Homeschooling pre. K Christmas

Lately I been thinking lots about homeschooling. When I initially started researching it back when Avery was a baby, I was very much drawn to the Waldorf philosophy. Now that my kids are getting older and I have having a chance to watch how they learn, I  have come to see than an eclectic mixture of many styles of homeschooling fit my kids and our family best. It is all about how your kids learn best and what you want them to learn that is important in homeschooling.

Now technically I am not homeschooling...not in every sense of the word anyway. Avery attends a 5 day a week morning Jr. K program, which he started attending last year for his speech. We were so impressed with his progress and his teacher was phenomenal! I truly believe we could not have done for him what school did for him last year. This year on the other hand being that he is in the same program again (he is too young for kindergarten here) with a less enthusiastic teacher I find he is not being challenged and getting quite bored. I have always been an active teacher in my child's lives but more recently I have started actually planning out a "curriculum" It has been difficult at times but very rewarding to be the one to not only decide what my kids learn but to be the one responsible for teaching them! Taylor has not been in any sort of preschool program thus far so it has been amazing for me to see her soaking up everything I throw at her. She has been watching her brother do his homework and has been begging for her own.

There are so many neat activities I wanted to do with the kids to celebrate Christmas, so I decided to plan out a December homeschooling plan. Basically we are studying the Nativity for the first week or so, then onto Christmas decoration and lots of crafts and baking. The last week before Christmas will be our gingerbread theme week. Can't wait till that!

For our nativity week we start our "lesson" with a story. Today we read B is for Bethlehem. After our story we do our table work. My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE worksheets...and I must admit I like them too! I found  a great pack of work sheets at 1plus1plus1equals1. I printed the pack and have been using them how I see fit.

Yesterday we cut out what I called nativity cards and hung them up on the window by the kitchen table where we do our work to remind us of who the nativity story is about. We then did our J is for Jesus worksheets to practice our J sound and that is our letter for the week that we are talking about whenever we get the chance. The kids glued pom poms onto their letters and had a great time. Then they practiced writing their letter J.

Today after our story Avery practiced writing Mary, Jesus etc. and Taylor did some tracing activities. Then we played a fun game that I made up to use with the alphabet sheets in the printable pack. I called out a letter and they had to find that letter on their sheet and put a sticker on it. Big success! After that was done they drew pictures for baby Jesus.

So far the kids and I are having a blast with our learning and cant wait to keep going. Will keep you posted!