Photo by tiffanywashko.
As someone who wasn’t around many small children and who until I got married decided i wasn’t having ANY. EVER. Well, I really don’t know what to do with them. I don’t know what they are capable of or what they would enjoy and frankly, I’ve never been a ‘play-er.’ I’ve always been a reader.
My daughter is a voracious explorer and needs me to interact. I can’t just leave her to herself ALL day and we are not the kind of people who can just plop her in front of a video. We don’t, in fact, have a tv, so that kind of helps :).
In order to make sure she is stimulated enough and to provide me with ideas for fun AND learning, I’ve been looking at homeschool preschool materials. Even if you have no plans of homeschooling, they are a wealth of knowledge on things children that age like and are likely capable of.
We’ve looked at several preschool curriculums and had a heck of a time finding them!! Especially for younger kids (my daughter will be 2 in January). This year, we will be doing Hands On Homeschooling. Since she is only 1-1/2, we will probably start slowly around November and start crusing after the holidays. What I like about this program is that it doesn’t require you to have a lot of books or supplies and it has activities for every day. The curriculum itself is a bit pricy, but you don’t need to buy much to go with it.
I also bought Little Saints — Catholic PreSchool Program. I was hoping it would include more Catholic-specific religious activities than it does but it hits the biggies. On first glance-through, the things I like about this are the number of art & learning projects and the book lists at the beginning of each week. Unlike Before Five In A Row (which I didn’t like), many of the books are easily found at my local library. I think I will like having a suggested list of books for the week; I get so overwhelmed by the sheer number of skinny books on long shelves that I can’t even start! I think we will save this for next year.
I think I may try Sonlight for age 4. I’m going to peek at the books for both the P3/4 and the P4/5 to see which I’d like to do. I’m torn between that and the Catholic Heritage Curricula. They have a preschool program that I really like that INCLUDES Kindergarten.
And, if you have a child who likes worksheets, I also found ABC Homeschool. Their prices are comparable to Hands On Homeschooling if you purchase the books. You can also get an ebook download or on CD. If DD is anything like me, I may have to supplement Sonlight with these. I LOVED playing school and doing workbooks/worksheets when I was young.
There are also lots of toddler activity books available on amazon. I have one called Science Play, but I think it’s still a little over her head. We’ll try it next summer.
Where do you find resources for things to do with your small children? Have you found any other preschool curriculum for very small children? Please share!