Today is our first day of school.
Chloe is three and John is two. Though she technically wouldn’t start school until 2011 if she were attending public school Pre-K, we decided that we’d start this year anyway.
After perusing the extensive curriculums available for homeschoolers, we decided to go with Before Five in a Row for our first year. It consists of a lot of reading {something the littles and I enjoy doing a lot on a regular basis} and fun activities to help explore each book. The reading line up is chock full of classic tales that the littles will be completely captivated by. Simple and fun which means John, though two, should be able to join in.
We’re also going to start Learn Your Letters Learn to Serve which is a complete downloadable curriculum kit that contains ‘ideas, instructions, recipes, tutorials and service planners’ to facilitate learning the alphabet along with learning to serve as the title implies. Laura actually has a sample lesson you can check out too.
The Learn Your Letters Learn to Serve link is an affiliate so if you purchase through this link, you support Beautiful Calling. For the record, I purchased my copy by myself with my very own money. I’ve looked through it and it looks fantastic. I will definitely be sharing more about both curriculums as we progress.
Our official school time will be fairly short as our days are really filled with tot school; living life while learning happens. In addition to the books in our box, we also received a wonderful selection of Lauri toys and other fun goodies to learn while we play! I look forward to sharing what we’ve learned each week.
So do you have a favorite educational toy or the perfect engrossing tot book? Please share!
- This post links up to Tot School – a fun linkup of ideas for you and your tot!
They have all those great toys for learning as well as packages already made up on fun crafts/books for seasons and holidays and such at the Ontario early years toy lending library. Its a great resorce for homeschooling! And aslo when dealing with little ones it is so easy to include God in the packages, like “to everything there is a season” for the change of season pack. PLus they are sooo helpful, our one son last year had trouble holding his pencil the right way so I went and talked to one of the workers and she went and found me a hole pile of toys that foccused on the fine moter skills. Its so much cheaper then buying them 🙂
That looks like a neat curriculum. I’d never heard of Before FIAR. I’ll be watching your school posts closely 😉
I found you via your 1+1+1=1 comment
Sounds like a great year!
I don’t really have a favorite toy. I guess whatever the kids like best at the moment. lol My favorite brands are Melissa & Doug, Leap Frog, Lauri, and Guidecraft. Sandra Boyton and Eric Carle are some of my tot’s favorite authors. She loves their books.
We do Before Five in a Row too, and we all love it! I hope that you enjoy it as much as we have. I started it when my oldest was 2, and I think 2s do appreciate the wonderful books. The sweet, simple ideas in the Before Five in a Row book are great, and you can also find resources for lapbooks and games at Homeschool Share. I’ve posted about some of the books on my blog too.
Good luck! It’s so fun teaching tots!
Looking forward to seeing more of your school posts!
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