home (pre)schooling

   For those of you who know me well, you know I am an advocate of homeschooling. So why it didn't occur to me until this week to homeschool Lincoln for preschool is beyond me. I sat there on my computer just willing a new preschool program to pop up onto my google search, "Wonderful, Amazing new preschool in Decatur only $50 a month!" Yeah. Right. Like that's EVER going to happen. So then it dawns on me. I wonder what type of activities I could do with him at home that are preschool-ish enough so that he's learning the basics. Googled that, and Voila! TONS of online preschool resources. There was one website I found to be particularly awesome and wanted to share it with you. A wonderful person named Katrina Lybbert has posted a website called: www.letteroftheweek.com. Here she has three stages or steps that will prepare your preschooler for reading. So Monday Linc and I start the Preparatory Curriculum for Brightly Beaming Steps to Reading, and I am SO excited!! You have no idea how excited I am. This program is legit. It has lesson plans and themes of the week and songs and poems and shapes, colors, numbers, you name it. I feel like he's finally going to get the preschool experience I've so been longing for him to have. And the best part is, I don't really have to pay much at all. So far with supplies I've spent about $15. Yup, fifteen buckaroos, that's it.
    And I know what you're thinking....Heather you could have been teaching him poems and songs and letters all this time ya know...and here's what I have to say to that. I know. But I am the most indecisive person ever. Plus I have a hard time with follow through. So to make a decision on which song to teach Linc and then have the memory to keep singing it to him, doesn't often happen. Direction is what I needed. And direction is what I've found. Like I mentioned before this program has weekly lesson plans all laid out for you and a suggested daily schedule. It's simple things and the whole lesson probably won't last more than 30 minutes, but at least it's something. And I'm so ecstatic about it.
   I also happened upon a blog that I found very encouraging ...http://mommylife.net/archives/2009/03/why_homeschool.html...if you don't want to read the four part post (which is understandable) here it is in a nutshell. Why NOT homeschool your preschooler? You have cared for and raised this child so far...who better to teach them too? A degree isn't what always makes a great teacher. The desire to teach can also make a great teacher. So if you're a mom and have the desire to teach your child, there should be nothing nor anyone stopping you. Geeze, that makes me feel invincible! :) I know that I will be winging it for the first few weeks and probably not as organized-minded or patient as someone with lots of experience teaching, but I like to think that I'll get the hang of it and hopefully learn a lot about myself, my child and education in general in the process.
   So if you haven't been able to send your little one to preschool because of your budget like me, or you just want to homeschool period, I highly recommend this. Of course we'll see how it goes the first week, but she makes the actual days so flexible I can't see this not going well. Here's a few pictures of the things I've prepared for the week...sorry about the quality, I had to use my phone! :) I'll try to update with some more pictures once we start coloring and cutting and things like that. Thanks for letting me share this! :)

These are all the "cow" books we checked out from the library.

I used clear contact paper to "laminate" all of our weekly letters/numbers/etc. I just folded it over on itself then cut around the edges. This way they last through the next few children. :)

Every week we will use a counting folder to help us learn our numbers.
You add stickers counting up to the number on the page.
Ex: the number one would have one sticker. :)

We also have a Review Folder that we will go over every Friday.

It contains the number, letter and shape/color for each corresponding week.

And here's the finished product! She has you make a poster board for reference when teaching your munchkin. I've taped things on with tape that can easily come off, so next week these come down and go into a folder and the new letter/number/color/etc. goes up! Simple as that.