Everyone got sick

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get many pictures this week. First of all, we only just located a decent camera that we could borrow partway through this week. Then, everyone got sick with a lovely little fever. However, we did get outside in the sunlight a little yesterday, and I had a little energy to do some fun things with the girls.


The girls playing with a truck. The greenery in the lower right is the Christmas tree that we are letting dry out for firewood. We'll get it cut up one of these days, now that the weather is warming.

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This is our garden. The girls helped me plant a pea seed (and then I planted a few more - the sticks mark where they were planted), and I gave them a toddler-sized lecture on how the seed would become a plant. Apparently, they absorbed it because they offered a prayer for the pea plant last night. And, uh, those balls are dumped all over because I don't have anything growing there and I need to clean out the ball pit container. It's been sitting out in the weather all winter.

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The water in the picture below is being pumped out of a pond. See, we have these three ponds that were hooked up in this beautiful water garden with koi and goldfish when we moved in last March. Then the pump broke. Then we had this big snow that knocked down the nets protecting the ponds - and before we got them back up, a heron ate all of the fish. Since we didn't really want a drowning hazard to begin with, we're pumping all of the water out of the ponds and turning them into sandboxes (maybe a gravel pit for one). Hopefully we'll finish this up today.

This is MonkeyGirl listening to me explain what I just told you. She then spent the next hour telling me that she saw meanie crows eating goldfishes. I finally explained to her that the bird eating the fishes wasn't a crow, it was a heron. We'll have to Google for pictures of herons tomorrow so she gets a better grasp and quits accusing those innocent crows.

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This was my last attempt at being educational yesterday. I laid the girls' food out in interesting ways to give us something to talk about at dinner. Shapes, colors, and so on.

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Next week should be more interesting, between finishing the sandbox, gardening, getting the ABCs posted inside, and picking up bunk bed materials. Wow, that's going to be busy!

3/2/09 ETA:

Forgot to add this post to Tot School!

Lesson plans, 3/2 - 3/8/09: Gardening, alphabet decorations, and bunk-bed shopping

For the next couple of weeks I think we're going to keep things rather light and unstructured while we focus on setting up for a more structured environment. For now, I'm just going to work on some projects with the girls to help us build a fun homeschooling environment. Eventually, we'll probably move to something more structured.

First of all, I'm dying to start a garden. I don't want all of it to be part of homeschooling, but I definitely would like to involve the girls at least in planting the small kitchen garden right outside the window. Gardening seems like an appropriate preschool science and home economics exercise that we can do all summer. That will be our plan for any days with good weather.

Secondly, I want to get the ABC's posted somewhere in our house, and have the girls help us make them. Maybe we'll color and cut out letters from coloring sheets from the Internet and paste them on bright construction paper. Ideally, I'd like to have the ABC's lining the wall in our future "homeschool room" and also on magnets on our fridge. And the crafty side of me wants to make our own magnets.

Finally, I want to take the girls shopping with me for what will hopefully be the next week's big project: Building bunk beds in their closet. Toddlers with tools, Oh My! I'd like them to get a feel for how you go about organizing and planning a big project like this, then next week they can see what is involved in actually doing the project. Plus a Home Depot will be full of all kinds of learning opportunities - house parts, how things are made, shapes, tools, and listening when Mom and Dad tell you to stop climbing all over the lumber.

Check back on March 7th, when I will post on how this week's plan actually went. This is a lot to do with preschoolers in one week, and I'm not sure how much we will really get done.

Edit, 3/6/2009: Fixed the date in the title. Wow, it took me a whole week to notice I had the date a month off!

Preschool homeschooling links: An overview

Time to overwhelm you with just a few of the neat resources for homeschooling preschoolers available online! I've tried to categorize things neatly for you. The following is, by no means, all that is available in any category. Be aware that I have a bias for free resources, as our family is on a very tight budget.

Blogs:
Most of these blogs come from the list at TotSchool. All of the blogs there are great, BTW. I'm just listing here my personal "top picks".

A Mom Learning More Everyday
Cheeky Monkey Preschool Blog, who also has a related page of resource links! I will be browsing this list thoroughly in the future.
Delightful Learning
Learning at His Feet
My Two Happy Homeschoolers
Our Crafts ~N~ Things
Preschoolers and Peace
teachingtinytots: Mommy School
1+1+1=1 (by Carisa of Tot School)

Zero to Three has developmental information for children up to age three, and some articles even have information for ages three and four.

Starfall - online tools for teaching reading

Homeschool Share - Unit studies and lapbooks, including some for toddlers and preschoolers

Letter of the Week - Fun activities for each letter, and a whole curriculum to go with them.

Education Atlas preschool page. This is just a collection of links, but well worth browsing.

If I've missed your favorite resource, don't forget to mention it in the comments! As mentioned, this is just an overview. I have a lot of other links ready for future weeks, but will be just linking specific topics.

I still haven't decided what to post on next week. I was thinking of talking about structure in preschooling and different homeschool philosophies (unschooling, Montesorri, etc.), but then again - maybe people would be interested in something more practical and less theoretical? Like teaching letters?

Family Portrait

From left to right: FatherBear, MotherBear, MonkeyGirl, and FairyGirl :-)

This picture was taken at around 10:00 PM tonight, so we're all a little tired. Normally the girls are in bed by 8:30 PM.

Click the picture for a larger image.

Some starter resources

For the first "Resource Tuesday", I'm focusing on places online that you can go to get more information. Hopefully this will tide you over until this blog gets rolling and can get into some meatier topics. The Thursday post will be a variety of the best sites I've found so far in a number of areas.

First, for specific questions I recommend seeking out an online social network. Parents in the same situation often give some of the best ideas and advice, and these days there is a group online for everything.

Yahoo! Groups specifically seems to have a number of homeschool groups, including two (that I've found) specifically aimed at preschool homeschooling. If you have a child with special needs or if your family is in unusual circumstances, try searching for an additional group that fits your situation. Yahoo! Groups is big enough that a community may already exist - and if it doesn't, you can search the web or blogosphere for a few people in your situation who also are seeking community and start your own group.

Here are the two Yahoo! groups I've found so far. Be aware, you will need to register with Yahoo! to use them.

preschool homeschool: "Are you homeschooling or unschooling your preschool age child? Are you looking for preschool ideas? Do you want to connect with other preschool homeschool parents? Then this is the group for you!"
My impression: Fairly casual group with a pleasant community. Lets you post items for sale on Saturdays, but otherwise limits these posts. Somewhat active.

Early Home Education: "Homeschooling is a great movement, but what about preschool and Kindergarten? Would you like to homeschool, but aren't sure you can? Maybe teaching your preschooler is just what you need to believe you can homeschool. Even if you are not planning on homeschooling, these early years are crucial. So much foundational learning takes place, it is well worth the investment of your time."
My impression: Unfortunately, this groups is currently very quiet. From the old posts, it once was a good place to go for answers to questions, and some new posts might wake this sleeper of a group up again.

Secondly, if you just want to get ideas or browse to see what is out there or what other parents are doing, then you may want to start at Tot School. It's geared at ages 1 to 3 and has some neat activities, toys, and ideas, but just as interesting is the long list of blogs on the right. Each blog posts regularly on how they are homeschooling their young children.

If you don't feel like going through all these dozens of blogs right now, check back on Thursday. I plan to go through them and pick out my favorites for my RSS feed, and I'll also give you a list of my recommendations. Hopefully I'll be joining this group soon, so watch for my link there!

Do you have a great online homeschooling community or resource that you can recommend? Please share it in the comments! Don't forget to mention your own blog. And of course, if you are looking for something specific, mention it and let us see if we can help.

Remember to come back Thursday, when I will have many more links with greater variety (but with much shorter descriptions!). Tomorrow: A photograph of our family, so you can get some faces to go with our aliases.

What this blog is about

The last post was just an introduction to our family. This post is intended to be a kind of mission statement, to let you know what I am trying to do in this blog and why, before diving in. I want to make sure that people are interested before I get too far along. This is a long post; I will normally try to be less wordy.

Firstly, why the name "Homeschool Bright and Early"? It's probably obvious that this doesn't just refer to the time of day when our kids wake us up! It also refers to the goals many of us have: Bright children who can start enjoying the joys of learning as soon as possible. Beyond this basic idea, I'm hoping to see a lot of variation in our approaches to homeschooling and our specific goals for our families.

Secondly, what is my goal for this blog? My goal is to provide resources, information, and community to other preschool homeschooling parents so that they can make informed, well-supported decisions about how to approach the education of their young children. I want to keep this blog organized and very structured - not because I like structure (I'm generally quite messy), but because I want parents to be able to find the type of information they are interested in easily.

Thirdly, where am I coming from? I don't come in to this project with a lot of preset ideas about the best way to homeschool preschoolers. In fact, about the only idea I clearly have is that there are a lot of ways to approach homeschooling for toddlers, and different families will flourish with different pacing, goals, and levels of structure. We'll probably be moving around between different approaches for a while ourselves, until we find something we like.
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Finally, here is the tentative schedule for the type of information I will be posting:

Big Picture Mondays: 'Big Picture' articles will deal with subjects like homeschooling philosophy, information about child development, current homeschooling news, and other abstract information. Often, this post will set a "theme" for the week.

Resource Tuesdays: Here, I will be picking one useful resource or a small group of related resources for parents and looking at it in-depth, sort of like a review. This could be any kind of resource that I think homeschooling parents might appreciate.

Wordless Wednesdays: A photo from my family's daily life during the last week, usually related to homeschooling, that speaks for itself - although I might include an occasional caption. These might be low-quality at first, as we currently don't have a good camera and will be using our cell phone.

Lotsa Links Thursdays: Collections of links, usually related to a specific theme but occasionally just miscellaneous stuff for homeschooling preschoolers, for your browsing enjoyment. Anywhere from a few to dozens of posts, depending on topic.

Lesson Plan Fridays: I will post my own family's lesson plans for the next week every Friday. Keep in mind that much of our homeschooling is still "unschooling" and our lesson plans are not intended to be comprehensive. Even the small amount of structure we have is just an experiment right now.

Family Life Saturdays: This is where FatherBear and I reflect on how our homeschooling week went, what the girls learned, and life in general. This is likely to include photos, and we're discussing some video ideas as well.

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My hope is that this structure will let those of you who just want the facts or resources get what you need without too much work by going to the tags for Big Picture Monday, Resource Tuesday, or Lotsa Links Thursday. Those of you who want to get to know my family and join us in our homeschooling journey can subscribe to an RSS feed or visit the site daily and get to know us on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

What do you think of this structure? Also, do you have a specific topic that you would like me to cover in the blog? Maybe something about homeschooling or preschoolers that you've been meaning to research? Please mention it in the comments. I want this blog to be useful for YOU, so tell me what you want to know.

About Us

Hello, and welcome to my homeschooling for preschoolers blog! I'd like to start by introducing you to our family, and encouraging you to leave a comment introducing yourself. Feel free to use either a real name or a fun alias for your name.

I'm using the fun nickname of MotherBear, and my husband is going by FatherBear. Our twin daughters, going by MonkeyGirl and FairyGirl, are two years old, and have very different personalities. For example, they helped pick their nicknames - and the names really fit.

We are new to the world of conscious homeschooling, but like all good parents have been teaching our children from birth. Before we starting writing lesson plans, our children could both sing their ABC's and count past 10, knew their colors and many shapes, and much more. We're planning on experimenting with a variety of different ways of homeschooling, from the very structured to the casual, just to get a feel for what works for us. If you would like to see our lesson plans or outlines, stop by on Fridays when I will post the plan for the next week.

Please introduce yourself and your family in the comments! I'd love to get to know you. I'll post more information about the plan for the blog itself on Monday, before diving in to daily posts on-topic.