This fall Hailey will be in a preschool program three mornings a week. I’ve decided to implement some at-home intentional learning at the start of this school year as well. Hailey is at an age (3 years old, but will be 4 next month) where she is really self-motivated to learn, especially regarding letters and reading. I’m choosing to capitalize on this and follow her lead by setting aside 20-30 minutes each day to work on these skills with her, as well as sprinkle them in throughout the day.
I talked to several friends (teachers, homeschoolers, moms) about where to get started and wanted to share all the great products I am learning about and using with Hailey with you guys!
My largest area of focus centers around letters, reading and writing, since this is at the heart of Hailey’s interest. My super-teacher friend, Alison, enlightened me that children should actually be learning letter sounds before the names of the letters, so we’ve started with focusing there.
I bought several of these Kumon books and we started with the Kumon Uppercase Letters.
I love that the book focuses on basic skills like drawing straight lines before even getting to letters, then they start with the letters that are easier for children to learn to write, like L, T, H, and I.
By biggest hesitation with this idea was sucking the fun out of it, but by limiting it to 20-30 minutes, Hailey feels like it is really special and can hold her focus. With each page, we talk about the letter name, the letter sound, then use all the letter sounds to sound out the coordinating word. Super simple stuff and she loves it.
I also have the really great Kumon Wipe Off Flash Cards for Uppercase Letters.
Basic and brilliant, as what child doesn’t love a wipe off pen? I really like that Kumon teaches children how to write each letter with a “connect the dot to the star” directions, making it really easy for the to follow along.
I also have heard good things about the Handwriting without Tears program and making letters fun by writing them in shaving cream, or sand.
Additionally, I’m pulling out the playdoh more often and am looking into Wikki Stix, as I’ve learned that anything children can do to help with hand strength and fine motor skills will help with writing.
Moving on from letters and writing, into just fun facts. Like most kids her age, Hailey is a sponge and random facts just stick in her head. Currently it’s all about black widow spiders that she learned about from a girl at the playground. Ha! I’m a trivia nut myself, so I bought these Brain Quest flashcards so she’d have something to talk about besides spiders.
I remember my mom buying these for us when I was a kid and I loved them on road trips. From recognizing numbers, to counting and other age- appropriate questions (Which of these tails belongs on a squirrel?), it’s been a lot of fun to pull out and play with when we have down time.
I also found a new gem for car rides- gotta love the library! These Song and Story CDs are awesome.
They play 4 songs from the featured movie followed by a 20 minute telling of the story. No book comes with them, but the characters from the Disney movies make appearances and hearing their voices along with the story is really neat.
I’m also tempted to get a week and weather chart because this one by Lakeshore Learning looks amazing. As it should because it’s not cheap. However, I think the visual of the days of the week would help her grasp them more easily and I like that this chart has a small area of focus in several different categories.
Speaking of price, obviously none of these things are necessary to help your child learn at home. We count everything we do (walking down stairs to eating grapes) and have collected sticks outside and glued them on paper to make letter shapes (mostly H’s- her favorite). I don’t think buying supplies is necessary, but for me, I was looking for a little more guidance and have been really pleased with the above choices!
Moms, teachers, people that were once children yourselves…
Do you have any favorite products that make learning and working on skills fun for young ages?
Katie Mac says
Great post — I just bought the kumon stuff and two CDs! Thanks for the info!
Giselle says
Great ideas! I love The Reading Mama for beginning reading strategies and lots of great resources for at home learning activities. We try to keep things fun while still being educational without over doing it. As a former teacher, I know how much time is spent sitting in chairs learning once they enter school so I try to keep things fun, simple and short so he can continue to play as much as possible too 🙂
Jennifer U says
This post comes at such a good time for me. When my son was diagnosed with a couple different allergies we took him out of his home daycare and into a *pricey* daycare center/summer camp with a set curriculum. Its amazing what he has learned in a few short weeks. This is his last week there and will spend 10 weeks at home with my while I am on maternity leave. Unfortunately, this type of care is GREAT but out of our budget. So I am trying to put together a preschool home school lesson plans for the next 10 weeks and beyond. I really like the weather map – I will see if I can find a way to make my own for him to do the weather daily. I really like those books you have posted about drawing letters. I read on a blog recently that the dollar store has many items for home schooling, I will probably go over there to check it out soon. Please continue to post any great activities you guys do at home too!
Molly says
This is great! I did ghost writing with my 4 and 5 year old preschoolers every single day last year and their letters drastically improved. You need to find some chunky lined paper (make a zillion copies). I’d write that week’s letter on the top line in yellow marker (upper and lower case) and the kids would trace it. On the next line I’d write a word beginning with our letter (zebra) and again they’d trace it. The bottom line was for writing their own name (trace if need be, or on their own) or trying to write the word from the above line on their own (copying from their environment). I can’t tell you how successful this was! Again, we did it every day for a whole school year.
You are right about the letter sounds. And when introducing letters, start with vowels first! And then focus on the letters in her name. Letters in sister, mom and dad’s names. They’re the most meaningful to her. Remind her that each letter makes a special sound (some make more than one sound) and you can come up with a list of words that being with that letter and review each day. It becomes fun! Can you look around our kitchen and find something that begins with the “eh” sound for E? Egg! That’s right.
I could go on and on. You’re doing great and your efforts will be worthwhile!
Erin @ Her Heartland Soul says
She’s a smart little girl! I used to love Brain Quest!
Morgan @ Morgan Manages Mommyhood says
We’re not there yet, but it’s so fun to think about all the things we’ll be doing before I know it! I LOVED Brain Quest as a kid!
Tanya says
We have rented those cds from the library too. E’s favorite is the Winnie the Pooh (obvs!). We are using everything to teach letters -from her princesses (Jasmine starts with a J) to road signs. Eleanor is hard to “teach” but if we do it all in practical ways for short periods of time she engages pretty well. I just picked up the book “Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready” for developmental activities for both girls and have a few workbooks we are using. I like the Kumon ones you have though and may look into that. And that Circle Time Banner looks awesome. I wonder if I could DIY one though? Oh last thing, I just found a dry erase board map in the dollar section at Target and we have been using that to show Eleanor where we go when we travel. I gotta get my hands on the Brain Quest too! I remember those from when I was a kid and loved them!
Julie says
I loved the BrainQuest flashcards when my daughter was little! They were a perfect size to stick easily into my purse or bag & worked great to pull out when we were waiting at a restaurant or in a line at an amusement park, for example.
Natalie @ The Ravenous Mommy says
Those are great ideas! Wyatt is really getting into letters now, So i just got an ABC puzzle and we try to go over letters a few times a day just for a few minutes at a time. I like the traceable book! I’ll have to pick one of those up when he gets a bit older.
Urban Wife says
Thank you for writing this post! I’m not at this level yet with our son but I know next fall is going to be here in a flash. Bookmarking for future reference! Ps. Would love to read about any other structured (or even non structured) activities you end up doing with Hailey! I’m gathering all the info I can now, to prep for next year. 🙂
Tara says
I’m a special education pre-k teacher and I love handwriting without tears for letter formation. I also love Lively Letter from Teaching with TLC for letter and sound identification. My students love the CD and coloring sheets! We also use the flash cards in my classrolm. It seriously works wonders! Hailey will have so much fun learning at school and with you! 🙂
Courtney says
Great ideas! I’m a teacher and have over ten years of early childhood experience. A few ideas..
Mix corn starch with water ( just add water a little at a time until it is a thick water consistency) to make a beyond weird texture experience! If you squeeze the mixture it feels hard, but then you can let it go and dribble it through your fingers. We used to make this on rainy days and the kids loved it! It is messy though, so just make sure to put down paper/table cloth where you make it!
Stringing beads on shoe laces is great for fine motor skills. Just be careful beads don’t end up in mouths or noses!
Teachers pay teachers is a website aimed at teacher that has a million homemade materials that may be worth looking into. I’m not certain if you need to be a teacher to sign up, but it’s worth a look!
I love your enthusiasm for learning and can’t wait to see how this progresses!
Elizabeth Evans says
So funny, we just picked up the Snow White cd at the library last week. I’m still not getting your email subscription : ( it just stopped all of the sudden last week. I tried to resubscribe & wasn’t able to do that since I’m already subscribed.
Liz @ I Heart Vegetables says
I was homeschooled and I remember LOVING those BrainQuest games! I loved reading and writing and I was the youngest so I think I just wanted to keep up with my big brother 😉 So fun to see her have such an interest in that sort of thing!
Lauren Brennan says
Thanks for sharing! I will begin homeschooling Jackson next year when he turns 4, so these tools will be great to use (even before then!)! It’s going to be quite an adventure! 🙂
Nicole says
I love that you’ve decided to do this with Hailey! She’ll love it 🙂 I “mommy-schooled” my oldest daughter and I just always took my queues from her. I tend to use a lot of Montessori techniques with both my girls. Some favorite things? Our chalkboard, dry erase lapboards (with handwriting lines), our calendar/weather chart, Kindermusik music and instruments, sandpaper letters, tray sorting activities, workbooks from Dollar Tree and Walmart, ABCmouse.com… I could go on all day, I think. 😐
Anyway, have fun with it all. You’ll both love it!