These Thy Gifts

Resources for Preschool Education

A reader writes:

I was contacted recently by a gal who is interested in home schooling materials for her four-year-old twins who will be entering kindergarten year after next.  I know from your blog that you are very interested in preschool education, and I wondered if you could suggest some resources for her.  Even though I have a number of years [of home education] under my belt, I don't have much to offer her in the way of preschool materials.  I do not begin formal schooling until my kids are about seven.  Any thoughts?

I've gotten much of my education on preschool education (and beyond) at the 4Real boards. That would be a great place for her to start.  I myself am quite partial to the philosophy and methods of both Maria Montessori and Charlotte Mason.  Browsing on the 4Real boards will yield lots of great threads - the hard-earned wisdom of many seasoned home-educating moms is graciously given there, saving many hours of wheel-reinventing for those of us who are just getting started.  Some of the books I found most helpful to get started were Elizabeth Foss' Real Learning, Karen Andreola's Charlotte Mason Companion, and David Gettman's Basic Montessori.

I want to point out that while it may seem like I do a lot of formal work with my 4yo, it just appears that way.  We're actually quite relaxed.  My focus for myself at this stage (with a preschooler and a toddler), in addition to learning about all the different types of education options and philosophies out there, is getting my routines down for my own physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being (as I can't give what I don't have); getting my home decluttered and organized; and getting routines in place for the efficient management of housekeeping, laundry, and meal preparation (this is my most difficult area!).

Included in home organization is the creation of a prepared environment (this is a Montessori term) to facilitate auto-education (another Montessori term).  At this time in my home, this encompasses our learning room, baskets of living books (a Charlotte Mason term) covering various subjects around the house, and lots of opportunities for practical life work (another Montessori term).  I do very little formal teaching with my 4yo.  We read together often, he participates in much of what I do around the house, watches a limited amount of carefully chosen television and DVDs, chooses a variety of work as he wills in the learning room, and asks lots of very interesting questions that I answer if I can, or we search out the answers together online or at the library.  He also plays with friends often and recently started attending a play-based preschool just for fun, which is three days a week for two hours.  I try to take full advantage of his absorbent mind and sensitive periods through learning how to carefully observe his interests and abilities (three more Montessori concepts), and providing opportunities for him to gradually overcome his difficulties or draw him into further learning.  The only thing I would consider formal at this point is the presentations (Montessori again) I do to introduce new work in the learning room, or new practical life work.  For an overview of the Montessori method, including explanation of the many terms and concepts I've used here, see Lori's excellent Montessori Basics.

This is working very well for us.  Nathan is reading fluently and independently (he is extraordinarily gifted in this area), and either on-track or ahead of schedule in other language arts, math, every area of science, geography, art appreciation and music appreciation.  He is (for the most part) helpful, respectful, polite, generous, affectionate, aware of and able to express what he is feeling, creative, articulate and interesting to converse with, a delight to spend time with, and has a strong sense of how much he is loved (by us and by God).  He has wide-ranging interests, among which are currently reading high-quality children's literature, weather (normal seasonal weather and extreme weather conditions), listening to classical music, figuring out how things work (lately stoplights, engines, and transmissions), and negative numbers.  There is no distinction between learning and enjoyment.  I do not push him to learn anything, we do not overschedule ourselves with a multitude of activities (at home or otherwise), I simply respond to his natural curiosity and take full advantage of it.  Oh - and I attempt to keep twaddle (a Charlotte Mason term) out of our home.  I'll save that for another post, another day.

I plan to educate Nathan at home for kindergarten, and my only plans to do anything new or different are to formally teach handwriting and to sit down with him more often to create art of all types (not something he naturally gravitates to, but something I consider essential for a comprehensive education).

Free Thanksgiving Lapbook

This 37-page project pack includes a mini-guide about Thanksgiving traditions and foods, along with 15 hands-on activities that are divided into 5 days of learning!  Geared for students PreK-1.  You can get to the download through Jessica's Shower of Roses.

New This Month on the Sidebars

If you have Pre-K through young elementary children be sure to check out the new Language Arts and Math lists on the left sidebar.  These are some of the better learning sites I've found for the youngest bunch.  If your kids are older, check them out anyways, as many of the sites have areas for older kids too if you navigate back to the home page.

November is National Adoption Awareness Month, so I've added an Adoption Book Basket highlighting some of our favorites.  There is a lot of adoption literature out there for kids, we've chosen ones that are the most helpful for our situation (newborns adopted domestically).

Enjoy, and please comment if you visit to let me know if you find something helpful!

Touching Base

Wow, it's been a busy week.  I have SO many ideas for posts swimming around in my head, but haven't had a spare moment to get them onto the screen.  At times like these I really admire my mommy friends with larger families - how do they do it?  I suppose they do it about the same way I do with just my two little ones - one day at a time, becoming more clever and efficient with time management and a clearer understanding of true priorities as a necessity along the way.  As much as I'd love to have the time to blog every day, realistically, I cannot allow the blogging to interfere with my mission, which is to educate my children in the ways of love and life.  And in order to do that well, I also need to nurture and protect my relationships with God and my husband, and care for myself as well.  When properly used, my time spent blogging will serve me and my family in this mission, not detract from it.

That being said, here's what I've been up to recently: I have begun an online Montessori training program for 3-6 year olds and am loving it.  Three days a week enrolled students are emailed Montessori presentation downloads, pictures of presentations, and various other files.  If we have questions, we email our AMS-certified instructor and receive detailed answers several days later.  It's inexpensive, doable for a busy mom, and very worthwhile and edifying.

Tomorrow I begin training to become a catechist for Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  I am excited and yet a little apprehensive about this as it is a huge commitment.  Ten months of once per month 8am-5pm training, with quite a bit of reading and labor-intensive assignments in between.  Can I do this?  While I definitely get a sense in prayer that I am called to pursue this, time will tell.  I have also enrolled Nathan in a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Atrium in Detroit on Thursday afternoons so that he can benefit from participation, and I can learn more by observing and assisting.

We are also waiting to hear if we have been selected as forever family for a couple of adoption situations.  It's funny - when we found out we were infertile, we thought our hopes and dreams for a larger-than-average family had been dashed.  We were told that we'd be lucky to adopt one newborn, extremely lucky to get two, and that if we wanted more we'd need to switch to international or special needs.  But the reality is that since we are now a biracial family, we get contacted quite frequently about various newborns and very young children needing good loving homes.  This past summer, we had 5 different opportunities presented to us, all but one of which we needed to decline due to practical/timing issues (the other was a biological relation to one of our sons, but fell through).  Now we feel our youngest is old enough for me to handle another baby, and again the possibilities keep coming!  Stay tuned, I'll let you know as soon as we know anything.  The one thing that is truly wonderful for me about being in this place (as opposed to where I was emotionally 5 years ago) is that I am so laid-back and surrendered to God's will and timing as to who and when and how (or even whether) our future children join our family.  I've learned to radically trust God's plan because I finally actually believe in my heart (instead of just in my head) that God really is good and really does want the absolute best for me, I have no need to fear or be anxious about anything.  I'm so grateful!

Preschool Plans for Nathan - Religious Education

Religious education is woven into the very atmosphere of our home. It's the air we breathe.  Not in a stifling, overpowering way, but in a gentle appreciation of our membership in a larger family - God our Father, Mary our mother, Jesus our brother, all our brothers and sisters (the saints) who have gone before us - with feast days and celebrations and birthdays. It's starting and ending our days with simple prayers and praying our way through the day, asking for God's help when things get difficult, saying "please", "thank you", and "I'm sorry" prayers, and praying for our friends and family. It's attempting to model generosity and patience and unconditional love.  And above all, it's helping our children to know how loved they are, not just by us, but by God who wanted them to exist and who loves them just the same whether they are making bad or good choices - but wants to help them make good choices so they can be happiest.  It's all so very sweet, and so very natural.

Again, picture books are our mainstay here.  Cay Gibson has put together a brilliant program called Catholic Mosaic which is designed to lead children through beautiful art and literature to discover and ponder eternal truths; in essence, helping the children to develop contemplative prayer.  For now, we are simply reading the books from her booklist as part of our living the liturgical year.  When the kids are a bit older we will incorporate the lessons from the study guides as well.  I am slowly collecting these books, so that they can be available to the children to look at again and again throughout the year, rather than simply borrowing them from the library (those that can even be found at a library, that is).  These would make wonderful grandparent or godparent gifts!  (The ones we don't yet have are listed on Nathan's Amazon.com wishlist.)

Another find that Nathan is really enjoying is The Catholic Children's Treasure Box.  Reprints of a magazine published by the Maryknoll Sisters in 1958, the old-fashioned stories and pictures engage Nathan in a very touching way.  He especially loves the ongoing story of St. Therese of Lisieux, which starts with her as a baby and shows her growing up with her family.  So far we have issues 1-10 and I definitely plan to hunt down the remaining available issues.

Aside from stories, the other thing I hope to implement this year is a home version of The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This is a Montessori based catechetical program that uses simple but beautiful materials to help the child grasp the full meaning of each lesson.  From the CGS site:

“You may be wondering how these materials help the religious life of children? If an adult hears a beautiful passage from the Bible, the adult might take a Bible, find the passage, and read it slowly again and again. He or she may think deeply about the words and perhaps speak to God in a thankful or hopeful prayer. But a little child, too young to read, needs another way. In an atrium the child can ponder a biblical passage or a prayer from the liturgy by taking the material for that text and working with it - placing wood figures of sheep in a sheepfold of the Good Shepherd, setting sculpted apostles around a Last Supper table, or preparing a small altar with the furnishings used for the Eucharist.”

I will be using Moira Farrell's Home Catechesis Manual for Ages 3-6 as my guide for this work. 

Preschool Plans for Nathan - Art, Language Arts, and Math

I will be working with Nathan again at home this year.  Given that he is 4 and already reads extremely well, I suspect that he would be bored in a traditional preschool.  Certainly he would enjoy the social and play aspects of preschool, but he gets plenty of that sort of thing with our many playgroups, individual play dates, field trips with friends, MOPS, etc.  So, here's the tentative plan:

Art

I'm stocked up on washable fingerpaint and fingerpaint paper (the glossy kind that the fingers easily slide over).  Also washable tempera paints, watercolors of two kinds (tube and pan), washable crayons and markers, colored pencils, and playdough of course with a plethora of sculpting tools.  I'm especially looking forward to trying out many of the cool activities in my recently acquired book Science Arts, which uses art projects to illustrate scientific principles.

Language Arts

Quality picture books are our backbone here.  Our booklist sources come from Five in a Row, Honey for a Child's Heart, Real Learning's booklist, and Catholic Mosaic.  Sometimes Nathan gets interested in learning more about a particular topic and then I put together a rabbit trail for him.

Spelling practice will be with a moveable alphabet, Montessori style.

We will continue our pre-writing exercises, which are developmentally designed to increase finger strength and control for proper grip of a pencil.  These are all classic Montessori lessons and include bean sorting, work with eyedroppers, tweezers and tongs, and of course, play doh.  I have also ordered metal insets for work along these lines.  These will help him acquire proficiency in using a writing instrument, including lightness of touch, evenness of pressure, continuity of line, and familiarity with the curves and angles found in letters.

I have also recently ordered Handwriting Without Tears' readiness program.  Nathan really wants to write, but if he can't do something well the first time he tries, he get frustrated and melts down.  The wooden block letter pieces will allow Nathan to practice constructing letters before he attempts to write them.  The program then progresses to making letters out of dough (we will just use play doh for this).  When he's ready, he can practice writing letters on the magnetic stamping screen and on a small slate, and then finally, on paper with the accompanying workbook exercises.

We'll also continue viewing the Signing Times DVDs.  I originally purchased these for Zachary to learn to communicate with us in his pre-speaking days, but Nathan (and myself) are enjoying them as well.  The boys are not only getting all the benefits of learning a second language, but also learning how to symbolically represent abstract words - an important concept for pre-reading.

Math

This is really just about having fun at this point.  There are so many great math manipulatives out there.  Nathan is enjoying our hundred board used in conjunction with numbered color tiles.  We can eventually use these to learn skip counting, patterning, greater/less than, place value, addition and subtraction, and even graphing.  Lots of ideas in Exploring with Color Tiles.

Other fun materials are our geoboard (activity book here), pattern blocks (activity books here and here), and MathLink Cubes (activity book here).  Nathan pulls each of these out regularly, leading to lots of opportunities to naturally discover many mathematical principles through play.  For example, while playing with the pattern blocks he discovered all on his own that two trapezoids make a hexagon, and that three equilateral triangles make a trapezoid.  He's learning about geometry and fractions without even knowing it!  There is plenty of time for formal lessons later.

Stay tuned for our plans for Religious Education and Practical Life ...