Have you visited Confessions of a Homeschooler blog? Oh my! It is chockful of stuff for preschoolers.
Erica is very generous with the work she has done. Everything in her Letter of the Week curriculum is free! But if you want to download the whole lot faster and easier, then you pay just US$10 for the whole lot! Isn’t that value-for-money?
Since I don’t have much computer time, I just bought it and then slowly printed and laminated what I need when the young ones are asleep. It does take time to print and laminate and cut and it does take up a lot of space! 🙂 But it is very worth it IMO.
I wanted to use it for a while before recommending it to you. So I have been using it for the past month with my 3.5 yr old and her 1.5 yr old sister looking on. She loves it and keeps asking me to do school with her even more eagerly now 🙂 It takes at most half an hour – the way I do it. And that to me is the best amount of time to spend doing any concentrated work with a preschooler 🙂 There’s enough hands on stuff to keep her occupied and interested and enough repetition to help her remember.
We do use it differently from what she planned for it to be used since our 3 yr old already knows her letters (upper and lower case) and numbers. We sort of fast-forward the curriculum 🙂
Instead of doing a letter a week, we do a letter a day. Of course I do not do everything she provides (certain games I know my child is not interested) nor all of the activities at one go. I “hid” some of the activities listed for when I re-do the whole set again. I am now doing it a second round, this time teaching her the letter sounds with “new” stuff for her to do as well as a review of the “old” stuff.
Discovering this curriculum has been a god-send to me as she isn’t really ready to do formal school since I do not usually start preschool till 4, I was in a fix wondering what we can do to keep her interested and not give me too much stress 🙂 So this is like a transition programme for her before I use our Rod and Staff books.
The only downside to using this programme is the enormous amount of ink that is used up for printing and the boxes of laminator sheets I’ve had to buy. Thankfully I already own a laminator (which I keep on destroying by jamming it up 🙁 ) so it is easy for me to laminate the pages to keep for the 1.5 yr to use when she is 3 🙂 If you don’t own one, it may be worth your while to just go and buy one at this year’s Popular’s Book Fest 2010 in December.
Btw I do not earn anything from recommending this site. I am just blessed by her generosity and want to share it with those who are looking for fun and educational things to do with their preschoolers.
For more on what we do with our pre-schoolers, you can check out our Teaching Our Pre-schoolers post.
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haha – some of it is quite easy. Certainly your 1.5yo can do. And some can be adapted. I don’t laminate anything bc I am so not keeping for anybody.
She’s great isn’t she? The only thing I don’t like is that it is too much of the same thing. So I usually just use some from her, and some from homeschoolshare.com. If I use everything from her, I think my ds will be very bored.
Hi Sam – yeah, some very easy so help to build confidence 🙂 And Angela, we do one letter a day so not that boring. But thanks for the link. We do need something else soon before I go to my Rod and Staff books.
Yes, 1 letter at a time, but usually i wouldn’t do all the activities bc it gets boring. Probably more boring for boys too. Jacob doesn’t seem to mind the do-a-dot though.
Hi! Thanks so much for the link to my site, glad you are having fun!
Hi Serene,
DD is 5.5mths now, and so inquisitive.. I’m wondering how I can engage her in learning? what do you do with the really young ones? I don’t want to hothouse her but she seems so eager and inquisitive and I’m sort of at a loss what to do.
If you are really hardworking and disciplined, there is Slow and Steady Get Me Ready which is also available at the National Library.
I never did it coz by the time I found this book I had 4 children already! But generally you can just plonk her on the bouncer and just involve her in your day. Or you can always take her out. And please, remember don’t over stimulate her 🙂
Thanks! I’ll go borrow it. There’s a copy available at the library near where I stay. Dd is easily stimulated but I’m thinking of doing activities more in the mornings if we can’t go out due to bad weather.