Our daily homeschool preschool schedule with a 2-year-old and 4-year-old.
The Best and Simple Pre-K Homeschool Curriculum you can purchase for your 4-year-old! Intro to workbooks for your child.
My first post on 15 Independent Activities for One-Year-Olds has been the most popular post on Imperfect Homemaker. I figure there must be lots of other moms who are in the same boat that I am and need something that will occupy their little ones for a while! I decided to round up some more […]
Teach your four-year-old more than ABCs and 123's. Make sure they are ready for kindergarten by teaching them these 8 essential life skills!
Looking for a preschool homeschool curriculum for 3 year olds? This is the one we are using for our family along with how we are organizing it to help keep us sane.
Are your toddlers and three year olds wanting more science fun? These science experiments for 2 and 3 years olds are perfect for any day!
The 2012-2013 school year was our first year homeschooling. I had a 5 1/2 year old and a just turned 4 year old and we were doing My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum. I loved the Biblical integration along with the phonics and science instruction, and the gentle introduction of math concepts through daily activities. There was only one thing I didn't love - the handwriting instruction, or, in my opinion, the lack thereof. While it included practice pages for each letter, along with instructions for how to form each letter, these were grossly inadequate for my child, who rarely picked up a crayon to color, and who's writing and drawing ability included drawing a line and a circle. He had never been to preschool. He was such a busy child who learned plenty through playing. He knew his letters and sounds before he was two years old. But he was never interested in coloring or drawing, and I never pushed it. I knew he'd learn to write in Kindergarten, and I was fine with waiting until then. However, once we started Kindergarten, I knew he needed more instruction. The curriculum, which began with practicing writing the letter S in the first week was NOT the recipe for his writing success. Immediately, I knew he needed an introduction to writing on three lines, and he needed to start by writing horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines on those three lines. As a third grade teacher I had used Zaner-Bloser handwriting curriculum, so I went to their website and ordered samples of their Kindergarten and First Grade books. Upon receiving them, I was happy to see that they began with learning to write horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines. From there it progressed to the letters L, I, T, etc. I could see right away that this was much more developmentally appropriate. However, the directions for teaching were still boring. It used the terms "horizontal, vertical, and diagonal" - new terms for my children who were also learning a new fine motor skill. I was looking for cute, kid-friendly descriptions...maybe even pictures of letter and numbers turned into characters to help children remember their formation. I remembered learning that kind of thing as a child who was learning to write. I searched the internet but didn't find what I was looking for....until I found Handwriting Without Tears. It had hands-on teaching materials that taught the components of writing, with child-friendly vocabulary (Big Line, Little Line, Big curve, little curve). For lower case letters, fun descriptions included phrases like "dive down," "magic c," "Slide down," and "Up like a helicopter." It also gave instructions which would help eliminate reversals, which is something my four year old was doing. However, by the time I was convinced it was what I needed, we were done with Kindergarten, and my child had already learned to write, for the most part. However, I like the HWT approach as it transitions into cursive writing, so I decided it was worthwhile to go back and teach HWT handwriting from here on out. However, I didn't want to purchase all their materials, so I found some ways to do it myself at home, with homemade materials and free printable from the internet. I want to use this blog to share what I have done. Here is a downloadable sample of Handwriting Without Tears alphabet poster. However, this sample can be printed on regular copy paper and laminated - a perfect size for homeschooling or one-on-one tutoring! Using materials I already had, (construction paper, magnet tape, a compass, a ruler, scissors and a laminator) I created magnetic pieces that would fit on our small magnetic white boards. This mimics HWT's Wood Pieces for Capital letters, their magnetic pieces, and magnetic board. These materials, along with their other hands-on products can be seen here. Homemade laminated letter pieces on our white board. Magnet tape on the back of the letter pieces. In place of HWT's chalkboards, I also created small white boards for teaching and practicing capitals and lower case. I used a 3 1/2 x 5 photo frame for the capitals, and a 5x7 photo frame for the lower case. These handwriting without tears products can be found here for capital letter board and here for lower case lettter board. Then, I found free printables to help with the teaching terms here. I put them, along with free printable practice pages I found online such as this one in plastic sleeves and bound them together with rings. I have also found the videos on HWT's website and on you tube to be very helpful in explaining their teaching methods. We enjoyed doing the Mat Man activity with my homemade pieces. (See this video). This also helped my oldest who couldn't seem to get beyond drawing people with arms and legs coming out of their heads! Mat Man pieces store in a plastic sleeve Our "Mat Man" I plan to purchase the workbooks and teacher's books on grade level, but for now I can get started with these items! (Update: I still haven't purchased the books, but am using these homemade materials with success!).
EASY and FUN Simple Activities for 4-year-olds You can create fine motor, writing, and pattern activities for your child!
Should you focus on academics in preschool? What subjects do preschoolers need you to teach? Get the ansers & curriculum recommendations!
Discover dozens of age-appropriate chore ideas to teach your 6 to 8-year-olds responsibility and independence. From simple tasks to more complex ones, our ultimate guide has got you covered!
Kindergarten Rocks! 5 year olds are the best. I was a kindergarten teacher for many years before I became an art teacher. The kids are so full of wonder and possibility. I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite art activities for 5 year olds. Some are ones I’ve done more recently, […]
Over 50 fun science ideas and experiments that are perfect for 7-9 year olds to do at home.
Do you want to homeschool a 4-year-old? It's easier than you imagine; here is what you need to know to get started this year.
50 of the best books for toddlers: This list of books are recommended by educators and parents. Great list to take to a bookstore!
Little Brother (our 4 year old middle child) is doing K4 this year. We started K4 back in the early spring using The Gentle + Classical Preschool Level 1. This was a terrific program designed for 2-4 year olds, and we really had a lot of fun using it through the summer. This post does contain some affiliate links, and should you decide to make a purchase after clicking one of the links I have provided for your convenience, I will receive a small commission at absolutely no extra cost to you. Thank you for blessing our family this way! Then in August, we were given the opportunity to borrow the entire set of 4 Teacher's Manuals, phonics audio CD, and phonics flashcards for A.C.E's Reading Readiness Program, Kindergarten with Ace and Christi, from a friend to use with Little Brother this year. It was a deal I simply could not pass up, and then the Lord provided the finances for us to get Little Brother the set of PACEs (workbooks) to complete the program! Although I had never used this particular program before (I used ABeka's K4 with Big Brother), I had heard and read great things about it and was very eager to give it a try. My husband learned to read using A.C.E. curriculum. It was so funny, he came home from work the evening I had gotten the flashcards, and his eyes lit up with recognition when he looked into the box: "Hey, where'd you get Abby Antelope?!" He STILL remembers the names of all the little animals that the program uses to help teach the letter sounds. And now, here we are 6 weeks into the Kindergarten with Ace and Christi program, and I wanted to share our review. Kindergarten with Ace and Christi is a full-year program from A.C.E. designed to help 3-5 year olds get ready for learning to read. This program is what we might call "old-school" Kindergarten as it does not expect students to begin reading or to begin writing letters or numbers just yet. So although the program is called "Kindergarten," it is more like a modern Pre-K program. I find it to be at the perfect level for Little Brother. As I stated, the program requires the use of a set of 4 huge Teacher Manuals. These manuals contain all the daily stories and lessons, detailed instructions for completing all the students' PACE work, scheduling suggestions, P.E. activities, songs, Bible memory work, craft ideas, reproducible games and bulletin boards, and much more. The daily lesson plans are so well-organized and very detailed so that almost anyone could read through a lesson and be able to teach it right away. The curriculum was originally written for use in a church-school setting, but it works great as a homeschool program! Little Brother has 5 PACE (workbook) subjects, and each subject has 12 PACEs to complete for the year just like in all the other levels of the A.C.E curriculum. The subjects include Word Building, Math, English, Science, and Social Studies. Little Brother has been so thrilled that his workbooks look just like Big Brother's on the outside, they simply contain work that is on his level. I even created Little Brother his own goal cards so he can keep up with his daily work just like Big Brother does. The PACEs are all conveniently color-coded by subject. Little Brother likes putting a sticker in each box as he completes each subject for the day. He uses basic Crayola markers and jumbo crayons to complete his PACE work since these are best suited for his little hands. He will be slowly transitioning to using a pencil, but he still will not be writing letters or numbers yet this year. He has a child-sized folding chair that he brings to the coffee table each morning, and we work together there in the living room. Most days we are able to complete all his work in less than an hour. Word Building is where the phonics sounds are introduced using fun stories about animal characters. Each week we meet a new animal friend. These animals all have alliterated names like Abby Antelope and Sandy Sunfish. The weekly animal's corresponding flashcard gets placed on our living room wall, and we listen to the phonics sound on our CD. I read the animal story each day while Little Brother follows along with the illustrations in his PACE. Letters are not introduced in alphabetical order and letter names are not used so as to focus on the sounds in preparation for phonetic reading instruction later. (Little Brother already knows all the letter names, though, thanks to Leapfrog Letter Factory!) Through songs, stories, simple PACE worksheets, file folder games, and crafts Little Brother is getting a rock-solid foundation in phonics through the Kindergarten with Ace and Christi Reading Readiness Program. His English PACE activities further drill the letter sound of the week while also working on important vocabulary, concept of left and right, simple cutting and gluing skills, tracing, and more. Here is a fun macaroni project we did when we were learning the Mm sound with Milton Mule. Bible stories are beautifully illustrated in the Social Studies PACEs. Scripture memory work is also built into the curriculum. Little Brother is currently learning to recite Psalm 100, and I love that the lesson plans give fun hand motions for each phrase of the memory work. In Social Studies there are also fun stories and simple worksheets about families, homes, community helpers, etc. As each animal is introduced in Word Building and English, we learn a bit about that animal in Science. So far we have also covered the days of Creation, hot/cold, and weather. Math is one of Little Brother's favorite subjects because he loves to count! Right now in his PACEs we are reviewing counting and number recognition from 0 to 10, and he has had fun learning how to do simple matching, color-by-number, and dot-to-dot activities. By the end of the year he will be doing some simple addition and subtraction problems. (We are also still adding in activities from the book Preschool Math at Home because they are so fun and simple to implement.) The Science and Math PACEs all have extra "homework" pages included in the back for extra skill practice to be used as desired. Little Brother loves his PACEs so much, he asks to work on these pages many afternoons on his own. We slide each of his current PACEs into page protectors and keep them in a binder along with his weekly goal card. On the front of his binder is his progress chart where he places stickers for completing PACEs and reciting his weekly memory verses. Here are some final pros and cons I'd like to share about the Kindergarten with Ace and Christi program: Pros: Provides a solid foundation in phonemic awareness and early math skills Teaches from an unashamedly conservative Christian worldview Activities are developmentally appropriate for the students for whom it is intended to be used Multisensory approach makes it an excellent choice for any learning style Lesson plans are extremely well-organized and easy to use; very much "open and go" Lessons can be easily "tweaked" so that adding or substituting other activities as needed is simple Provides gentle school structure and important skill practice without taking up the child's whole day with academics Beautiful full-color illustrations in the PACEs help to make the stories engaging for the child Cons: The Teacher Manuals are pretty expensive. That's why I was so thankful we were able to borrow them! (There are many homeschool buy and sell groups on Facebook as well as on eBay where you can often find folks reselling their old manuals for a cheaper price, or you might ask around in your local homeschool community to see if anyone has a set you could borrow.) The Manuals are also quite bulky. (Not really a bad thing as they contain such great lesson plans for the entire year. I just pull out each day's lesson plan and put them in my own binder so I do not have to flip through hundreds of pages all morning long.) Some stories and activities were obviously written with church school students in mind. (I would love to see ACE come out with a homeschool version where all the children in the stories are homeschooled haha!) A few of the stories can get a bit long for younger attention spans, but we can usually solve that issue by either taking a break or giving Little Brother something to color or a puzzle to work on while he listens. Also, be sure you check out this video about Kindergarten with Ace and Christi from veteran homeschool mom Andrea Mills! In all, I am extremely happy we get to use Kindergarten with Ace and Christi with Little Brother for K4 this year. He is loving it! He asks every morning (even on weekends!) if we can "do PACEs." And I feel like we are setting positive habits while he's getting some great preparation for good things to come in Kindergarten/K5 next year (when we plan to transition him to Masterbooks curriculum). Do you have any questions about Kindergarten with Ace and Christi or how we are implementing it in our homeschool? There's really not a lot of information about this program online, so please feel free to drop your questions in the comments below. Here I should mention that I am not being paid or reimbursed in any way by ACE to give this review, nor did they ask me to do so. I am just a homeschool mom/blogger simply sharing my own personal experiences and opinions in hopes of informing and inspiring others.
Are you interested in exploring Three-Year Old Homeschool Preschool at home with your child? Check out what we do for Preschool at Home!
Check out this 2 year old curriculum for homeschooling preschool. You'll find some fun and educational options and a lesson plan template.
Grab this helpful list of 17 chores that your 4 year old can do. It can be tricky to think of age-appropriate chores for year olds. This helps with that.
When my oldest was 4, I decided I would teach him preschool at home. As scary as it may seem to you now, you can learn how to homeschool preschool! You have what it takes to get your kids ready for kindergarten. Although my kids were learning through play, they weren't learning some things yet
We love encouraging creative problem-solving in our kids. Here are some play-based activities kids can do at home to build problem-solving skills. Our kids are not confronted with too many hurdles at a young age. However, we believe that play is important to inspire creative problem-solving in your little one. Educati
If your 4 year old's behavior shows he isn't listening, these tips will help turn your days around with your little one and create a connection that'll last through childhood.
Simple outdoor activities for preschoolers 3-5 years old, fun play ideas and outdoor preschool activities for kids in childcare to keep them busy
Toddler circle time can be tricky with short attention spans and lots of energy. Here are some tips to make this time more successful.
Children Learning Reading review - here is an honest opinion from a mom on why this is a great tool to teach reading to kids.
I’ll readily admit that I like having a structure to our days and having things to work through. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I have a timetable of things we *have* to do at any given point, more I like having something pre-prepared that I can pick up and just run with. My friend Emma,... Read More
This post may contain affiliate links. Are you getting ready to homeschool your preschooler? With so many curriculum choices, learning styles, and Pinterest ideas; it might be hard to decide on what exactly you are going to do with your preschooler at home. In my post, 4 easy steps to homesc
Sour, sweet, gone ....on to destroy the next priceless treasure lying in wait for the toddler tornado. Learn 5 new activities to wear out the toddler. You can homeschool and keep your home intact! Use that toddler energy for good instead of destruction.
Not to be missed titles for 4 year-olds to listen to over and over.
Beowulf is a challenging text: it's long, dense, and old. With these strategies, you can make this text relevant for all students!
Twenty homeschoolers help you answer one of the commonest homeschool problems: what to do when your child won't do school work.
Learning to read is one of the most important skills our children will ever learn, yet as parents, most of us have no idea how to begin! Keep reading and I will walk you through the 3 simple steps and show you how to teach your 4 year old to read! This blogpost contains affiliate
guide for parents on how to get started with preschool scissor skills with 2 and 3 year ols in a safe an fun way. Includes scissor skill development for preschool and actvities
When your kids are bored get out the printable cheat sheet with indoor activities for 5-10 year olds, including active activities and quiet time ideas.
Homeschooling a 2-year-old is a fun way to connect with your little one. Tips & ideas for how to teach your 2-year-old in an age-appropriate manner.
Crossing the midline activities for kids. What on earth are those? Sometimes in the educational world we start speaking a slightly different language than 'normal' people. Not that teachers aren't normal ... though ... you do need to be a little insane to work with small children all day long, don't you? Anyways. I had
These tips for homeschooling kids with ADHD are an absolute lifesaver for parents of kids who have ADHD or ADD! A whole month of ideas!
Inside: Strewing seems like a genius idea when you first start homeschooling. But does it really align with unschooling? The 5 strewing mistakes I made, and how I see strewing differently after transitioning to unschooling.
