Magic and Mayhem

A mom on one of my homeschool lists asked for help designing a curriculum for her four year old and it got me thinking about what “curriculum” we do here.  I thought I’d post it in case it’s helpful for anybody else out there.

The most important thing to remember is that you should not try to duplicate school for a child this young.  It’s not helpful, it’s not fun, and you’ll set up an environment where you and your child are adversaries.  She may like it at first but before long she will want to do what she is hardwired to do at this age, play.  Children naturally learn through play, and you can easily help her learn even more.  Best of all, she’ll grow up with an attitude that learning is fun.

You do not need a lot of money to HS.  The things that do help are:  a library, the internet, occasional access to a car and a willingness to walk, talk and explore.

If you do nothing but visit your library weekly, bring home a stack of FUN picture books of all sorts of fiction and nonfiction topics and read several times a day together, I guarantee your child will thrive academically.  Throw in playing games, going on nature walks, answering questions and doing simple experiments together, and you’ll be even better.

Here are some ideas on how to incorporate various subjects into your homeschool in a fun way:

Science–

• Get an old sheet and put it under a bush.  Have your child help you vigorously shake the bush.  Get down on your bellies and look at the bugs that fall onto the sheet.  Talk about the similarities and differences and just watch them.
• Put a celery stalk with the leaves intact in a glass of water colored with food coloring.  Leave it for a few days and watch how the colored water goes up the “veins” of the stalk and to the leaves.
• Dig up a few weeds and put them in small pots of soil (dixie cups or recycled containers are fine).  Water one and put it on a sunny windowsill.  Leave the other to go without water and put it on a sunny windowsill.  Water the third and put it in a dark closet.  Observe the plants each day and talk about what he expects to happen and why.
• When you chop up mushrooms, green peppers and such for supper, give her a butter knife and let her explore them too.  Talk about what you find.
• Plant a garden.
• Visit a farm, zoo or aquarium.
• Read/watch “The Magic Schoolbus” to learn about everything from the human body to space in a fun way.
• Put up a thermometer outside and track the temperatures over time.  Compare it to the temperature inside and in the fridge and freezer.

Math

• Do puzzles together.  These help prepare your child for later math.
• Count out loud when mixing a cake or brushing teeth to get to one or two minutes.
• Bake together.  Talk about the measurements, times, etc.  Double a recipe or halve it.
• Print out dot to dot puzzles.
• Play with money and play store.  Allow him access to a small amount of real money to buy things and figure out change together.
• Count by 2’s, 5’s and tens as you walk and let her join in as she gets the hang of it.
• Look for shapes in the house.  Have shape dinners (triangle piece of pizza, rectangle of garlic bread, circle from an ice cream scoop of cole slaw…) or breakfasts (circle pancake, circle orange slices, circle grapes, circle glass of milk…).
• Use books like “M&M Math” to learn counting, adding and such.
• Let her use your measuring tape and compare the measurements of various things around the house.
• Make a number book– Cut some paper into fourths and staple 12 together (10 pages plus a back and front cover).  Let him press his finger on a stamp pad and make a fingerprint on the first page, two on the next and so on.  Give him a ballpoint pen to draw a little face and body (human, spider, whatever she likes) on each fingerprint and show him how to draw the corresponding number on each page.  Have him personalize the cover and read the book together.

Social Studies

• Take her out into the community to see the post office, vet, grocery store, dentist’s office and so on.  Talk about what they do and why the city needs them.
• Put maps up around the house, especially US and world.  Talk about where you live and when you meet someone from somewhere else, find that place on the map.  Likewise, find places on the map to correspond with the ethnic foods you eat, places mentioned in books and so on.  Don’t expect him to grasp countries and cities and such right away, as it’s an advanced concept.  It will gel more in upcoming years with a foundation built now.
• Celebrate holidays around the house and talk about their meanings.

Reading
See this post.

Writing

• Have him title his artwork and sign his name.
• Fold little blank books and leave them in piles for her to write and illustrate her own stories.  If she asks how to spell things, help her.  If she wants to make up words and letters, that’s fine.
• Encourage him to draw.  This will help develop the precision to write well.  And it’s fun. 
• Point out letters (real or abstract) in the environment.  Look, there’s a V on your shirt!  Look, this stick looks like a Y!  Look, the snake is in an S shape!
• Sprinkle corn starch, sand or salt on a cookie sheet and trace letters in it together.
• Give her playdough or bread dough to form into the letters of her name.
• Spread shaving cream or whipped cream on a table or cookie sheet and write words in it.  You can also use lotion on a dark surface.
• Write simple letters to loved ones together where he fills in the blanks.  For instance, you write Dear and help him write Grandma, then you write “I am feeling” and let him decide what emotion to write and help him spell it out.

Arts

• Have a variety of papers, crayons, paints, pencils, markers and other supplies available.
• Play a variety of types of music.  Talk about what part of the world they are from or what time period.  Encourage him to dance, sing or draw to music that he likes.
• Allow her complete ownership over her art with no rules.  Skies can be purple, trees can be polka dotted, animals can have 18 legs.
• Limit the amount of coloring pages and coloring books, with more access to blank papers and open-ended projects.  Likewise, limit the projects that are step by step where it’s supposed to look exactly like every other child’s project at the end.  Instead of a project where he’s supposed to make this bunny picture, for instance, just give him construction paper, cotton balls, markers, wiggly eyes and glue.
• Visit art museums and talk about what pieces you both like and why.  They’re generally free.  Try to duplicate favorite ideas at home.

These are just a few ideas to give you an idea of how simple and fun it is to do preschool at home with your child.  For lots more wonderful wisdom, see the collected advice of veteran HS moms about how to teach the early years here.