Homeschooling Materials...a few of our favorite things

I often get asked by mommas that are considering homeschooling about our curriculum. Where to buy, how to use, how to choose! Of course, I'm not an expert. We're not at any particular grade level yet, and my "curriculum" is cobbled together from Pinterest, random ideas I get, and favorite educational toys. So I thought, for this post, I would share some of our favorite learning materials. Our MVPs, if you will, that get the most use.

Bu loves anything alphabet related, so this matching game has gotten some love lately. I like a lot of the Match-It brand games for educational activities that don't feel like "work". We have the ENTIRE series of Preschool Prep DVDs (Bu's favorite) and we recently added the entire series of Signing Time DVDs and the entire series of Magic School Bus. Bu is a very visual kid and he loves music, so Preschool Prep and (most) Signing Time DVDs are right up his alley. MSB is still a bit over his head, but I love them and I like to incorporate the show into our themed lessons wherever appropriate. And of course, we have LOADS of puzzles and books. Bu doesn't particularly care for sitting still and being read to, but he loves "reading" on his own, which is a great foundation to build on as he gets older. Puzzles are his absolute favorite thing, so we play with them ALL THE TIME and always have a bunch scattered throughout the house. We like to use them not just for matching and coordination, but also for describing attributes and labeling to help with speech and vocabulary.

We also have a LOT of workbooks for a family that doesn't do much paper "work". I am notorious for picking up any workbook I find at the Dollar Tree or Target and trying to figure how I might use it "one day"...As a result, I have a bunch of preschool curriculum ready to go for when we decide to focus more on worksheets, and I also have some stuff ranging to third grade level just because I wanted a complete set and didn't want to risk not finding the books later when I'd need them. I probably need an intervention. In any case, you can see our collection of workbooks above. 

As I just mentioned, one of my favorite places to buy teaching materials is at Target. These items were available at the dollar section last week. I love going at least once a week to Target and checking out what's new, as their stock is constantly changing. Many of the activities I come up with are inspired by something I'll pick up here that I otherwise would never have thought of doing! Part of homeschooling is finding learning opportunities anywhere, sometimes without even trying ;)

I hope that was helpful to anyone starting out! Please let me know if you have specific questions, and I'll do my best to answer or direct you to the appropriate resource! :)

Our Homeschool, Week 15: "My Family"

This week, our theme was taken from My Family board. We mostly did a lot of puzzles (as usual) and watched a couple different Signing Time videos. We also worked on color recognition with our Family Counters again and brought out an oldie but a goodie, the peg board! We tried a new activity too, a matching game to teach him to put uppercase and lowercase letters together. He did great (while he was interested) and I'm looking forward to adding these to our regular rotation of activities.

Another thing we worked on was identifying family members (to go with the theme). I have photos of myself, Daddy, grandpa and grandma laminated as our therapy materials. I only have these family members for now because they're the people that he sees most. I showed him two photos at a time and asked him "where's momma?" so he'd have to pick my photo, and so on. He does this activity regularly in speech and ABA, but it was nice to practice with him.

Next week, we using our Birds board. Hope you all have a great week!

(Unfounded) Homeschooling Pressures...

I was looking back through my instagram feed (#bubuhomeschool) and realized that it's been 67 weeks since we officially started our at-home lessons. I used to try to fit in so many more activities each day back then, and I also had a lot more of a battle to get Bu interested in learning.

Some of that might be his maturity and the fact that it was a new thing back then, but I think a lot of it is also that there's not as much pressure these days. When we started, my son was getting 8 hours a week of therapy, and I felt that wasn't enough. The fact that I don't have any typical children Bu's age around me as a basis for comparison (not that comparison is ever a great idea) also made me wonder if I was doing enough...

These days, Bu is doing 16 hours a week of therapy. That's at least 2-4 hours every weekday of ONE-ON-ONE structured learning time. The fact that I know he's practicing colors, matching, etc with his therapists and challenging himself cognitively has helped me to ease up on forcing too much "academic" stuff at home. I have always known that children up to the age of 6-7 learn most by playing, but I finally started to BELIEVE it when I realized recently just HOW MUCH my son knows!

The fact that we haven't been using worksheets lately and Bu is doing so great has led me to think that we're going to ease up on them altogether around here for the time being. Bu does way better with visuals and manipulatives than he does trying to follow directions on a piece of paper. It's always a great advantage in homeschooling to know HOW your child learns best and how they most ENJOY learning.

I was also reading a "preschool complete curriculum" book last night (which prompted this post) and in the "parents guide" section, there was a page that was titled "what you can expect from your 4 year old". I typically hate reading things like this because it only reminds me of the things Bu isn't quite at age-level with, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that Bu can do many of these things (recognize letters, 6 different colors, 3 different shapes) and THEN some! What most struck me is that at four years old, "your child's attention span is longer and they can now work 10-15 minutes straight".

Bu works for hours a day! We've been doing 10-15 minutes of activity daily (plus therapy) since right after his third birthday, and I thought most days that it was just not enough. Turns out, he's actually ahead of the curve!

It can sometimes be a little scary, know that your child's education is entirely in your hands...but seeing how great he's actually doing (even compared to neurotypical kids his age) justifies to me that we're on the right track! Maybe I need to relax and just high five my awesome kid for being on this journey with me.

Magic City Comic Con 2016

This last weekend, I was able to go to Magic City Comic Con! My brother frequents these conventions, but this was only my second one ever. My first was many MANY years ago and was nowhere near as big and fun as MCCC!

 I met all sorts of people and took pictures with some of the guests that made my favorite costumes. I also met Billie Piper, Jenna Coleman and Peter Davison and got a photo taken with them! The most fun part was all the Q&As, especially the one with Brent Spiner! And of course, there was the costume contest. I was hoping to stay until the shadow cast performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I hadn't eaten all day (eating paleo while out and about isn't easy) so I started to feel ill.

I had a great time, and I can't wait for the next local convention!

Our Homeschool, Week 14: "Clothes"

This week, we worked on our Clothes board. We watched a video from Rock N Learn called "Getting Ready for Kindergarten" which focused on getting yourself dressed, tidying your clothes up, etc. We also watched a video from our Signing Time collection that taught us the signs for many different articles of clothing.

We practiced our letter recognition with the clothespins again this week. We also did an art project, played with our Joey Magnetic Dress Up set and did loads of puzzles. I didn't get a photo, but we also broke in our Bear Busy Board to practice snaps, buckles, buttons and zippers. 

Next week, our theme will be My Family. See you then!

Our Homeschool, Week 13: "Winter"

This week, we had some fun with our Winter board! And yay, we had some "appropriate" winter weather this week, at least in terms of South Florida.

Bu's favorite thing this week was our felt snowman from Target.  When I tried to take it down at the end of the week, he swatted my hand away and smoothed him back up onto the fridge! He didn't want his little buddy to go LOL

We worked on a lot of letter and number recognition on the easel this week. I've started leaving the magnets out so he can practice whenever he walks by and decides he'd like to "play". Another letter recognition activity we did was with cards and clothespins. We're going to be using these again next week during our "Clothes" themed week. We did a sensory bin with winter-themed erasers (I love using erasers as cheap manipulatives for sensory bins!) and watched an episode of Magic School Bus that discussed what arctic animals do to keep warm in the cold.

 We'll be working with our Clothes board next week. The focus is going to be on identifying articles of clothing and where on the body they belong. Our printer is out of ink, so we're not using any worksheets this week :)

Our Homeschool, Week 12: "Rainbows"

This week, we studied colors with the help of our Rainbows board!

We also did LOTS of puzzles and watched a corresponding episode of Magic School Bus (I got the whole series for Christmas! I'm so excited LOL that was totally from my wish list instead of Bu's, but he's benefiting from it, as well). We did lots of color sorting and practiced number recognition from 1-20.

We also watched an episode of Signing Time to learn how to sign all the colors of the rainbow. I got Bu EVERY DVD from Signing Time ever released for his homeschooling. It wasn't cheap, but he will benefit GREATLY from it, and thankfully it is reimburseable through his homeschooling grant!

Next week, we're using our Winter board. Let's hope for some appropriate weather, huh?