Learning from Forest School: The Environment is the Learning

When you think about homeschooling for preschool, what comes to mind? A brightly-colored room full of toys? A room stacked with books or workbooks? Baskets of blocks and building supplies? Like all of us, preschoolers respond to their environment. I help run a forest learning program for young children. In that forest learning environment, we have a few books brought by the facilitator, and a few craft materials that accompany her as well. For the most part, however, our learning environment is the forest. The forest environment is a great teacher. It has so many options for open-ended play materials. … Continue reading →

Homeschool Questions: Keeping Preschool Fun

“Q: A lot of people are anti – schooling for preschool age, but by 4yr. old is asking to play school, and wants to do “home work” like his cousins. A friend was generous enough to give me a preschool activity book. I’ve tried to stay away from “instructing” him by counting cars and sorting colors of marbles, but when he’s playing, he gets frustrated with me when I suggest counting or sorting in the situation. But then later he’ll say, “I want to have school” and pull out that activity book and work/play in it for quite a while. … Continue reading →

“Behind” Is a Relative Term in Homeschooling

Has anyone ever been surprised at how “behind” your child seems to be? This has happened to me a few times actually. . .always in reference to my preschool aged children and always in reference to learning how to read. I have mentioned before that we don’t do preschool formally. While I consider reading literature to the children (all of them–even the two year olds) a necessary task on my daily agenda. I don’t consider teaching them their alphabet, teaching them their numbers, or teaching them letter sounds necessary until about age 5 or 6. Sometimes, they just learn them … Continue reading →

Is My Child Ready to Read?

This has been a topic that I’ve been pondering recently for a few reasons. The first is that one of my twins is highly verbal and has a fairly impressive set of preschool skills that she’s acquired while I’m busy not doing preschool. Friends and some family are a little surprised that I still maintain that formalized preschool, even at home, is not the direction I want to go, even with a gifted child. Music, art, play, and literature abound, but preschool in my house will always be optional. The second thing that has me pondering this question is the … Continue reading →

Creating a Year Round Notebook for Preschoolers

I have mentioned before that I’m really not a big fan of doing preschool curriculums. I think for the vast majority of preschoolers, having to sit down every day and write, and attempt reading, and doing math is just too much. I’m not saying they can’t do it. . .but I think they get farther by being allowed to play and explore. However, I have two school aged children and three preschoolers. You can be sure that there are times when I either need to occupy my preschoolers or they really want to take part in what we‘re doing. I … Continue reading →