Home Preschooling

Our workbook - letter recognition

I did a lot of research lately in preparation to home-preschool my son.  I made the choice when he was born to stay at home until he started school.  I was looking into preschools in my area and came to the realization that most are preschool daycares and since I decided to stay home and not use a daycare it didn’t make sense to send him to one.  I sat down and listed the reasons I wanted him to go to preschool.  After some research I realized that I could teach him at home.  He has weekly activities where he sees other children so I feel that the socialization aspect is taken care of.  I thought making the decision was the hard part then I had to come up with a curriculum.  Researching online was somewhat stressful it seems that there are dozens available but I wanted to tailor to my son’s needs and to what I thought was most important without having to spend lots of money on workbooks. This is what I came up with. 

The skills I want to work on:

      ·         Holding a pencil and learning to write

·         Sitting still and listening to instructions

The subjects that I want to cover

·         Alphabet

·         Numbers
 

·         Shapes

·         Colours

Activities

      ·         Tracing letters or numbers

·         Game using the day’s subject

·         Craft related to the subject

Materials:

·         Copy book

·         Reward stickers

·         Coloured Pencils

·         Pencil case

I prepared the activity book and got together a special ‘school’ pencil case and reward stickers for when he completes each page.  It was really fun to go back to school shopping again (although I’m sure I won’t be saying that when he’s in elementary school!) We do a half an hour each morning before going out to do our daily activities.  It’s a start and we can grow from here.  When I first thought of teaching him at home on a schedule I was overwhelmed by the information and ideas that were out there but making a clear plan of what I wanted to teach him and what activities I wanted to use helped make it seem less daunting. I hope this helps anyone else who is feeling overwhelmed.