Thursday, October 28, 2010

Schoolin' the Preschooler at the Casa

I'm not ready to send Athena to school. I'm just not. And you know what? I might not be ready to send her next year either. But hey haters, that doesn't mean that she's going to be behind. I'm using some of that crazyweirdhippie homeschooling that runs rampant in my family. And guess what... it's going amazingly!

My first homeschooling purchase was this book:

It's AWESOME. She's mastering shapes, colors, the alphabet, numbers, logic, and is beginning to write. She's 3 years old and is starting to WRITE!



Over the last couple of weeks we've been trying out a bunch of different websites for preschool learning. Our hands down favorite is NickJr's site. Athena navigates the site by herself, switching games and activities whenever she wants. I sit next to her, watch, and interact when needed. She really began recognizing letters and numbers by playing the "Face" games. This site is also where I get awesome printable activities like her leaf book that we made. We even did the free trial of NickJr's premium educational service "Boost", but she's not ready for it yet. If you have a Pre-Ker, Kindergartner, or 1st grader TRY IT! The curriculum is great and the parents' area keeps you super organized and up to date on their progress.

Honorable Mentions go to:
Sprout Online - PBS's Preschool site of games, videos, and activities.
Fisher Price's games and activities site.
Kaboose's Preschool Activity Center

But what about socialization?


Fear not! She's in ballet, she's talked me into letting her start cheerleading, plus we go out on super-cool field trips like:

Farms!


The Zoo!


The pumpkin patch!

We're really having a great time and Athena is doing so well. We'll just have to wait and see how far we go with this and hope for support.











6 comments:

Ky • twopretzels.com said...

I love hearing/reading about parents who are uber-intesrested in their children's cognitive development! WAY to go.

That said, am I to assume that there is a GREAT change in attention span between my say, 16-month-old and your 3-year-old? I cannot even FATHOM getting Lila to sit still to read an entire board book - let alone a "school" book. (We try. It just doesn't work so much.)

Tell me.

How long do you two work together during the day... is it at the same time everyday?

Does Athena still nap?

(I've got a bazillion questions today.) (Feel free to email me, too.)

Wendy said...

Awesome! This makes me happy! This summer we kept getting mailers about an online homeschool program for grades K-12 - have you heard about it? We honestly considered it for the girls because we're not in the school district we want to be in. But, they're doing very well in school so I'm glad they're going. Do you know, is there a "rule" that kids attend prek? How long do you plan to homeschool her?

Unknown said...

Wendy- I JUST started looking into those online schools. www.k12.com supposedly has award-winning curriculum. We live in a TERRIBLE school district and there is absolutely no way I'm sending the ladies there. We can't sell our house for quite some time so it's either homeschool or private school. You can homeschool without reporting to anyone through kindergarten in Ohio, so I'm thinking about at least doing it that far. After that you have to report attendance records, curriculum and grades to the state.

Unknown said...

btw Ky, I emailed you.

Spy said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Spy said...

Just want to take a moment to toot the horns of a couple of our family members' homeschooling: not only are these kids leaps and bounds ahead of their friends, Leslie's girls are speaking three languages and Stephanie's are speaking two. I bet it's funny to hear your child sass you in Egyptian one minute, in Spanish the next, then top it off with good ole home spun (proper) English.