You will want to be sure to watch my Pre-K And 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Review video that goes with this post for more information! We just finished our school year and I’ve been working on end of year reviews and recaps. Whew, what a year it’s been! This year was kind of a whirlwind one, all 5 of the six kids were at different levels of course. Although the two younger were grouped together for many things, and the two middle kids were in their own group for a few things I definitely felt pulled in many directions all school year.
This upcoming school year we will be returning to My Father’s World and starting with Exploration to 1850. I did a review of MFW and an unboxing of Exploration to 1850’s that you can watch HERE. I’m looking forward to returning to MFW and hoping it will be a bit less stressful than this last year!
Although it was a stressful year it was pretty good overall. I learned a long time ago in my homeschool journey that when the going get’s tough that just means there are good things coming!
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Total school hours equal about 5 hours daily for our Pre-K and 1st grader-but this doesn’t count the time spent piggybacking off of their older siblings schoolwork. What I mean by that is the older siblings often read aloud or talk about what they are learning, and they share experiments and so on. The Pre-K and 1st grader are usually involved and listening in on that.
So I would like to explain 5 hours because newbie homeschoolers will assume that might not be enough and of course experienced homeschoolers are going to know that sounds like way too much!
I’d like to specify I do take the more gentle approach and until age 7, and I’m a huge believer in following the child’s pace to a large but reasonable extent! I’ve found that a traditional textbook approach is not what’s best for the budding elementary minds and can even cause learning delays and disorders in some as well as inhibit their creativity which is the last thing I want to do. So we take a gentler, more Charlotte Mason type approach and focus heavily on reading a lot of books and creating good habits. I love adding my own additions as well for a more eclectic approach.
Pre-K And 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Review
Their older siblings and I read to them for about two hours daily from Children’s Bibles, poetry (Robert Frost Book of Poems for Children, Great Short Poems, & When We Were Very Young), What Your Child Needs To Know books, Abeka Health Safety and Manners, Usborne books and so many more (find many of our favorites HERE)! They had around 45 minutes of reading time to kick off the day and the rest throughout.
We completed a couple letter and number activity books with my daughter including Preschool Prep and Horizons Preschool Book 1, plus we began Math U See Primer. It was a little advanced in places for her so we took it slow since she is still young.
One of her very favorite things in school this year was this Get Ready For Reading Course. I loved it too, so far it’s been my favorite reading readiness program because you buy it as a digital pack and print as you need. Everyday she wanted to work from this book. It’s always amazed me how different my girls are from my boys. My daughter can sit at the table for up to two hours learning letters and numbers and she still wants more. She’s so young (4) so after about an hour I would try to redirect her with another activity because I’m worried about eye strain. At her last eye appointment the eye dr said she may need glasses this year and I’m just hoping she hasn’t strained her eyes so much as to need them.
Anyways, this little gal is definitely going to be one of my more advanced children this year because of her dedication-especially in phonics.
Our son (combo k-1st grade) has been working through Math U See Primer. He’s been learning handwriting (although I’m not pushing him too hard with that until our coming school year).
He’s also been enjoying learning a little bit about molecules with our Duluth Lab Set.
Since he’s reached that age (6 at the start of the school year, 7 now) where he’s bucking anything where he has to sit at the table and read or write awhile I’ve been focusing more heavily on education that gets him moving and simply reading to him a lot. I’ve researched and found that for boys around 6 or 7 this is best because it’s common for them to buck sit down work at this age and that it’s actually not good for them to be forced to sit long. Research has shown boys especially should not do a ton of sit down writing and reading work until ages 7 and 8 because their bodies are not ready for this as soon as girls are.
Apparently pushing kids to write and read too early can cause eye stress which can lead to needing glasses, anxiety, learning disorders and all kinds of problems. Since I made this mistake with my oldest I vowed to be extra careful to never do this again, especially since our son already has to wear glasses when he’s doing school (he’s far sighted).
Since one of the focus points right now is trying to foster and cultivate a love of learning for him I’m easing in with about 1.5 hours of sit down work daily (phonics with explode the code, his reading, handwriting and math). At this point one of the big lessons he’s learning is that he doesn’t have a choice to do or not do sit down school work.
I’ve also found that if I tell him that it’s about time for school and that he has 5 minutes to get ready it works better than telling him that it’s time “right now”.
I’ve been using gummy bears a little bit as a reward for him but not very often because his main reward is getting to tell daddy and everybody what he learned that day in school and having everybody praise him for working hard. I like to do this because it helps him learn that his hard work learning is important, and useful.
This spring he surprised daddy big time with his spacial problem solving abilities by solving a perplexing issue daddy had been having of where to set a portion of the fence in our backyard. Daddy had been contemplating it for a couple days when our son came up with the solution! Everybody was so proud of him! Of course things like this helps him to learn that school pays off!
Together with some of the older kids both the younger enjoyed watching Kids Animated History with Pipo, and they have been supplementing elementary math and phonics with Reading Eggs. The kids love Reading Eggs and I love that it provides them with some entertaining education while I help the older kids.
In addition to this we incorporated Exploring Nature with Children by Lynn Seddon about halfway through the year.
In the spring we were able to restock our kids library and wooden toy collections which has been wonderful for them! Be sure to read my post Best Educational Entertaining Toys For Pre-K and watch my video sharing our toy and one of the many book hauls!
I’m looking especially forward to our upcoming school year! Since our daughter is more advanced and since we were doing a lot to lay good foundations this past year it means this coming year is likely going to the year where some bigger advancements are going to happen for both of them!
I’m hoping to get a curriculum choice overview for 2020-2021 K, 1st, and 2nd grades done soon to share so come back soon for that! If you enjoyed Pre-K And 1st Grade Homeschool Curriculum Review be sure to check out ALL MY EARLY ELEMENTARY POST TOPICS HERE.
Are you planning to start homeschooling your early elementary child this year? I’d love to hear in the comments section! Tell me your plans!