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Thursday, August 18, 2022

Homeschooling the Early Years


This post has been two years in the making..

I often get asked about our worksheets or curriculum we use whenever I share stories on Instagram of my kids working on something or a new academic skill they learned.

I first want to start off that we are very relaxed when it comes to any "schoolwork" and I try not to force anything on my kids since they are still young. The only reason we started "schoolwork" was at Sophia's request when she saw me studying for my classes in Fall of 2019. 

I prefer simplicity when it comes to early learning and am a big believer in children learning through play (read more here) without the fuss of having to sit at the table for a formal lesson. Sophia however LOVES sitting at the table to do "schoolwork" so I gladly follow her lead and am very flexible with our learning time. Our table learning is always less then 30 minutes for the entire day. I like to end "lessons" on a happy, hungry for more note. The rest of the time we learn by playing, reading, screen-time and even more playing. 

To answer the big question, I don't have a set curriculum I follow. I pieced together different resources the past few years however I discovered a favorite through a friend - these ABC and Number books from Let's Play School which is a great early introduction to all the alphabet and numbers 1-20. I love that we are able to flip through and pick out which pages we want to work on - although Bubba can finish a whole book in one sitting. 

Overall, it fits my desire for simplicity and flexibility and my kids enjoy doing them. I also enjoy this Alphabet Cut and Paste worksheet by Teaching RichaRichi and this Alphabet Count and Graph by A Spoonful of Learning and the kids do very well with them. I love that each include more skills beyond just the alphabet such as cutting skills, sorting, counting, graphing, etc. 


I have also created a few of my own worksheets for the kids. I made a cutting practice worksheet that you can download for free HERE

I also made a name practice worksheet that you can purchase from my Etsy shop HERE.

However, learning doesn't always have to be at the table or even doing worksheets. Learning should be fun and it happens naturally as children play and get bored. That's when their imagination is ignited! Most days our play by learning happens organically but every now and then, I suggest a game (focused play as I talked about here and plan to go into more detail in my next blog post). 

Lastly, we don't have start dates or finish dates, our schooling is very fluid and just flows. There are times we take weeks off and then jump back in when we can. Again, I really believe kids learn so much just from playing and reading good books together and that is just apart of everyday life.

I hope this insight into how and what we use for our "school" was helpful. I plan to write another post talking about the types of toys we have, focused play games we play, etc. as I discussed quite a bit about learning through play and I believe having open ended toys can make the difference. 

As for reading good books, Read Aloud Revival is a wonderful resource I use often as I look for which books to check out from our local library before deciding which ones should be apart of our permanent home "library."

If you found this post helpful or know someone who would benefit from this post, please feel free to share. I also created a pinnable image so you can bookmark this post to come back to view later on. Any questions? Leave a comment!



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