Teaching Preschoolers - Easy as A-B-C

*Note - This blog post contains affiliate links, however all opinions expressed are my own.*

Your child's mind is very impressionable and they learn at a very rapid pace when they are young. It is vital to start reading to them young, and studies have even shown that playing classical music while they are in the womb will help the brain grow. It can go unsaid that this makes starting preschool by age three important.

Increase of Technology Leads to New Teaching Methods

It comes as no surprise that more children are sitting in front of the television. It used to be Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, Sesame Street, and Reading Rainbow providing us hours of enjoyment. However, now only one in four so called "educationaal" shows actually have even the minimum amount of educational value. In fact, only one in EIGHT have high educational value! You can read more on the study of educational television here.

One of my children's FAVORITE educational show creators has a KickStarter program that ends on Saturday and she is SO blasted close to meeting the goal to being able to finish her series!! I have NOT been compensated for this post. It is all my opinions and information that I have been given by the company to help finish with a bang.

Homeschool conference coming up

A few years ago, I opted to homeschool my children. Bullfrog had been requesting it since I taught him preschool at home. Peanut was having many problems in school, so it was just easier to do both of them at home. We would still be homeschooling today had we not run into family problems in August of 2012. The kids are now happy in public school, but I have Monkey and Turtle to think about in a few years. I still do not know what I am going to do. I am not completely opposed to public school (obviously) but I also completely agree with homeschooling.

TGIF!

This is one week that I am SO happy for Friday. It has been a hard week with many ups and downs. Between hunting down shorted vacation pay to suddenly securing a lot of work for Birdcage Media, this week has just left me mentally exhausted.

Life After Thanksgiving

Well today went a lot better than I had imagined it would. Both kids struggled but Bullfrog finished 2 core lessons and 1 math lesson. Peanut finished 2 core lessons and is currently working on 2 math lessons. She is struggling on understanding that 20 minutes until 5 is the same as 4:40 so I am checking out some teaching DVDs to help her. I am not ready for Wednesday because it is our last L.E.A.R.N class for a little bit but the following week starts our Winter Co-Op session and we are jam packed full of fun activities! The kids are going to have field trips, craft classes, and other fun activities. I am so excited.

Crazy week & weekend!

This past week FLEW past! Of course most of the time I spent it counting down until this weekend.
Friday we got to go to Weston's Red Barn Farm with Maize Virtual Prep School and the kids picked pumpkins out. They also learned all sorts of different things about farm life. On the drive back to KS, we talked about everything we learned. I even let the kids know that I learned things I hadn't known before, so it is okay to constantly be learning things! On our way home, we went to Cider Hill Family Orchard to pick Golden Delicious apples. The kids learned how to use an apple picker and they ate about 10 apples as they picked apples for their bags! We finally ended the night with Peanut cheering at a football game with the Shawnee Mission North Indians.

Today was a better day

I am far from perfect ... I don't even pretend that I am perfect. I try not to swat my children, I try to use various types of discipline (including letting the children come up with the consequences) ... but I have to admit, as much as I hate it, there is yelling in my house. This is one thing that I have been working on a LOT, especially since we have been prompted to home school. Yesterday we had to take a complete break from school for about 2 hours due to all over frustrations. Frustration on my end, frustration on the kids end and then me turning into monster mom ... or as I call it "a Kate day." These days bring out the worst in me. I spent a lot of time talking to my husband, our home teacher, and 2 of my really good friends who also home school. We tossed around SEVERAL ideas for using on Peanut and her math. You see, Peanut has this issue with learning ... she HATES the process. She likes to be able to just KNOW how to do something (read, do math, etc) and not have to work at it. She is a perfectionist and admitting that she is wrong is just horrid to her. I think of Peanut as a nut .. you have to figure out exactly what tool is best used to crack her but when you figure it out, she spills out SO much goodness. So now that I have our tools, we are just going to tinker with each one to figure out that magic combination.

Whew it has been a LONG Day

To start with the positive ... we have learned we need to take a different approach with Peanut on school, or at least some subjects.

Need more hours in a day!!

So today I finished day 2 of our home educating adventure. It was brutally hot again outside so we opted to do outdoor recess in the AM and indoor recess in the PM. Adella had a major case of feet dragging today and didn't finish school until after 4pm. Boo hiss for the teacher. She didn't seem phased in the least bit that her brother ended about 2 hours earlier than her. We have noticed that due to traditional schools using more and more online studies, Adella struggles in areas of math. She just does SO much better actually writing out problems and doing a lot of repetition. We are playing catch-up now but at least I get to see EXACTLY what she needs extra help with.

Since it was so hot out, I decided to call it a $3 loss and not go to the T-Bones game tonight with the kids. However, I had to do a quick on your feet thinking for dinner since we had planned to eat sandwiches and granola bars. I hate using our granola bars for eating at home so I saved making them for Friday when we will hopefully be making another attempt at being out of the house for dinner. Instead, I made eggs in toast because it is simple and delish. To fancy it up a little bit, I stuck a slice of ham on top as well as a tomato slice. On the boys' dishes, I put a few slices of cheese as well. Then served it with some canned fruit and called it good. Filled everyone up and there were a lot of smiles. I am calling it a success.

This evening I have made 2 loaves of wheat bread and currently have cinnamon rolls baking in the oven for breakfast. They should be hot when my husband eats breakfast and then I can re-heat them for the kids or they can just grab one after caring for their pets.

Oh, the other stuff I did today? Drank 112oz of water, cared for an infant, washed 23 diapers, started black beans soaking and started a package of ham, a package of cut up chicken, and a gallon of milk thawing. So, welcome to the world of a stay at home mom who is a full time mom, full time wife, full time teacher and needs a FEW more hours in the day to make life just a tad easier!

First Day Under Out Belts

Well we have the first day of home educating under our belts. It really didn't go too badly but there are some things that I am hoping will iron out as time goes on. The biggest hold up is the fact Monkey did NOT appreciate not being the center of the universe and refused to nap more than 30 minutes all day. Yikes! We got off to a late start and then lost power for a few minutes due to a pretty hefty thunderstorm that came through. HOWEVER, with all those hold-ups, we STILL got Bullfrog done with his lessons by 2pm and Monkey was done by 3:15pm. I think our favorite subject today was Science. Bullfrog had to figure out which fruit was which by using his sense of smell and touch only. Peanut got to make craters in flour by dropping marbles of different sizes at designated distances.

The Curriculum Came!

Not a moment too soon, the curriculum for Calvert School came today. The kids helped me sort through it all and get it ready to start school on Monday, the 22nd. I sat down and figured out our tentative schedule and what supplies we still needed to buy. The kids are so excited to actually get the ball rolling on school this year. It is still surreal to have them home with me and not drive to and from the elementary school. I bought a teacher's planner so that I can plan my weeks out a little better and know what I need to purchase for that week before it hits. We will be starting our day with scripture study, which I am hoping will lead to a more peaceful day. We are following the seminary classes and studying the Old Testament. I purchased a workbook for $20 from Discover the Scriptures that works with the Stories from the Old Testament available online at LDS.org. The lesson plan is supposedly only 9 weeks long so we will see if it takes us longer or if I add more to the program. That will only get me through the first quarter of the school year so that just won't do.

Storytime at JoCo Museum

After storytime & making a matching game (big/little), it was time to check out Kidscape. My best way to describe Kidscape is: Free Wonderscope. I apologize about the pics but I couldn't find my camera so all pics are off of my phone. The pictures of Kidscape are not good enough to post here, sorry. Trying to get them to upload to Facebook but having problems at the moment.

JJ's Art Day

Kids can be SO trying

I am sure you read this title and say "um, your children are almost 7 & 5 and you are JUST now figuring this out?" and the answer to that is no, BUT I am hitting a whole new realm of frustrations.

Teaching Bullfrog at home

I have the syllabus planned for the year for Bullfrog. I will be teaching him from 9am to noon on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. He will be in school for 36 weeks or 108 days. We have planned 10 field trips. They are going to be to the following places on the following dates: