The last bit of our homeschool curriculum arrived in the mail this week and I’m so excited to share all about what fun and learning we have planned! 
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It’s mid July and love it or hate it but school time is right around the corner! I always got so excited to shop for school supplies and around this time I could feel the anticipation rising. From mid July to mid August seemed to be a never ending month. Of course though not long after school started I was regretting ever being excited in the first place. Yet again though I’d continue to get antsy each and every summer.
School days are long gone for me but guess what? Now I get to be excited all over again because we are homeschooling!
We technically started doing preschool last year when Wyatt was three but I had no earthly clue what I was doing. I’ll probably be saying the same thing next year and the year after. Heck, I’m not sure I’ll ever feel like a pro but I’ll fake it til I make it!
I had this picture perfect idea of what homeschooling would look like and got it completely wrong. You can read about my hysterical “schedule” HERE. (although, at the time I was oh so serious about it). Weekly themed activities were all planned out and although originally fun, Wyatt and I both got sick and tired of it and quickly lost interest. I’ll save all of that for a separate post but just to sum it up, we needed a change.
After doing a bit of research, reading several homeschool books at the library and many blogs and vlogs later I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone homeschools differently. That’s completely OKAY! Something else I had no clue even existed was the fact that there are actual methods to how you homeschool.
What?
Methods?! You mean it’s not just reciting the pledge, doing cutsie songs, and tracing letters in a workbook?
Ya’ll I had a lot to learn but I’m slowly and surely learning more each and every day.
Homeschool Preschool Video
The Good And The Beautiful
I’d say our language arts course book will be the main form of curriculum for the school year. Because of its fabulous reviews I decided to go with The Good and The Beautiful and so far I am very much impressed. It for sure holds up to it’s name because it really is good and oh so beautiful!
You can expect more than just a dollar general preschool workbook. With a total of 34 fun filled and interactive lessons I can’t imagine us ever getting bored of it. I’ve been wrong before but you guys, it just FEELS right. You know what I mean?
I don’t expect us to do a lesson each and every day. For now, I’m going to shoot for 1-2 per week but we will just play it by ear. The good thing about homeschooling is that if Wyatt doesn’t understand a lesson we don’t have to be in a rush to move onto the next one.
Each of the language arts course books come in levels. The first is Pre-K, then level k primer, level K and after that it goes 1,2,3 etc. Wyatt knows his uppercase letters of the alphabet already and some of the sounds so I decided to go with K-primer. By the end of this course book he will be expected to know all uppercase and lowercase letters as well as their sounds.
That’s it!
It does introduce many other concepts including vowels as well as a bit of math and eventually reading words. It came with the cutest “My First Reading Book.” He may or may not be able to read it by the end but no big deal if he can’t!
Nature
Obviously as a big nature geek myself we had to include it in our homeschool fun! Back in May I purchased a Bird Log book at the Kentucky Green Living Fair. You can read all about it HERE. It has allowed us to record the details from our bird watching adventures and has space for drawings or a photo. I plan to use this quite a bit for Spring of 2020!
I had my eye on The Julia Rothman collection a while before I actually purchased it but I’m so glad that I did! I’m going to be straight up honest here and say that I may have purchased this set more so for me than Wyatt.
The day it arrived I started skimming through the books and was literally blown away at the info and gorgeous illustrations. I’d say these are the single most informative books I’ve ever read and couldn’t hardly put down.
Wyatt has fell in love with them and is always bringing me one to look through. It sparks many different questions, especially the section on gardening. It shows you which bugs are good to have and which aren’t so good. Wyatt always tries to quiz me on that!
I’d recommend this set to anyone, homeschool or not! I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed. Big applause to you Julia Rothman!
Math and Supplemental
Although math isn’t usually required at this age level, Wyatt is particularly interested in numbers so I thought I’d take his lead and go with it! He sure didn’t get it from me.
I bought a set of both counting cubes and counting bears to help learning math a bit easier. I’m not quite sure on this yet, but from what I can tell Wyatt seems to learn best visually but also a bit hands on. I am the same and I remember back in school those cubes made it a lot easier to understand math concepts.
The cubes came with a little activity book showing the many ways you can use these cubes. They aren’t only for preschoolers either! If we don’t lose these then I plan to use them for many years to come.
Wikki Stix
I decided to buy a small set of Wikki Stix as something new for Wyatt to try out. He loves to build and create so I figured this would be right up his ally! Wikki Stix are thin strips of wax that can be cut and molded together to make just about anything. The cool thing is that they can be reused again and again. I think we will have a lot of fun and creativity with these!
Notebook And Pencils
Because Wyatt is super into dinosaurs, (check out our trip to Dinosaur World HERE) when I seen this dinosaur themed notebook I had to buy it. It’s similar to a composition book except it is more geared towards younger children. There’s bigger lines to make it easier for them to write and also blank space on each page for drawings. How neat!
While finishing up my last Amazon order I came across a pack of My First Ticonderoga pencils. These are just like the regular #2 pencils except they are larger in circumference to make it easier for young children to write.
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