Our Current Curriculum for Son (age 5) and Daughter (age 3)

I always find it interesting to hear what other people are doing during their homeschool hours, so I thought I would post what we have ended up doing this year with my son, age 5, and daughter, age 3.

My approach with my preschooler has been to keep a "workbox" of sorts available to her, should she decide to "do school".  (I will share some of the activities I include in a later post.)  Otherwise, she is welcome to join in our activities or keep herself occupied elsewhere. 

My homeschool philosophy for my 5-year-old son has been to keep things as light and fun as possible.  I try to limit our school time to 90 minutes, three days a week. 

We always start the day with devotions. This year we've read through The Big Picture Bible, The Praise Bible, and Step Into the Bible by Ruth Graham.  We have also adapted Charlotte Mason's method of scripture memory (check out simplycharlottemason.com), so we spend 5 minutes or so reviewing previously memorized passages and working on whatever current scripture we are memorizing.

Devotions are followed by chores, sending Dad off to work, and a bit of play time.

Then we spend 10 minutes or so working on days of the week, months of the year, and calendar work.  This is followed by coloring in a number on our 100's chart.  Each day my son (and sometimes daughter) counts the numbers we have colored so far and we add another number.  We also practice counting by 5's and 10's.

This is followed by some cuddle time on the couch and reading aloud (See my list of favorite read-alouds.).

Reading:  I only started reading with my son this year because he wanted to.  I wish now that we had spent at least the first half of the year continuing to work on letter and letter-sound recongnition.  What we have ended up with is an ecclectic mix of rotating activities.  I set the timer for 10 minutes and he chooses one or two of the following to work on:  Explode the Code Book 1, a lesson or two out of Samuel L. Blumenfeld's Alpha Phonics, or a BOB book.  I usually try to include another 5-10 minutes of a reading game (board games, something thought up by Peggy Kaye, or a late-night inspiration of my own making).

Math:  Earlybird Kindergarten Mathematics (Singapore).  We like the hands-on activities and minimal amount of "workbooking".  When possible we deviate from the book and present concepts with a game (UNO, Racko, dominoes, Twister, Mancala, checkers, Mastermind, file folder games....) 

Handwriting:  A page from one of our Kumon Workbooks.  We are currently working on Alphabet Games and Number Games.

Science, Geography, Art, etc. are covered in a sort of unit-study approach.  We pick a topic, check out stacks of books on the topic from the library, and do an interesting activity based on whichever book we happened to have read for the day.  So far this year we have studied the days of creation, Africa, Christmas Around the World, and, currently, Polar animals.

Every 20 minutes or so I give the kids a 2-5 minute break to do something physical like dancing, hopping on one foot, running the stairs, riding bikes, etc.