How am I ever going to really HS if I cant even HPreschool?

[LittleSweetPeas]

So I told DH I was going to give this year a shot at HS our preschooler. I did about one day of it and havent done much since. I just cant get into the groove and am always dealing with our 14 month old or trying to get the house cleaned up, lunch made, naps, errands and the like. Even when I do have down time with just her I feel like getting stuff done rather than getting into "school".

So this makes me worry that I just dont have the drive to get it done. Is this normal? Will this change for "real" school or am I destined to be too busy and/or undisciplined to get it done?

[RealLifeMama]

I dunno....I have felt that same way for years and I am trying to do kindergarten now and we rarely get done what I want to do because life seems to take precedence.
I think if you take baby steps now, it will probably be easier. Especially since in the early years, life is learning, if you are living purposefully. I think if i had started a couple years ago trying to work on habits and routines it would be easier now.

[J3K]

What is school age in your state ?

For now I'd explore educational (edu-tainment) games , videos and books.

Nothing "formal" needs to be done at this age imo.

Did you play outside and see a snake ? Write it down like this "Excercised minds and bodies outside. Learned about not touching snakes. Came inside to identify snake. Practiced being snakes rolling on the floor.Note: pick up books on snakes at library and draw some snake pictures."

THAT is educational. It may not seem like it but it is.

Kids this age need tons of play time to explore and learn. Trust me, they are learning.

For me it took a shift from thinking school/education only looked like X. School/education can take on many forms.

[Mama Calidad]

I think you can hs, even if you're having problems with preschool. :yes It's one of the reasons, though, that I'm glad we started figuring out what our philosophy was and what worked/didn't work for us early. IMHO, preschool is like a fire drill. It's a matter of figuring out what isn't working and improving on it. If you had a fire drill at home and your DH didn't get up off the couch, you wouldn't give up hope of your family making it safely out of the house in the event of a real fire. You've just seen problems with your "homeschooling drill". There's no harm done. You just know now what you want to change before the real deal rolls around. :hug

[Mamatoto]

What exactly are you trying to do for preschool homeschool? :think

[LittleSweetPeas]

Well I suppose my disclaimer should be that I am a teacher by profession so I know I obsess a bit about planning and, honestly, that is one of the more fun parts.

So I took a few different things, Letter of the week, Little Hands to Heaven, BFIAR and Naturally Three, and combined them for what I wanted to do. For example, I am using the vocabulary words from LOTW to post on our word wall as we study the letter. From LHTH, I am using their Bible Story and activities along with their letter specific activity and then I toss in some BFIAR that might fit with the letter or vocabulary words and then with Naturally Three I am using some of the books and ideas in a loose sense. It all sounds like a lot but I'm pretty much just taking the things I like the most from each. For example, Naturally Three's activities I am only using about once per week such as painting outside or making a leaf collage. BFIAR isnt an everyday thing--I'm not "rowing--just using the book once per week and doing one or two of the activities.

I am really working on establishing routine for our home but really struggle with it all. Honestly we wake up so early, 6am/630 and I am so not a morning person. It easily takes me a good 2 hours to even start to feel awake and ready to do anything. But then I'm rushing trying to get myself ready and the kids ready and the house is now already destroyed. We need to do grocery shopping and I have to pick up a Rx---you know the drill. :)

It just feels a bit much to even find time to school. DH comes home around 3:30, which is early, so I feel like our day is done at that point which could be part of the problem. I dont know--perhaps I need to do school when he is home and able to entertain our littlest and afternoon is when the house is clean anyway. I hadnt thought about tha tbefore....

[Quietspirit]

:hug

Rather than look at school from an educator point of view, look at it from a "planning opportunities to learn and discover" point of view. There need not be any pressure to "do school" for preschool. My children don't and haven't done pre-school, either formally or informally. We just live lives as preschoolers and take lots of opportunities to simply "be". :) Of your list, I'd do some very loose BFIAR and some loose Naturally Three. Then, just live life.

[J3K]

Ditto.

I'd take BFIAR and maybe one other thing and toss the rest.

Three days a week. MAX.

I'd also do the more schooly things when dh is home to entertain the lil one.

[lonibelle]

Hi, I can be a bit of a flake ;) and I was worried about the same thing. What worked for me was to start with one thing we did every day at a set time (right after breakfast.) For us it was BFIAR. School was the priority. Dishes, laundry, getting dressed were all accomplished either before 8:30 or after 8:45. If I sent the kids to school, getting out the door would have been that priority. I personally think I chose the easier, less stressful thing! After 4 months I added a Rod and Staff Workbook. Then I just added a few new things as we were ready, now we do 8 "subjects" every morning sometimes through games or a unit project but basically all the subjects. My house looks a little train wrecky sometimes, but we are all clothed and fed!

[Leslie]

I'd take BFIAR and maybe one other thing and toss the rest.

Three days a week. MAX.



I think I'd do the same.

[LittleSweetPeas]

Ok, so yesterday she asked me for school so I pulled out my Little Hands to Heaven book and we did the rhyme, Bible story and collage. Then she painted in an outline of the letter B. I put up our B flashcard and her B words and we were done. This seemed to be the perfect amount of time for her. She is already pre-reading so I am trying to loosely talk about sounds and sight reading and the like. Anyhow, it was no stress and didnt take much time. We did it at the end of her sister's naptime so it was just us. I think I'm going to keep up with that and then throw in a lot more outside time.

I thought I was really going to like BFIAR but it seems so repetitive. DD looks at me as if to say, "this book AGAIN?" :lol Am I doing something wrong?

[Mamatoto]

There are several reviews on amazon that say essentially the same thing....non-imaginative and very common sense. It sounds like she enjoys the imaginative and hands on stuff better. :shrug

[Mama Calidad]

I don't think that you did anything wrong with the BFIAR. :rolleyes2 DD really loves to be read to, but when we tried BFIAR she hated reading the same book day after day. I'm sure that there are kids that it works well for, but I'm equally certain that there are kids that it's just not the right fit. :hug

Both of my kiddos adored the sample week of LHTH that we tried. They still do the "A-A-Adam" rhyme occasionally and we did it clear back like the first week of September. :tu

[Quietspirit]

I think that sounds perfect what you did! :tu Stressless ,enjoyable, and short. :)

[LittleSweetPeas]

Ok, makes me feel better about BFIAR. I'm curious if FIAR is any different or more of the same? I'm sure some of my feelings come into play as I grudgingly pick up the book, again. :giggle

I like LHTH so far. The rhymes are fun and the ideas are simple.

Ok, I'm going to work with this and get ourselves into more of a routine and we'll see how it goes. :)

[LikeADimMirror]

Homeschooling gets easier as the kids get older. With a preschooler, you pretty much have to be there every step of the way. Now that I have a 1st grader, I can give her workbook pages and she can do a lot more independently than she could last year.