I was finishing up some Christmas shopping this afternoon when I happened upon the book aisle at Dollar General. I've been looking at various preschool items here and there. I've seen a few things that looked okay. I wanted something affordable and something that I could look at easily. There is a lot available online, but I can't see them and thumb through the book.
In the book aisle are the coloring books and all those little skills books. Many were for older kids, like Kindergarten on up. However, I found some wonderful treasures. I found ten little books for a buck a piece called Bible Rhyme Story Time books. They are published by Concordia Publishing House. From The Story of Creation to The Parable of the Prodigal Son, these little books are wonderful. The back of the book says it is a grade 3 reading level. I'm going to use them as read alouds for my toddler.
I plan to use the library extensively. For those books I plan to read from daily, I am buying them. We'll more than get our money's worth. These story books are paperback and perfect for sitting down and reading. Megan already loves to be read to. We read now, and she loves to pick out books from the library. In April, she will be three and will be old enough to to to storytime at the library. This excites me cause I know she'll just love it.
I also picked up some workbooks and learning coloring books. The first one is a simple Bible coloring book. We love coloring books in this house. Even my teens will sit and color if given the chance. It's actually quite funny. Bible coloring books are the best cause they get to color the Bible stories in their minds. It just reinforces the stories and lessons from the Bible. Dollar Stores are great because they often have these coloring books for a dollar or two.
The next book is an alphabet coloring book. With three to four pages per letter and other skills covered, I think the dollar spent on the book was pretty cheap.
My First Math Book. Just the title grabbed my attention. There are a few pages of skills that are advanced for a preschooler, but most are just three or four pages of coloring numbers, tracing numbers, and counting the objects on a page. Again, for a dollar, it looks to be a good deal.
Megan knows her colors and shapes, but this Winnie the Pooh workbook was adorable. It has primary and secondary colors, basic shapes, and lots of little activities. this book isn't as thick, but I'm sure we'll make good use of it.
I am developing lots of ideas for setting up a homeschool preschool. I still might send Megan to the local Christian preschool, but that will only be a couple days per week. That won't be till next fall. I plan to create a series of five small boxes. Lots of homeschoolers are talking about workboxes. This is a little different. Each box will stand for a different day with different learning activities, christian kids videos or learning videos, puzzles, etc. I will mix things up and keep things interesting. Maybe throw in a different library book each day but still read our Bible stories and favorite classics.
There are so many options available to me. I know I can't do everything, and I want to make things fun for two or three year old. I have to keep her busy. She's been easily distracting this year. It seems that if I'm reading to Laura, Megan is right there. She usually doesn't want to be read to at that point. Laura's books are not interesting to her. She just wants to distract and make teaching difficult. I'm hoping with her own special "School" time broken up throughout the day and some special read aloud time she will not feel the need to attempt to get attention.
I also want to use the book Leading Little Ones to God over the next year or two. I used it a bit with Laura last year, but she was kind of old for it. I may wait until Megan is older. I just haven't made any final decisions yet.
I was going to wait until Megan was three to actually begin preschool. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that we are teaching her anyway. I might as well come up with some activities to keep her busy little mind and hands doing something constructive. I think she wants to be like her big sisters too. She sees them reading and working and wants to do the same. Unfortunately, she tends to get into trouble by trying (and sometimes succeeding) in writing in her sisters books. I decided that, after Christmas break, we'll start Megan on her own stuff. She may be kind of young, at two, for some things. I don't intend to push her, so I'm alright with keeping her busy.
I would love to invest in an actual preschool program like Horizon's preschool. I might too when our finances stabilize and when Megan is a little older. Right now I just think she's too young for that kind of money to go out. I honestly think she'll be four before I spend that much money.
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