about 4 or 6 videotapes and some workbooks. The videos are various cartoons in Spanish and there is a corresponding English version. I think the idea is to plop the kid down and have them watch and just absorb. I have Level II and my friend grabbed Level I. I may try to swap to see what Level I is like. Level II is okay, but there are a couple of creepy characters that didn't really jazz my kids, so I don't know if I want to fork out the bucks to buy this.

Leap Frog Leap Pad and Spanish workbook -- we have one of these toys and I bought the Spanish workbook. I must say, Suzanne, 5, does not play with this toy much at all. Every now and then, she'll pull out the Leap Pad and play with it over the course of a few days, but then its gets put away for awhile. She has several books that go with this, so I'm not sure that she even used the Spanish one much. I would note that we have a few of the Leap's Pond books (from Marshall's) and they include a bit of Spanish in each.

A few years ago, we got a bilingual doll who teaches some Spanish words. The kids don't play with her much, but when they did, I can't say they either learned much or that they retained it. Maybe they did. At this point, I must note, that I like it when products have both audio and visual components -- I'd fault this doll on not having an accompanying book to see the words she was saying.

I recently got an Usborne video, First Fun with Spanish. It follows the Usborne book, First Hundred Words in Spanish (which we don't have). For $15, I figured I'd give the video a try. Its animated and follows a little girl through her day with her family. The family is Spanish speaking and she is bilingual, so she translates. Its pretty interesting, but I grew tired of it after awhile. However, I'm glad to have it and think I may pop it it now and then and see what we learn. Getting the book is probably a good idea, but I don't have an Usborne rep and don't feel like looking for one. I suppose if I come across a vendor at a fair or something, I might pick it up. However, the Scholastic book clubs are offering First Thousand Words in Spanish for less than $5, I think, so I think we'll get that. I kind of like Usborne books, but they don't seem to do anything for my kids, so I try to limit my purchases.

I'm always reading homeschooling books for their suggestions on teaching foreign languages. I really enjoyed the tips in Homeschooling on a Shoestring. It advised to first just listen to the language to get a feel for it. It suggested getting a Spanish instruction tape from the library and just listening to it for about 15 minutes on a daily basis for awhile before even attempting to learn the language.

We're planning to participate in a Spanglish play with a friend on mine. She taught a Spanish class last year that we missed, I hope she teaches one in the future.