Tuesday, July 14, 2009

School Planning

I have been doing lots of research over the last month trying to figure out what I want to do for Ellie's school this year. I was really considering starting Kindergarten but have decided to hold off another year before purchasing a formal curriculum. I did find a free 4 year old curriculum, ABC Jesus Loves Me, that I am going to use that I am really excited about. It covers letters, numbers, bible stories, character traits etc. Some of it will be review but a lot of it will be new. I really want to do one more year of play based child led learning and I think this will work great. I have also decided to do circle time two mornings a week. During this time we are going to sing, read books, do felt stories, devotionals, and listen to music. I am really excited about this time because Emily will get to participate. I don't have a set amount of time I will just follow their lead. I think part of the curriculum can be incorporated in to circle time too. Two afternoons a week when Emily is having rest time we are going to continue doing our Montessori (or at least my version of it) activities. I am going to theme each week and we can base our activities on the theme. I am also going to start Emily doing Tot School. Basically I am going to give her activities to help her fine motor skills and let her to be involved in what we are doing. I am going to save these activities for after her nap if we are still doing preschool. Some of the other things I want us to focus on this year is practical life skills like cooking, folding laundry etc. and art/craft projects. We are going to start school the third week in August and I want to have a few weeks completely planned out. I would like to plan more but I want to make sure this is going to work for us before I plan out to much. Some of the resources I am using are:


Mostly other mommy bloggers!!!

http://www.abcjesuslovesme.com/

Felt Board Stories Book

Five Minute Devotions for Children

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/

Hands On Math

Now I need to get busy getting everything together:)

1 comment:

Katy @ Eat Drink & Decorate said...

Exciting times!! I'm glad you decided to hold off on kindgergarten. I'm sure Ellie would have been good but I just couldn't handle Elle-belle in kindergarten yet... She growing too fast!! Put something heavy on her head to make it stop - or atleast slow it down some. :-)