Ready for September

Today is my last day for Internet access until all is set up at the new house. Over the last week or so, I've been busy searching and deciding on the homeschooling curriculum for preschool we will be attacking next year.

At 1st we were going to stick to a theme, color, and shape and lightly introduce #s and letters, but that has changed. Mainly because Charlie is further along than I realized. A few weeks ago while eating ABC type cookies he correctly identified the letter A. I was surprised so I "tested" him on a few others and sure enough he can recognized almost half of the alphabet. I am thrilled to say the least. He loves being read to and "reading" books on his own.

As far as #s go, he can correctly count by rote to 14 (then it gets a little fuzzy). He recognizes the #s 1 and 8 (random, I know) and can count actual items up to 10 so he's doing great there, too.

I've decided to go with a literature based curriculum using a combination of FIAR and lapbooking units from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/ While using http://www.letteroftheweek.com/ to work on the letters/phonics.

I will, of course, also have Justin (who is a few months older than Charlie) full time and Austin (who will be four soon) on a part time basis because he will be in the sped preschool program. Neither can count past 3 or identify letters. They know most of their colors and some shapes, though so we'll expose them to everything and see how much they can absorb.

So, since I wont have the Internet for a little bit I've been busy downloading and working up the plan so that at least for the 1st month everything is in place and I can take the next few weeks to settle in and unpack/organize the new house. We're ready for September!

Provided we survive the rest of the summer that is.