What age did you start with an actual plan/curriculum?

[TuneMyHeart]

:grin

[raquel]

Good question. I have BFIAR that I've been slowly slowly using ideas from with DD but I don't really have set school times and we just do it when we feel like it so I don't think of it as an actual plan so much as a guided reading plan...well I guess it is a plan then. :giggle And I'm hoping to buy Sonlight P3/4 which is mostly just a big batch of books and a checklist to slowly read through them since I love having good books to read to DD. She's only just about to turn 3 in June though so I'm just letting her set her own pace. She is interested in letters at the moment so we talk about them and count and stuff a lot but I don't do workbooks of any description with her.

:popcorn for others input.

[sweetpeasmommy]

:popcorn

[illinoismommy]

Hasn't happened yet! Although we do have all the books except one (for reasons) from AO Year 0 but that's just a group of quality picture books for reading. Although I will say we have a strategy/plan.... but I don't think my son needs to be sitting any more than necessary right now. He's bouncy. :giggle

[mamahammer]

I'm planning on starting a more structured curriculum routine next year. So, 1st grade. He'll be 6.5. I still only plan on really working for 1.5 hours or so, in 15-20 minute increments spread throughout the day. If that seems like too much once we get started, I'm totally open to scaling us back :yes

[Herbwifemama]

I've had plans for ages. Haven't actually followed through on any yet. :P~ I do things here or there with dd, and I figure at some point one of my plans will stick. Honestly, I am having SUCH a hard time right now coming up with a good, workable homeschooling plan that we can stick to. It's making me sad. :(

[mamahammer]

I've had plans for ages. Haven't actually followed through on any yet. :P~ I do things here or there with dd, and I figure at some point one of my plans will stick. Honestly, I am having SUCH a hard time right now coming up with a good, workable homeschooling plan that we can stick to. It's making me sad. :(


At 3yo, you have a lot of time to figure out/learn about what you want to do! Don't get too discouraged! :hug :heart

[TuneMyHeart]

Part of me wants to have something to follow in the fall, but most of me thinks that's ridiculous at 3.5. :/ I think we honestly just need more things to do. :think

[mommy2abigail]

Well, I was planning to delay academics until 7 or so...just let her play and learn through living life. However, on her 4th birthday, she told me "I can't wait until I turn 5 so I can go to 'real school'!!" :hunh I explained that we would be home schooling, and she stated that she wanted to go to 'real school' to do school work. Where she got this I have no idea. :scratch I did tell her a more realistic description of school :shifty, and she decided home school wasn't so bad. ;)

So a week after she turned 4, we started with a kindergarten curriculum workbook and I planned out a very basic open ended kindergarten year. So far, we 'work' for about 1/2 hour in the morning, which includes me reading to her while she eats breakfast, then some handwriting, and some math. Today, math was counting pennies and nickels, as she is very interested in money lately. We started to give her a small allowance, not tied to any chores, but for the simple reason of teaching tithe, save, spend principles. So, we counted money and learned values. It took maybe 5 minutes, but when I write it in her school notebook, it sounds fancier (and more boring) than real life. We will go to the store today and she will get to pick a small something (less than $1) and spend some of her money. 'Literature' was me reading out of the Family Faith Treasury while she had a tea/coffee party with me at the breakfast table. Science will be collecting leaves and flowers to press in her Nature Notebook. We will go to these beautiful gardens (where dh and I got married actually! :heart) admission is free on Mondays, and it gives her lots of space to run and climb trees and see butterflies and pick some flowers. All of this fun goes under the Science:botany heading in our home school record book. Phonics for today is her watching Leapfrogs Letter Factory. Handwriting is her drawing a picture and dictating a story for it. I help her spell the words and she writes them to the best of her ability. We are keeping her story pages to make a book at the end of the year.

I really embrace a relaxed Charlotte Mason style, with lots of good, quality literature, short lessons, lots of time spent outside in nature, and plenty of free time.

[TuneMyHeart]

I really embrace a relaxed Charlotte Mason style, with lots of good, quality literature, short lessons, lots of time spent outside in nature, and plenty of free time.

Me too! Ellie is begging to go to school too.

[trustingGod2]

I started BJU press at age 4 (K4) we just finished the year and look forward to starting K5 in August

[WI Mama05]

you can easily find a mommy & me type book at the library or a craft book and do some "lessons" loosely that way :shrug3. I was doing letter of the week loosely at that age.

[kwisie]

DD1 has a fall birthday, so technically I don't have to do any schooling until she's nearly 6 (she's 3.5 now). I'm thinking about loosely doing something literature-based either this coming fall or next fall. She's doing great with unschooling at this age, but I bet she will want a little more, since she mentions school fairly often (but not real school really - it's more like dog school, cat school, etc. :giggle )

[Grover]

With Nate we followed Natuarally three for a couple of years.Its quite relaxed and more a theme with a couple of books for each month.Im not sure Nate was ready for anything structured or academic but we started HOD Little Hearts For His Glory - last summer-when he was 5 and a half.
Stan loves getting in on the action of his big brothers school work-has spent the last year listening to the bible stories and doing the craft activities,joining in the rhymes [actually far more than his big brother] so we are starting Little Hands To Heaven with him in the fall-he will be a 2 years 9/10 months than and we will go at half speed.

[HuggaBuggaMommy]

Ds has been "doing school" (as he called it) since he was 3 - completely low-key and only started becuse he was begging. I had several stations with Kumon workbooks (he loved workbooks then), educational games, craft supplies, books (picture, chapter, and activitiy things), math manipulatives, animal figures, rocks and nature items, little science tools, etc. I sometimes added in some FIAR-type unit studies. We usually did 30 minutes in the morning, and 30 minutes after lunch, and I did semi-schedule it, though, because ds does better with some structure. But we didn't start a curriculum, though, until ds turned 6, then we loosely followed Ambleside Online for year 1, and now are doing a relaxed year 2.

[WanderingJuniper]

I started a plan at 4 , Letter of the Week, only to realize that it wasn't a good fit. I dreaded doing school and Bird already knew what I thought I was teaching. :doh Now, at 5 we have a real plan that works well for both of us but it isn't really a curriculum put together by anyone else. It is a very gentle CM/classically inspired plan with lots of room for child directed learning. We aren't using anyone else's put together curriculum pack. :shrug3

My 3, soon to be 4, year old son isn't expected to participate at all but he joins us more days than not and gets very upset if we start the story time without him. I don't plan on anything more structured for him until he is 5. Just lots of play, books and living.

[illinoismommy]

I really embrace a relaxed Charlotte Mason style, with lots of good, quality literature, short lessons, lots of time spent outside in nature, and plenty of free time.

Me too! Ellie is begging to go to school too.


Maybe that's partly a girl thing. :giggle If she wants something to do, find something for her to do. How much do you guys leave the house? Maybe go out more too. That helps our days go by faster!

[J3K]

The older two were seven years old. The youngest was closer to 9.

[TuneMyHeart]

I really embrace a relaxed Charlotte Mason style, with lots of good, quality literature, short lessons, lots of time spent outside in nature, and plenty of free time.

Me too! Ellie is begging to go to school too.


Maybe that's partly a girl thing. :giggle If she wants something to do, find something for her to do. How much do you guys leave the house? Maybe go out more too. That helps our days go by faster!


We go out a lot. She's an extrovert. :yes

[mommy2abigail]

We go out most everyday...I am definitely not a homebody! Our only 'scheduled' things are on Wednesday, we have gym class and then our home school coop and on Thursday we do a mommy and me at the park. Fridays are going to be library day. Monday and Tuesday dh is home, so we do our 'field trips' on those days. Days that aren't scheduled are usually spent at the park/play ground.

[veggiegirl]

Before age 5, just playing and reading together. Sometimes crafts or something my first child was interested in.
Kindergarten we followed a phonics and math book, but everything else was unscheduled.
First grade for the first actual planned curriculum.

[Soaring Eagle]

Well, at age 3 my dd did the About Three workbooks that Christian Light Education sells. Then age four, my dd was finishing up the series along with Singapore Early Bird math. K we started out with Little Hearts for His Glory by Heart of Dakota but ended up just doing part of the program. So for grade 1 we're going to be doing the whole program as it is written, except we're continuing with phonics and trying a different math.

[shehaights]

We bought United Educators Program, it's geared as they say from birth to 5th grade, their plan is that if you do 15 mins a day from birth your child can read, not CAT and DOG but really read. We just started a few months ago.

Basically it's a lot of everything. From nursery rhymes, to your classics, science books, craft books, math and phonics factory. It also includes a leapster type program with hundreds of games. I think the expense was worth it, except that it's not a Christian Program, :( but I plan on substituting other programs to make up for this. Still looking into which program I want to use!

My DS is 20 mos and I make an effort to read from the science book several times a week, he's really interested in lizards, frogs, animals and nature right now, so when we go on our outings, I talk about what we've learned. I also Organize a playgroup, and so I always implement craft days where the kids are working on age-appropriate crafts, coloring, learning to glue, trying to follow directions, being creative (aka messy), etc. :) I've tried focusing on colors, shapes, ABCs, and numbers, but he's not interested in that right now, so rather than push it, we do the stuff he likes, so he will want to continue to learn.

I really like how everyone's opinon about school has been on this thread, I remember as a kid how fun field trips were, and I always had a hard time sitting still/quiet in class, why can't school be a field trip everyday? I think Home School is the answer!

[jenny_islander]

I'll be starting this year because the Kodiak Regional Learning Center expects me to write a curriculum. It's going to be very relaxed and low key, though, with formal school ending by 10:30 and a few activities scheduled each week.

I like their curriculum approach. They have a one-page form listing the areas of study for the PS year, with blanks for me to fill in, like this:

NAME OF SUBJECT: Curriculum __________________________________________________ ______________
Topics to be covered __________________________________________________ _________________________
Method(s) of assessment __________________________________________________ _____________________

It doesn't matter what I put in there as long as Sophia can pass the standardized tests. :rockon

[me]

Dd has been doing workbooks, learning on the computer, learning through life, all that since she was about 3. But it wasnt until she had everything learned that a first grader needs to know that i realized i now needed an actual plan. but the plan is more for me to keep track that im not forgetting anything. I am familiar from my past job history with what children in prek, k and 1st need to know so thats why i think i didnt need one till now. if i was familiar with 2nd grade, we still wouldnt be using one. :shrug3

[Autumn]

My oldest will turn 3 in June and we're going to be waiting for a while before we do anything "formal".

She's very busy and LOVES exploring and looking at books, but she's not showing any real interest in letters or anything like that. When she's a little more interested we'll start with more, but no hurry.