How do you homeschool a kindergartner and preschooler?

Question

My 4 year old son is already reading. I am a teacher, so I've always read to him and he has taken a natural interest in letters and words. I haven't really been pushy about it, I just answer questions when he asks. Being that he will not enter kindergarten until NEXT fall (2007) I am seriously considering homeschooling him and his sister (now 2 1/2). I feel like they would get a better education at home than in the public school near us. Should I begin formal instruction with my son? I've read a lot of things saying that homeschooling preschool and kindergarten is very loose, and you shouldn't push much of a curriculum. I was wondering what others are doing with their kindergartners. And what do I do with my 2 1/2 year old while I teach him?

Answer 1

Go to http://hslda.org They promote LEGAL, RESPONSIBLE homeschooling. You can find out what is required to legally homeschool your child in your state. The laws are different in every one, but it is legal everywhere in the USA. Especially find out what the "compulsory school age" is in your state. That is the age that you need to either put your child in public school or offically home school your son. You may not be required to do anything official until he is 6. Then you can just keep up the good work until then. Include your little one in the reading, but otherwise, simply allow your youngest to play quietly or nap while you have school time with the older one. With homeschooling, your scedule is very flexible, so do what works for you!

If you do need/want a curriculum, there is an ocean of curriculums out there, and it can be intimidating to wade through them. I would recommend starting with a guide by either Mary Pride or Cathy Duffy. They are experienced homeschoolers that review curriculums and publish their well-informed opinions about them. Look for books and websites by them. After choosing a curriculum, you can often get used books on e-bay, and several websites like www.christianbook.com have good prices on new curriculum.

Answer 2

I've taught pre-school to two kids and loosely did last year with my oldest. I will be going full force into it this year with him. You go by what works with the child, that's the beauty of homeschooling. Some kids learn faster with a structured routine, some with a more relaxed environment. There's no set curriculum for pre-school or k, really. If you plan on putting them in school at any time, it's better to call the district and ask them what they teach for k, and format your lessons around that. Our district was REALLY touch when I was teaching kindergarten to my niece. Every district is different, though, but here's a basic rundown, if I can remember, on what kids in our district were required to know to get into kindergarten.
write their first name and last initial, be able to recognize it
recognize abc's, both lower and upper cases
use a pair of scissors to cut a straight line
recognize and name primary colors and shapes
be able to count to 20, and recognize them
be able to sit still for five minutes to listen to a story
after hearing a story, be able to tell you what it was about
be able to recite any song, like twinkle twinkle little star
there was even more, but this is all I can remember. I will see if I can find the standards for leaving kindergarten entering 1st grade. I'm not sure where it is, but it was pretty complex. What I found worked for kindergarten was to pick one subject a day. I was using a charter, and we had to turn in one page per subject, per day, a week. So we broke it into subjects, so that one day was reading, one was math, one was science, one was social studies, and we turned the work in on the last day of the week. This helped her to know what she was doing each day to focus on it, we got the work done a lot faster than trying to tackle every subject every day, and it helped her because she was lousy in math, so we did that on Monday and it was out of the way for the rest of the week. For pre-school they really need that variety every day because they need that repetition more than kindergartners do.
Hope this helps!

Answer 3

No doubt, that as a teacher you could provide a wonderful education, and some of the public school systems are really scary these days, but my concern would be socializing.

Children need to be exposed to others for many reasons, but I really don't know what age that needs to happen. I guess you could maybe form a play group or something.

Answer 4

This is such such a great question. I totally agree with what youre doing and I wish you the very best. I am a brand new mama with a 21 month old and Im very interested in homeschooling him as well. Just preschool & kinder as well

Answer 5

I'm using "Reader Rabbit"(learning company.com).My preK/kinder. son has a blast.Delightful characters,interactive activities.He's picked up more than basic sight wds.He ran thru the house the other day yelling"I finished unit 1,everybody,look!!!"Watching that made "Reader Rabbit" a definite keeper for us.

Answer 6

do a lot of hands-on stuff with them.