Hey guys! I'm about to start officially homeschooling my DD, and I'm feeling overwhelmed by all the curriculum choices out there. I was hoping you could help. I want something simple and easy... something that we'll both enjoy, and that won't take a ton of money or time to put together.

My DD is 3.5 now. Since birth, she's always hit milestones around 1.5x her actual age, and that's stayed pretty consistent. She's been begging me to teach her to read and write for a bit now, so I've decided to officially start homeschooling.

I don't intend to do anything too rigid, just set aside 2-3 hours a day to make sure I'm giving her lots of time to work on reading, math, crafts, motor skills, etc. I've been lazy in that department, just waiting until she seemed to be truly ready to do activities with me.

I think she might be at the tail-end of kindergarten, but I'm not sure.

She's known all her letters since 17 months and learned the sounds awhile ago, but we need to brush up. I'm taking her through this Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The repetition gets boring for both of us, but she remembered the first few lessons I did a couple months ago, so we brushed up and got to lesson 8 today.

She can sort of count to 20 and can add up to... 4 or 5? correctly. She sometimes will accidentally start counting by 5s or backwards...I think because of a song or something she learned on a cartoon. I think if I actually make the effort to teach her to count, add, and subtract, I can get her caught up pretty quickly with it. She knows her shapes, colors and such, but I'm not even sure what I should be going over with her. I just want to make sure she knows whatever she needs to know.

She's not quite ready to write, though. She can write a sloppy M and draw stick people with multiple body parts, but I need to get her doing more crafts and mazes to work on her fine motor skills. I think we'll learn to read before she'll be ready to write. But then the writing should come easier.

I have a mishmash of random Montessori stuff, tons of flashcards, math and word puzzles, kumon workbooks, etc. But no plan.

And there is so much more to focus on besides reading and math. Science, history, nature, crafts. I really need to formulate a plan so I know what I need to focus on each day.

What do you guys suggest starting out with?

Thanks!

I'd get a moveable alphabet, a simple base ten set, and borrow lots of books from the library. That will cost you less than $100.

If you want to get fancy, a simple balance and gram weights, a tape measure, and a clock might be fun for her to play with. Singapore Math books are wonderfully inexpensive, I understand, and pretty consistently appreciated around here.

You might want to look through some regulars' back-posts. Off the top of my head, these folks have home-schooled (and/or virtual schooled), or are doing so now: HowlerKarma, Portia, doubtfulguest, madoosa, Lovemydd, MK13, and amazedmom. Lovemydd made a terrific post about a year ago detailing all the materials in her home school that she designed for her daughter, who was about your daughter's age at the time.

My son has loved Starfall, and he also has a spelling app that he adores. I'll look up its name and get back to you. The cost is about $3 for each of those.

I think you underestimate the current curriculum currently in K. . Ten years ago the minimum standards included reading at least 100 sight words, knowing & writing all their letters, counting to 100, skip counting (by 2's) to 100. I don't remember everything but there is a lot more.

I see nothing wrong with your plan as long as you keep it fun and at her pace. Honestly I wouldn't call it homeschooling at this point. As for resources when my son was at this age we liked the "Bob" books but I know others here didn't like them as much. At this age you really don't need to do anything formal and IMO I think that is best. You can teach a lot while playing. Get lots of paper, crayons, scissors and do a lot of drawing. Encorage your daughter to draw stories and 'write' the story herself. Even if it's not legible. Take trips to the library, take out books of a variety of levels and about a variety of subjects. For math you can use almost anything and add it in while doing everything. Count up the toys, learn to skip count the grapes. Figure out if you have enough carrots for everyone to have 2 each.

Personally I don't like flashcards, or workbooks for this age. Make everything a game and have fun.

Good Luck

We have just finished our first year homeschooling ... Kindergarten. Took DS (then 5.3) out of public school Kindergarten right after Thanksgiving and never looked back. We started quite structured, using curriculum books, set schedule, etc. and now, 7 months later we are basically "unschooling" or schooling with very few set plans. I found that DS learn a lot more and much more eagerly when left to decide on how he's going to spend his day and what he will learn. My only rules are choose 3 books from Reading Rainbow library (he listens to them on iPad) and most days he does 1 or 2 assignments in Dreambox learning math application. With basically zero instruction from me, he's gone from advanced Kindergarten math knowledge to now being almost done with 2nd grade math and working on some 3rd grade math already. His fine motor skills were always lacking, so I haven't been pushing the whole writing thing. Had he been still in public K, it would had been quite writing intensive, but we have the option to pull back. So his "writing practice" is him drawing pictures, construction plans, video game diagrams ... just about anything he wants that gets him to practice with his hands. He's made HUGE improvements in the last few months! A lot of days he asks "do I have to do school work today?" and some days I just say, no, let's take a day off, he's all excited ... and then I find him in his room writing something or creating his own math work sheets
So, my opinion is, let your DD explore and learn on her own. Give her the tools but don't force her into learning. She'll get to it when she's ready. It should be all play at this age. That's how at least my kids seem to learn best

The only thing I push with DD (almost4) is handwriting because her letter formation is wrong about 25% of the time and it bugs me. My issues rather than hers but I know it'd be ME who'd have to sit and correct her until she unlearns all the bad habits down the road so I'm being proactive.

Otherwise, I never got around to getting her any homeschooling supplies that I planned on getting. The only thing I do consistently is our weekly trip to the library and her extracurricular activities. I also got her (tiger mom alert) discarded copies of literature collections grade 2 to 5 for summer reading. As for math, we haven't done anything structured for awhile. Right now, we're lining up as many fun (and free or almost free) activities for the summer. We are enrolled in a mommy-and me art class and we both love it. I often have the best intention to do fun art and craft things for her and her play dates but I'm just too exhausted.

ETA: The reason I mentioned the art class is that I think it's more cost effective than purchasing supplies and equipments. We did ceramics, screen printing, mask making, sewing, water color painting, collage, photography, and a lot of group painting projects. It'd have been almost cost prohibitive for me to do all the above at home.

It's not unusual for a preschooler to still have trouble forming her letters. This is normal development and not necessary her forming "bad" habits. Unless you child has fine motor problems I wouldn't stress it at this point.

As the previous poster said, play with Playdough or other clay. Or kneed bread or make cookies that you form with your hands. And use child scissors, cutting with scissors is a big help in develop the hand strength to help develop the fine motor for writing. And a lot of fun at the same time. Find some old magazines or ads cut them up and make collages. Not a whole lot of art supplies needed.

bluemagic, I meant formation as she is direction and order. She used to do her O and 0 clockwise and it took almost a year to get that fixed because we let it go when she was younger. Now she is okay with O and 0 but she writes some lines from right to left rather than right to left. I know it's a minor detail and her handwriting is more than legible and the end product is correct so I shouldn't be such a perfectionist but every time she writes T from right to left, it drives me CRAZY. Now that I think about it, maybe she's doing it on purpose because she knows I'd overreact.

Aquinas, I saw the post and wanted to write about my post from last year on our montessori inspired homeschool and was so happy to see that you mentioned it in your post. Thanks for the plug
IslandofApples, here is a link to my post http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....1513/Setting_up_our_Montessori_insp.html
I just realized that the pictures on the post are old and we have so much more in our homeschool than we had before such as density cubes, snap circuit equivalent that i got from abroad, spirograph, geopuzzles. I will update the pictures and the material list later when I have more time.
I agree with others about not stressing the academics unless child has a very specific question. Keep it all child led and your child will surprise and delight you. I consider my role to be this: provide an enriched environment and get out of their way. All the best with your journey ahead.

I would suggest loads of play based learning and self exploration.

Think Montessori meets unschooling.

At this age you want to let her explore and go where her natural curiosities will take her.

The things that worked with my older two at that age and work now for Dylan (almost 3.5 years) is the following:
- lots of life skill activities. I used a montessori at home book for guidance
- lots of sensory activities (water play, sand play, gardening, baking, messy, hands on, gooey science experiments etc)
- make believe play (get a dress up box with loads of inexpensive props). You may want to write down the stories she directs/comes up with. They will amaze you!
- Simple Science (Priddy and USBORNE have great experiment books to use)
- art and crafts (we always have a good supply of art and craft equipment handy- paints, pastels, modelling clay and plasticine, mini canvases, drawing books, charcoals and different pencil types, different sized wax crayons, different colours and textures of papers and cardboards, lots of bling bits - glitter, googly eyes, craft glue, pompoms etc)

The two best things I had were a plastic crate with pre packed kits in it for the boys to choose from, a mixture of science kits, art or craft activities, gardening projects, history packs etc. They all loved to pick one and then it had everything in it that we needed for those activities.

The second thing was a shelving system set up with a variety of self exploring activities. Each pigeon hole had one item on it that the boys could access, use and put back when they were finished with it. This is the montessori bit. We changed these activities out every 7 - 10 days, depending on expressed interest. These included items such as 3d models, mathematics kits, magnetic letters/numbers, pages of mazes, geometry shape sets, write and wipe books and a Leapfrog TAG pen are great.

Lots of outings, walks, explorations etc.

Otherwise just enjoy her and the time exploring the world with her.

So I thought about this because I wasn't sure why it matters that you write an O or 0 clockwise or counter-clockwise. Perplexed me a bit. And probably most handwriting books will say this is the correct method. But until I thought about it a bit I couldn't figure out why it would be "better". Writing a cursive "o" would seem easier clockwise than counterclockwise. My guess is there is history behind this more than ergonomics. That once upon a time writing right to left, and the O's counter clockwise helped prevent smearing of the ink when writing with ones right hand with a fountain pen. Modern pens, crayons, pencils this is a lot less necessary.

Ok, these are the spelling apps DS loves:

1. V1- Word Family ($3)
2. V2- Make a Word ($3)
3. Abc1- Spelling Magic 1 (free)
4. ABc2- Spelling Magic 2 (free)
5. Abc3- Spelling Magic 3 (free)


1 and 2 separate out words by word family and cost $3 each. 3, 4, and 5 offer the option of using a digital moveable alphabet and sort words into groups based on theme (animals, outdoors, etc.) Personally, I'd try 1 and 3 first. If she likes those, then get 2, 4, and 5. The paid apps are nicer, IMO, but the freebies get the job done.

For simple math, the Bugs and Numbers/Buttons series is lovely. A great biology app is "The Human Body" in The Explorer's Library series by Tinybop for $3.

Great advice!!

If you can find copies of Peggy Kaye's books-- she has one for literacy and one for numeracy both have "Games" in the title, and are descriptive and pretty extensive-- and more importantly, respectful of different learning styles and developmental arc of young children; I strongly recommend those.

Hunt around and see if you can find any scope-and-sequence documents for your local (or state) schools, just to have a good idea where your child stands. That way you'll have a better idea what to do with standardized testing later, since for achievement batteries, you have to know what "level" to choose.

Every state has curriculum frameworks posted on its DOE website, with benchmarks by grade bracket (sometimes it's a range, like k-2). There usually is a document for each major core subject, and often one for soft (socialization, emotional) skills as well.

I have to admit, I let DS5.10 write letters and numbers in any way he wants. I tried to teach him "the right way" but sometimes the right way doesn't even make sense to me so why would I make him do it that way? All I ask from him is for the letters and numbers to look readable. I guess that's the beauty of homeschooling And he's much more eager to write now that he has the freedom of doing it his way that he finds easier. I never learned to write number 8 the correct way. I've always done it with two "o" on top of each other. And when I saw he was struggling with 8, I showed him my way and he couldn't be happier. We might try cursive next semester just because it seems more natural to me than using print such young age.

I feel bad that when DD is writing, I am being such a buzzkil. I should be focusing on encouraging her to express herself through writing but I just cannot let this one go. So we're doing the HWT orange book this summer or at least that was the plan. DD wants to do it but I am not feeling like workbooks at the moment.

isaldnofapples, sorry for the detour. I looked around our place to see what DD uses to explore math. My DD tends to use everything as her theatrical properties so I'm not sure if she is learning anything math related but we have these products:

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Reso...02531751&sr=8-4&keywords=abacus+learning

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Reso...-7&keywords=100+board+learning+resources

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Reso...2531844&sr=8-1&keywords=math+unit+blocks

http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Reso...3&sr=1-2&keywords=fraction+manipulatives

http://www.amazon.com/Didax-DD-225-...=1402531940&sr=1-1&keywords=unifix+cubes

http://www.amazon.com/Didax-Dd-2220..._t_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0BT8SRJ3WJ55P80C3WBB

DD used the abacus mostly as a musical instrument but I now see her sitting down with it and experimenting with patters so that one is actually useful. DD went through a LEGO phase and I thought she'd continue for years so I invested quite a bit in setting up a lego station but she was over it in 2 months. That was an expensive mistake.

ETA: I got most of those products used and dirt cheap at school fairs.

Mana, don't give up on the Lego thing just yet! DS loved it when he was 2-3 years old, then quit and came back to it when he turned 5 and plays with it on a daily basis. Though he prefers to just dump it in the middle of the room and go from there

Mk13, thank you for sharing that. I was leaning towards donating her Lego collection to a classroom or a shelter but I will store them away and see if she asks for them in the next few years. I'd really rather see her play with Lego than be on her iPad.

Love making paper plate puppets (or masks) and paper bag puppets and putting on shows.

We also had a ton of inexpensive puppets from oriental trading company.