How do I get started homeschooling my four year old (calgary, alberta)?

Question

she misses the kindergarten cut off by 2 days and to pay is off the wall insane like 2600 dollars for the year, is kindergarten available for home schooling?

Answer 1

You just start working with them. There is no law anywhere that I know of regarding children below school age, so you should be good to go until they reach school age, then you will need to look into the laws of your are. Here is a couple of links where you should be able to find the info.
http://www.hslda.ca/provlaws.asp?prov=ab
http://homeschooling.about.com/od/canablegal/Alberta_Homeschool_Laws.htm

As for where to start, at this point there is little to now real structure in home schooling. You incorporate your daily activities and play time to teach colors, shapes, counting, letters and their sounds, pencil control. You want to be sure your child understands the concepts of directional and ordinal words (up, down, over, under, next to, behind, first, second, next, last, etc...) and can effectively communicate. Any speech issues should be addressed with a speech therapist.

Here are some ideas on things you can do to teach these things.
Colors- be sure to use color words in your everyday life. Let's use the blue bowl. Hand mommy the green ball. Do you want your red shirt or your blue shirt today? When coloring in coloring books talk about the colors. There are flash cards which one of my sons thought were fun to do. Have a color day. Dress in the color of the day, eat foods that color, go on a hunt in the house and yard for things that color and have your child point them out.

Shapes- there are lots of work books and puzzles you can use for these.

Counting and numbers- Count EVERYTHING. Steps at home and church, spoonfuls of sugar going into your coffee. Play a version of mother may I where you take a walk and take turns saying how many of what kind of step you can take. Big, baby, sideways, backward, hops, etc. Tell them they can have 3 cookies after lunch and let them count them out. Begin linking counting with numbers by playing toddler board games there are a lot out there that have you roll a numbered die ot spin to a number and then count beans, steps, whatever.

Letters and their sounds- leap pad has a fridge mate that lets you put the letters in and it will tell you the letter name and sound. We played a game in the car where you say s says ssssssss like sand and salt, can you think of another s word? My son loved this because we made a fuss when he got it right and he loved feeling smart. Have letter days like the color days above. Have small bins with small things that begin with a letter he can go through and name them. Also there are a lot of work books and activities for this

Pencil control- montessori has the best ideas for how to do this. tweezing, tonging, scooping, tracing metal insets, drawing lines, free color, etc all help develope the muscles in the hand.

Read to them all the time. Read things they can hear and understand, but are well beyond their reading ability. Hearing the written word and how it flows is a very important part of learning flunecy.

Look into the learning software available through VTech and Leap Frog.

Hope some of this helps. If you have anymore questions let me know.

Answer 2

I'm not sure about the legal aspect, if that is what you are asking. If you are asking about education, then the best early learning stuff I've found is A Beka. Their K-4 and K-5 stuff is really good, up through about the middle of second grade. A lot of other curricula intended for 4 year olds is what I'd call preschool - shapes and colors and stuff that a 4 yo would probably already know. Although it has been a loooong time since my two were that age, so no doubt a lot of stuff has come out since then! But for math and reading, I really liked A Beka. I don't know if you are familiar with Rainbow Resource, but they have a ton of stuff for every educational level and interest, so that is also a good place to start. When my kids were little we did a LOT of extra science experiments from these kits you can buy, plus we did a WHOLE lot of art. A Beka also has great art stuff that I've never found any place else.

Answer 3

Hi! I starting homeschooling my 3 and 4 yr olds in August. They're 4 and 5 now. We spend a lot of time learning colors, shapes, letters and phonics, and numbers--all the things they would typically learn in Preschool. As soon as they get a better handle on writing letters and numbers, we'll be starting actual science and math curriculums. For everything else we'll be sticking with books, videos, etc. I recently read a book of Kindergarten curriculum, and found that we've already covered most of the material without even trying!

I live in Indiana where homeschooling is popular, so there's not a lot of regulation. If I were you, I would work on basic age-specific skills, and take some time to look into the laws in your area. Homeschooling is really worth the time you spend on it. Enjoy the extra time you get to spend with your child. Good luck!

Answer 4

Oh wow! This is the best age to start... so much fun! You can buy kindergarten curriculum online, but you do not have to. The web is full of free resources that will more than cover every subject for at least an entire year. Pair it with some imagination and some fun trips to zoos, museums, and public libraries (I'm not very familiar with Canada...I'm in the US, but I'm assuming that you also have public libraries or the equivalent), and you're good! Have free time(recess) in the back yard, some math in the supermarket when you buy groceries(more than and less than: comparing prices), science in the kitchen, art on the sidewalk with sidewalk chalk and a camera for pictures of their artwork. Read poetry...kids love anything that rhymes. You can use marbles for sets/groups and adding. Go on nature walks and have your child draw pictures of different things that you saw and heard in a special journal kept just for your special walks. This is also gives wonderful opportunities for talks about anything at all! Take paper and crayons to a cemetary and make rubbings of the headstones(no this is NOT disrespectful).

The world is your oyster! I hope you have a great year! Homeschooling helps you and your kids know each other so much better...you form this bond that's just amazing. A whole new appreciation for your kids. :) I wouldn't trade it for the world. (Yes, we do have days where they can be stubborn as goats....these days we sometimes just have to call "sick days" or "snow days", but they become fewer and fewer as time goes on).

Answer 5

I'm in Alberta, too.

You can't register for homeschooling until your child is eligible for grade 1. So, before that, get to know homeschoolers in your area . Try starting with http://groups.yahoo.com/group/calgary-hs/ . That will also be the best way to know more about specific programs out there that you might want to use, learn about different approaches to homeschooling, etc.

There will also be a major homeschooling convention coming up in April in Red Deer. http://www.aheaonline.com/ I've never been, but it's supposed to be great and there are a lot of vendors present.