Preschool at Home: What Do I Teach?

As I have begun this endeavor of teaching my son at home this year, I quickly realized I needed a "starting" place...I needed something that would be beneficial to my son's learning needs. Most of the 3 year old curriculums I could find focused on areas of learning that, I knew, my son had already mastered. A "letter of the week/month" program was not going to work. Since we are doing preschool at home, I figured the best part was that I would be able to tailor his school day around his own academic needs. I, first, started with identifying what was expected to be taught in preschool and then correlated it with what my son already knew...then I began to plan accordingly.  Here is the link that will take you to the standards: Oklahoma Pre-K Standards.

I am currently planning out a week at a time. I sit down and plan Friday afternoons for the next week. I go through and mark off standards as he masters them, I also write the date next to the standard so I can see when I taught something. This is a quick way to reference what I am doing and when. I also write the standard in my lesson plan book for a reference as well.

There are some things we focus on that may be extensions of a standard or may not even be listed on the list of standards. These are more or less the "enrichment" lessons we do together. I do this when I feel Lil' Man needs to go above and beyond the basic requirement listed.

The fun part, is I use many resources for teaching Lil' Man. I will expound more on this in another post. Today, I just wanted to share information with how to get started if you were not going with a curriculum. I would suggest your first step be in researching through the various curriculums available to see if one of them is right for you. If you are not finding quite what you are needing, then I would think about constructing your own curriculum based on your state's REQUIRED standards. Remember, these are only the minimum requirements.

Here are links to some preschool curriculum sites:

A Beka

Bob Jones University

Sonlight

Hands On Homeschooling

My Father's World

Horizons