School for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too

I started homeschooling Ollie this week. I went back and forth with the decision because kiddos his age learn best by play. You don't want to teach a child to read before they are ready. It's really more important to teach social skills, fine motor skills, and gross motor skills at this age. 

However, I came across this curriculum that is really focused on gentle, classical instruction. Also, it's free. You are given 26 units and I am doing one unit a week. Within that week, there is scripture, character (catechism), science, math + basic skills, social studies, health and safety, motor skills, and language arts.

I don't follow the units exactly. For one reason, she is teaching the letters in alphabetical order. There are different opinions on what order to introduce letters, but I am choosing to teach in this order: 

1. s, a, t, i, p, n. 

2. c, k, e, h, r. 

3. m, d, g, o. 

4. l, f, b, q, u. 

5. j, z, w. 

6. v, y, x. 

 He has already been introduced to letters and he is able to identify a good amount of them. My goal is not that he masters this and is reading by the age of four. I simply want to introduce it to him. We do a craft with that letter. Ollie traces it with a toy car and decorates it. The letter this week was 's' and he made a snake and a spider with it.

Social studies was days of the week. I brought out the calendar. We counted the days and sang the song.  

Health and safety, we talked about his full name.

Language Arts, we read the same book all week. This is called rowing. This last week, we read nursery rhymes because that is another important step to developing pre-reading skills. He also picked out other books to read. (I love this so much!) 

Math, the unit had him counting to five. He can count higher than that, but I thought it would be a good idea to bring out different objects of five and have him count to just to practice. 

It sometimes leads to the game of "how many blocks can we pile on mommy's lap."

Motor skills, I cut some holes in some cardboard and had him lace ribbon through that. 

Science wanted us to talk about how tadpoles turned into frogs. It suggested we go to a pond and collect some. Not a great time of year for that. So we skipped that this week. 

 The person who created this curriculum really focuses on play. It's not very structured, hence the gentle part of the instruction. After he eats breakfast, I will bring out the calendar to talk about the days of the week and then we do our letter craft. I then will bring in the other subjects while he is playing. 

Math is super easy to integrate. He loves to count.

The first day was a bit of adjustment for both of us, but I won him over by reading with him.  The rest of the week we found our groove and I am sure it will look completely different this week. 

This is creating a lot of opportunities for conversations with Ollie. He is such a sponge and is so naturally curious.