Fun with Four

Four is fast becoming my favorite year with Hayden.  Of course, it is not without its challenges - I mean, he is FOUR, but it is also a great time of exploration, curiosity, and wonder at the world.  I love seeing him discover and learn new things.  The world through his eyes is a very cool place and I am enjoying showing it all to him.

Now that he is so interested in everything around him, I thought it was a good time to start preschool.  We chose to do this at home instead of sending him to a school, so I set about deciding on education approaches and curriculum.  I found an approach I connected with and some amazing curriculum which should be coming soon!  I'm so excited to get started.  In fact, we really started last week with my own materials and lesson plans that I made on my own or found online.  It's been fun pulling it all together each day, although it will be nice to have a curriculum to work with once it comes in.  Starting from scratch can be a little overwhelming - it's nice to have a starting point and then go from there.

I found a great phonics website (Progressive Phonics) that has FREE books you can print out that I will be using this week - they are really cute and I think Hayden will like them.  It's amazing how much free material is out there.  You really could educate your child for practically nothing - as long as you had a printer, internet access, and a library card - but it would take a little more time and planning than I have right now.  Thank goodness for curriculum!

Last week was so much fun and even though with the holiday we only had 2 days, I still felt like he learned a lot. He mastered the concepts of light and dark and which colors were "light" or "dark" colors, he colored inside the lines for the first time ever, haha, matched letters and words that started with the letter in a memory game, used the computer and manipulated the mouse perfectly to play a matching game,  answered all discussion questions correctly about a book we had read for the first time, got introduced to the concept of rhyming, and put together every jigsaw puzzle we owned (looks like I'll need to get some harder ones).

It just amazes me how much he learns and it's so fun being able to teach him all these things.  I can't wait for tomorrow!

I'd love to hear about any resources you've used and liked - even though we purchased a curriculum, there is always room for improvements or alternate activities!