Homeschooling Day by Day - Week 1

I'm trying to build a more structured approach to our preschool-level homeschooling and keep records of the stuff we do each week (both for sentimental and practical reasons).

Not having Mr. M going to daycare I always wonder whether he's learning all he needs to learn at his tender young age of almost 3. After all, we don't have circle time or sing alphabet song. And sometimes I feel like we just need a bit more structure and direction in our daily goings-on.

So starting this week I'm trying something new - I put together a little activities list for each day of the week. Ok, so I really started it last week and it worked really well. But I made some adjustments and changes to the process (as I'm sure I will again). Plus last week I included my homeschooling plans into my larger daily to-do lists, which created some boo-boo messes.

This week I'm starting a new activities planner (a simple 3-subject notebook). Our regular events - occupational and physical therapy sessions, playdates, trips to museums and playgrounds, etc. - are not included in the daily lists. We just do it. What's included are ideas for various developmental areas - art and crafts, fine motor, language, science, etc.

I found this book - The Complete Resource Book: An Early Childhood Curriculum - absolutely invaluable in putting together my weekly schedules. Of course, it has to be modified since it's just me and Mr. M here and many activities simply don't make sense in homeschool setting. Plus I have to tweek language activities, suggested story time selections and songs since I only speak Russian to Mr. M.

This week our preschool homeschooling curriculum includes:

Monday

• Art - collage art
• Blocks - start building a town - make roads
• Fine Motor - scooping big buttons with a small brush
• Language - playing Shape and Color puzzle
• Science - exploring balance scales (I bought these a few months ago at a local teachers' store and haven't used them yet).

Tuesday

• Art - easel painting
• Blocks - building a castle out of big cardboard blocks
• Field trip to a grocery store - instead of shopping, we'll concentrate on the produce section - colors, textures, smells and names of fruits and veggies (plus there are always samples to taste)
• Fine motor - tracing simple objects (small blocks) on paper

Wednesday

• Blocks - we will continue building our town and will add some buildings to it
• Fine motor - stringing beads
• Math - playing with a Lauri Shape and Color Sorter
• Science - exploring objects with a magnifier glass
• Writing - chalkboard "writing" - drawing lines, shapes and simple letters in imitation

Thursday

• Art - ConTact paper collage
• Fine motor - playing with Theraputty
• Dramatic play - finger-puppets (the Three Bears story)
• Science - exploring magnets

Friday

• Blocks - we will continue building town and will add trees, people and animals
• Home - hopefully, Mr. M will help me with some clean-up and laundry
• Science - some more magnifier
• Taste - tasting various breads