where can i find a curriculum online to give my daughter a headstart before she goes to preschool?

Question

Would it be easier for her if i teach her how to spell small words that she already knows how to say (cat, dog, baby, mom) before i try to teach her the whole alphabet? What are the best ways to teach her colours? How can I be sure that she actually sees the different colours? (my brother and I are both partially colour blind) What would be the best way for me to teach her shapes that would be the easiest way for her to understand?

Answer 1

First, hun, breathe!
Your daughter is going to do great! there are tons of websites that can give you tons of ideas on tons of different teaching approaches so on and so forth.
but my advice to you is the library. Most libraries have extensive preschool sections.(and if yours doesn't, go to another one. I have cards to three library systems, which gives me access to over a dozen libraries)
I babysat a preschool child for awhile just recently and this was the best thing I did with him: board books. He loved to look at them and there was a book for everything you mentioned. I would also make sure I mentioned the shape or color or whatever of everything: "look at that red ball. red ball, red ball." each time, he would say "red ball" right after me. then I would point to something red in the book. then it would move on to "where's the red ball. show me the red ball."
songs are good, too. ABC song, she can probably sing it before anything. Use songs to teach spelling. Make up songs. haha, I used rap tunes, kids love it!
As far as color blindness, you have mentioned this to your pediatrician? they can help, but you can test her yourself very easily, just gather colorful things and ask her to pick out a certain color after you show her which is which.
The most important thing to remember is kids are natural learners. She will learn, all you need to do is provide a learning environment and expand your concept of what learningis and how learning happens. Learning happens all the time, everywhere, so take advantage of those small moments, and don't stress over trying to do everything all at once.
You're doing a great job.

Answer 2

Online really isn't appropriate for this age. It should be one on one play time with hands on learning and a lot of reading.

Teach letter recognition and letter sounds before words. Then you can make flip books to teach small words. You wouldn't teach addition before you taught numbers would you? We have the foam letters for in the tub and magnets for on the fridge. We also got a little magnet set from LeapFrog that has all the letters and a little pad. When you put the letters in the pad and press down it sings a little song. S says SSS. S says SSSSSS. Every letter makes a sound and S says sssss. Then we talk about it. We choose a letter off the fridge or in the tub and make a game of it. S says SSSSSSS, like small and sing (emphasize the sss at the begining) can you think of a S word? Once you have done it a bunch and she gets the hang of it you can do it anywhere in the car, while pushing the cart through the grocery store, wherever. And to them it isn't learning. It is a game. Like where is your head, just a chance to have Mom say "very good you are so great at this" When she has mastered all of the individual letter sounds you move on to the first blends. AP, AT, AS, AG, AD, AM, AN, ED, EG, EM, EN, ER, ET, ID, IG, IM, IN, IP, IS, IT, OB, OD, OG, ON, OP, OR, OT, OW, UG, UM, UP. Here is a website with lots of download and print out leveled books. It is $80 a year but can be a great resource. http://www.readinga-z.com/index.php

As for checking for color blindness the eye doctor should have a little book that has a shape in the middle in a color affected by color blindness. They tested my son for that as part of an eye exam, but I would specifically ask since you have that concern. I would make an appointment there before you try to work on colors because otherwise it could confuse her. You pediatrician may have it as well so you could ask there.

For teaching colors it is best just to bring them up in daily life. Lets use your blue cup. Do you want the red juice? Lets wear a pink sweater today. Look at the leaf mommy found isn't it a pretty green? Then build up to hand mommy the blue crayon, where you test her on her knowledge and correct mistakes. You will be surprised how quickly she picks it up. Also use ordinal, directional, and descriptive words this way (first, second, last, up, down, next to, under, above, in front, behind, hot, cold, big, small, loud, quiet, whisper, shout, yummy, tall, short, etc)

Shapes use a shape sorter and shape puzzles. As you hand her the block or puzzle piece say where does the circle go? No that is the star. Here is the circle. Great job. Then build up to the books that have different shapes for her to find.

Hope some of this helps, feel free to email if you need anything else. Good luck.

Answer 3

There are so many things you can do at this young age to help. Read, read, read. It's one of the best things you can do. Teach her the alphabet, colors, shapes. There are lots of books now to help. You can go to wal-mart and they have a great little book section just for those things. If you want an actual curriculum homeschool supercenter has everything. Good for you getting a head start. :)

Answer 4

The best way to teach your preschooler is by interaction with you. Read to her all the time, play with finger paints and talk about colours, make shapes with playdough, play with blocks, play with scoops and funnels in rice, sand, or water. Collect leaves and rocks and bugs, etc. Talk to her constantly about all the stuff you find and examine.

If you really want her to play on the computer (not necessary and I would really do that only for very short periods of time) try www.starfall.com, www.enchantedlearning.com, or any of the jumpstart preschool games.

When she is old enough to recognize shapes and letters, you can test her for colour blindness.

Good luck, and have fun with her!

Answer 5

I am going to have the same problem when my daughter starts school. Right now, I drop them off at the sitter's without breakfast most mornings. My children will not eat anything until they have been up for at least an hour. Sometimes closer to 2 hours. If I were to try to feed them breakfast, that would mean I have to get them up at 5am just so they could eat. Personally, i would send a snack (cereal, fruit or fruit bar, etc) for her to eat and let the teacher know that she doesn't eat breakfast. I agree that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but coming from someone who can't eat until at least an hour after I get up, it's difficult.

Answer 6

The very best things are to read to her and to make sure she is included in every part of your day and that you talk to her a LOT. Point things out as you are driving down the street and give short little explanations. For instance: Go to super Walmart and as you are picking out apples show her how to check for rotten spots on the 'red apples' and then have her put them in the bag as you are counting them. Just that one thing alone shows her numbers, colors, the life skill of picking out nice apples, AND shows how necessary she is to your family that you needed her help shopping. Multiply this experience by dozens of things each day and you will have a very knowledgeable, competent kid. Playing games is also a way to learn counting, since you roll the die or spin or whatever then have to count out the spaces. There are 'probably' TONS of books at your library that feature colors and shapes. If you use the color and shape words regularly in your vocabulary, she will begin to use them correctly, too. With my daughter I had to get some felt and cut out different shapes in different colors and work with her when she was about 3 because she just was not picking it up on her own, but my son was using color words by 15 months or so - just a difference in kids, I guess.

You might want to start letters by working on teaching her to write her name, but MAKE SURE you do not do it in all capital letters! My mom taught kindergarten for 22 years and it was really hard for her to reteach the kids to write their names properly after the parent had taught them to do it in all caps.

If you do start the alphabet, make sure that it is done in very short spurts with lots of fun and games, since she is actually rather young to be learning such a thing. I am not sure that that would be necessary for a child to know to be ahead in preschool. If she even recognized most of the letters, that would put her ahead as she entered kindergarten. There are so many other things to be working on anyway - even physical skills. For instance, it will help her in preschool/school if you teach her to follow directions. It will help her if you have taught her how to cut with scissors and how to use glue. It will help her if you teach her how to draw a line from one thing to another. [Yeah, you don't realize what a skill this actually is till you try to teach it to your kid!!]

As far as teaching her small words - this is just a matter of opinion - but I would say probably not. The reason is, kids need to learn to read phonetically by knowing the sound of each letter in the word then being able to sound it out, and to look at a short word and memorize its shape is sight reading. The problem with learning to read by sight reading is that it gives a child no tools to decode new words, or if they see the same word in different type they won't recognize it, or if they see the same word but with a letter or two added [cat, cats] they won't be able to read it. Another little side note here I'll add - this is from an article I read years ago - many schools are using sight-reading now; when a child memorizes the shape of the word, you cannot tell whether he was reading it forward or backwards, so when he then writes the word, it can come out scrambled or backwards, and that can make the child appear dyslexic.

Just a couple of thoughts, and I hope some of these things help. Whatever you do will help, because you are an involved parent who is interested in helping your child succeed, and doing ANYTHING will put your child ahead! Keep up the good work - you have a very lucky daughter who will be happy to spend time with her loving mama!

Answer 7

you could just sit down and watch the tv with her, talk to her about it and point things out. Read books with her and talk about things "red rabbit".
Make games out of the alphabet letters, tape big paper feet on the floor and she can walk on the ones she knows,
let her make a mess and paint, name things, get her in a play group so she's used to others or just play with her, shes a little girl for goodness sake not a computer.
We had kindergarten to get kids ready for school, then they made pre-school so kids could be "prepared" for kindergarten, now they have to be prepared for pre-school too. How old do you think your child should be before stuck in an instutution?? 1 year?? 6 months???

Answer 8

Some curriculum sites that are good for Preschool & Kindergarten are:
http://www.iknowthat.com/com/GradeLevel?GradeLevel=-1 & http://www.uptoten.com/ & http://www.internet4classrooms.com/month2month.htm
You do register for the first site, but it is free, and they don't email you or anything; just keep track of your child's cards and points and things.


I do like using a combination of Internet sites, books, field trips, and everyday life. Both of my children are visual-spatial learners and learn a lot from different ways/styles of learning. Enjoy!

Answer 9

Flash cards with the words and pictures on them

Answer 10

try this web >>www.time4learning.com/preschool-games.shtml and this web to >>www.curriculumonline.gov.uk/ ...I'm not sure if this the web....try to click on it....