The Preschoolers Home Ed Thread

[MathsMadMummy]

Hi all, I thought we could do with a thread for posting activity ideas and so on, for those of us with preschool-age children (whether or not you're planning to HE them officially).

Today I made a papier mache mountain and we talked about the letter sound /m/. This built on /h/ which DD has been obsessed with since seeing a helicopter. We're gradually making a start with Jolly Phonics.

Been a bit lazy with 'learning stuff' lately though, as potty training has been the (very successful) project this week!

Looking forward to hearing what you're all up to with your little ones

I totally agree about flash cards for babies but apart from that I can't really see any hot housing on this thread. Just parents and toddlers playing, making stuff and chatting to their DCs.

Incidentally my DD was desperate to learn to read quite young, so we did a bit of phonics (just the odd letter sound), but then she lost interest so we stopped. She's actually in reception now and has started reading there, and writing too. The phonics we did do was just a game, same as most of the posters on here. That's following a child's interests, not hot housing. Doing it when the child clearly isn't ready, or when they don't want to, is hot housing.

not related to the immediately preceding conversation, I wanted to recommend a book: The Preschooler's Busy Book by Trish Kuffner. It's a Canadian activities ideas book that is not ostensibly for home educating families but totally ends up being perfect for that anyway, as we all home educate our 'preschoolers'. There are 365 activities and games that encompass literacy, maths, science, music, movement, dance, outdoors, indoors, art, craft, kitchen, holiday projects etc.
The best thing is hardly any of them involve much if any financial outlay or even much preparation time to set up, and most use things you already have in the house. For even younger children, she's also written the Toddler's Busy book too (1-3 years).
I just wish that someone has kept on writing these kinds of ideas books for school-age children as well. It makes days seem easier when someone's done the thinking for you, and reading it, you get all enthused for trying new things, and because there isn't much investment in the setting up of the activity, you don't feel too deflated if the darlings are not interested.

Thanks, Caroline - that sounds good.

I struggle to 'do' stuff with my 2.2 y.o. DS. I don't aspire to do 'educational' things particularly, but I would like to do more interesting activities with him. We go to 3 playgroups a week, swimming, then shopping a couple of times. By the time we've been out for some excercise, cooked dinner and done housework we rarely seem to have time to do much else.

I love the Imagination Tree blog and DS enjoys the activities when we do get round to doing them. We made tissue paper stained glass windows which is a really good non-messy activity.

I've been having to fend off a few questions lately about why we're not planning to send DS to nursery. "But you'll be sending him to pre-school, of course, to get him used to the routine of school." Even if I were planning on sending him to school, I don't see why he'd need to go to pre-school to get him used to the school routine, (and to nursery to get him used to the pre-school routine). Surely you get used to the school routine when you're at school?

Nice one about the stained glass windows- hadn't thought of doing it like that. I need to get a big roll of that sticky back plastic. We used an A3 bit to fold in half over a place mat for the table that had glitter and things stuck on.
I think I'm on the point of withdrawing my daughter from her 2 mornings a week at nursery that she's been doing since she had a free place, the last 2 terms. She needs to be bribed to go, and would be happier at home, even though I was enjoying my few quieter hours.

It's a great activity and good for when you're visiting family - just take a tray to stick it to and you've a nice non-messy activity. I did it with a 5 y.o. recently and she enjoyed it just as much as my 2 y.o.

Hope you manage to finalise your decision about nursery. :)

I know this thread is very old.

I hope people don't get upset with me for bumping such an old thread. I thought it might be useful to MyIronLung though.

Hello! We home ed pre schoolers so was happy to see it bumped

I'm happy to see it bumped too! I came on here to start a thread like this!

Glad I haven't angered anyone!

Does anyone know when the cbeebies magazine comes out & how often? And is it worth it (not sure how much it costs)?