home ed and arty stuff

[pinkkoala]

my dd is just 4yrs, we have decided to teach at home but at the mo she really loves making things, we have done loads of hama beads, sponge painting, tissue collage, colouring any suggestions on where we can buy more arty stuff fairly cheap.

on a seperate note what else should she be learning, we have already bought most of the schofield and sims books and the carol vorderman books, but she is not that keen to sit and do stuff like that unless she is in the mood. she can match pairs, knows colours and shapes, some letters and numbers but is struggling when it comes to writing, she can't be bothered to do it.

any suggestions

I'd let her carry on doing exactly as she is!
She will be learning so much from all of that.
Take a look at Opitec I love that catalogue!

Also I'd suggest getting together with local home educators-groups tend to be very good at arty crafty stuff

And have a look out for a scrapstore near to you

For advice and suggestions for home educating young children, try out the excellent www.muddlepuddle.co.uk/MuddlePuddle and talk to other parents who are/have been where you are on the associated Early Years Home Ed support list

our big thing at the moment is paper mache - its cheap and geerful and you can make all kinds of stuff with it - I found some great websites just by googling paper mache!

geerful? cheerful obviously

oh yes paper mache

never mind young children, by dd2 aged 16 made some very sophisticated Christmas decorations from paper mache!

thanks, will take a look at the different websites, i just worry she will get behind if she isn't learning to read, write and do maths.

do you think i am expecting too much. i could read and write when i went to school, perhaps i am comparing her to me.

i'm worried LEA will pay me visit and then say i am not doing enough.

does it make a difference as i don't drive, do you think it will hold her back from meeting other home ed people and get togethers.

I think 4 is really young to be writing. My DS1 is 4 in May and he can only just draw a circle. He just wants to scribble. He's really good at his letters, numbers etc though so I think they're all good in different areas at this age. I've been working on the basis that I'm going to concentrate on reading and simple maths until age 6. No workbooks until then apart from a reading primer.

There are loads of primers around - thorough but dull so you have to bribe them! I'm using Engelmann "Teach your kid to read in 100 lessons". DS is always asking about words so he was ready but it's really designed for age 4-5. And then I read read read to him!! He will listen now to simple chapter books but I think this is unusual. As I said, he's much slower in other areas!

At the moment, during DS2's nap he does his reading lesson, then a short dvd as a bribe. Then he "plays" with Mummy. He gets a choice from the top shelf - we do Knex, magnetic tangrams and pattern blocks, dominoes, orchard games, jigsaws, simple scales with pennies (there's something about real money). The pattern blocks are great because you can design mosaics but they do simple counting and shapes at the same time. I've tried to get things which are fun so they can learn without realising it.

Hope this helps

BTW should mention that the reading lesson is 10 mins tops and we only do 1 or 2 other activities per day!

I know plenty of home educators who don't drive-and I know onwardandupward, who will probably be along shortly, will tell you that she doesn't.
I suppose it does depend on where you live, but if you have reasonable access to public transport, I think most folks organising meetings try to do so with a thought to folks coming along without cars.
I think every meeting I have ever been to there has been at least an offer of a lift from the nearest station, if there isn't a convenient bus.

You don't have to have the LA pay you a visit. We have been doing this for 8 years now and haven;t yet had a visit. You can choose how to give information about the home education are providing. We have always chosen to send in written information instead.

I don't drive

Also wanted to say that with a 4 year old, I wouldn't be pushing reading writing and arithmetic at all - there is no hurry!

But if they are into arts and crafts, then you might think about

lots of free printouts from the internet of colouring in. Any favouurite TV characters? Just google "Diego Printables" or whatever it is. And a lot of what you find involves mazes and dot to dots and maybe even a little writing and then colouring in. All massively good pre-literacy stuff, but you needn't present it or push it as such - just offer as pictures for colouring in.

There is a lovely times tables DVD available from the ELC. Every times table is linked with a craft. Just be ready to have a house filled with egg box spiders (spiders have 8 legs...)

and on the arty stuff - you wanna do a Blue Peter with your rubbish, you do. My mum is always chopping up little bits of coloured cardboard and saving buttons off old shirts and goodness knows what, just in case any small children who visit her feel like being crafty