How We Homeschool: 4 Years Old (Pre-K)

I previously wrote an entry called How We Homeschool: Pre-K Level, which gives an overview of how we started homeschooling and how we homeschooled when Luke was 3 years old.

It’s been a year since that entry. And as can be expected, a number of things have changed in the way we homeschool now that Luke is more than 4 years and 8 months old already. Here’s a peek at the way we homeschool now.

Morning Time

We begin with one of my favorite times of the day: morning time. This is where we have breakfast together and do the following:

• Bible Verse Memorization
• Devotions
• Poetry and/or Story Read-Aloud

Bible Verse Memorization is exactly what it sounds like; we memorize Bible verses. Currently, we are using Susan Hunt’s ABC Bible Verses as a guide. We go through the verses alphabetically. As of the writing of this article, Luke has memorized A-U. 5 more letters! 😉

Next, we do our devotions. Here’s a list of our favorite devotionals for reference. Occasionally, we would also play hymns and worship songs (though I hope to do this more regularly.)

Then, we continue on to reading poetry and/or stories.

Some of our favorite materials include A Children’s Garden of Verses and AA Milne’s Now We Are Six for poetry. For stories, I try to rotate the storybooks we have at home. I just make sure to choose a living book for our read aloud. Here are some suggestions for story books we love.

We do this everyday, with only a few exceptions. Morning Time lasts until breakfast is over. Then we go up and continue studying in the studio.

In case you were wondering about my baby, Dylan, he joins us for breakfast (and therefore, morning time.) By the time we start lessons, I’ve already handed him over to his yaya for bath time and morning nap.

Daily Lessons: 1-2 Hours

After morning time and finishing our whole morning routine with the kids, we start our official classes at around 9:30-10am. Here’s our schedule:

• National Anthem
• 15 minutes of Chinese
• Subjects for the Day

On our board, I scheduled 2 subjects per day. To be honest, this serves more as “goals” for us rather than our actual schedule. We try to follow it as much as we can but it’s open for changes.

For more entries on how I teach the different subjects or what curriculum/materials we use, please check out this list of articles. You can also visit my Instagram and watch our story highlights.

Curriculum and Materials:

The most commonly asked question is always about which curriculum and materials we use. Here’s a quick rundown of how I handle each subject.

• Language Arts: We started using The Good and The Beautiful (TGATB) Level K but Luke hasn’t been enjoying it so we are switching. I’m still waiting for the new materials to arrive (I’m gonna try “All About Reading”) so in the meantime, we just continue to use the Mini Books included in our TGATB pack. Note that Luke has loved the previous books, Pre-K and Level K Primer.
• Writing: I started using Handwriting Without Tears with him but lately we stopped because he would much prefer copying words that I’ve written. So we got a notebook and I’d write different words he wants to copy (usually the names of his favorite Avengers or Star Wars characters haha) and then in the end, I’d write a Bible Verse for him to copy as well. So far, this has been the most effective way to get him to practice his writing skills.
• Math: We use TGATB Level K Math and this is Luke’s absolute favorite. Tried using Singapore Math workbooks but it’s just not as interactive and Luke gets bored. Maybe next time!
• Science: Lately, we started using the Abeka book “Discovering God’s World” for Grade 1. We don’t do this regularly though. Instead, we read a lot of science related books. In particular, we love “The Magic School Bus” and “Let’s Read and Find Out” science books. We also work on experiments like the ones we get from Oli’s Boxship!

• Filipino: For Filipino, we speak in Filipino for the whole session, read a lot of Filipino books and use Buksan’s Flashcards. Click this for the full article and list.
• Chinese: I use a lot of different materials for Chinese, I think I need to make a whole separate blog post about that. But to give a brief overview: I read him preschool level Chinese books, sing Chinese songs, work on writing Chinese characters and practice character recognition and mastery using flashcards I made myself, which I offer as printables here.
• History: We read a lot of books for history and make occasional crafts. History is my favorite subject so we have a LOT of books on history. Hehe. We also started to do a little bit of “Story of the World” by Susan Wise Bauer, but we don’t do it regularly because it’s better for older children. I plan to get more into it next year.
• Geography: Lots of books, puzzles about maps and just general fun stuff. We also have flashcards about landforms/waterforms. Nothing too heavy.
• Art: During art class we work on different crafts; sometimes we paint, work on activities and more. We also do art appreciation and artist studies (more on that below)

Afternoon Schedule:

Work Break

As a work at home mom, afternoons are usually the time when I get to work or work on some errands.

When I need to go out, I bring Luke with me. When I need to work at home, I ask him to play on his own or work on a craft, worksheet or project independently. I can usually hold him off (haha) for an hour before he starts to get fidgety and asks for time with mommy again.

If his little brother is awake, this is when they usually play too.

Snack and Poetry/Stories/Art and Music Appreciation

By 4pm, we usually go down for snacks. I would bring down books and continue to read him stories and poetry.

I usually choose the titles, or I let him choose from a pre-picked pile because if I let him choose freely, we’d be reading about The Avengers every single afternoon. Haha. (Related post: “30 Must-Have Read Aloud Books for Ages 3-6”)

Sometimes, we also do art and music appreciation during this time. We study an artist or musician and read books that we have about them (Example: Van Gogh) Some art related books we like include the James Mayhew’s Katie series and Laurence Anholt’s books. I recently also had some reproductions of the paintings printed so we can do more in-depth picture studies.

And when I remember (haha I forget a lot of things,) I play some classical music in the background.

Other Activities:

Nature study:

Following the Charlotte Mason approach, we try our best to get out more often. We live in the city so you have to be very intentional if you want to have nature experiences so what we do instead is take a walk around the village as much as we can.

When we go on walks, we gather leaves, rocks, sticks and flowers and we come home and stick it in our nature journal. Sometimes I use my app (I love iSeek Naturalist) which allows us to identify the plants we’ve seen,

Playdates:

We schedule regular play dates with our friends who also homeschool to make sure he still gets a lot of interaction with other kids.

We sometimes have special themed gatherings together like Buwan ng Wika or Chinese Mooncake Festival where the kids get to experience different cultural celebrations together.

Field trips:

We go on a LOT of field trips and we love it.

To be honest, this is one of the reasons why I love homeschooling: because we have the time to go on different field trips during weekdays. (Check this out for a list of field trips with done so far)

Final Note On Scheduling

I’ve found that making a daily schedule and writing it visibly on a board not only helps me keep on track but also gives my son a sense of order. He loves having a schedule and even looks forward to checking which subjects we are doing for the day. And that’s not even the best part.

Having a schedule actually made him stop complaining about Chinese lessons (and other things he doesn’t feel like doing, haha) Because now that he knows it’s part of the routine, he just follows!

I highly recommend creating a schedule but my tip is, allow your kids to create the schedule WITH you. It makes them feel more empowered and would be more open to accepting the schedule since they were the ones who made it.

Also, for the record, we don’t bind ourselves strictly to the schedule. We sometimes skip days whenever I need to be elsewhere or whenever we have other plans and that’s okay. For me, that’s one of the beauties of homeschooling; having the opportunity to go at your own pace.

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RELATED POSTS:

• How We Homeschool: Pre-K Level
• How We Homeschool: 5 Years Old
• Homeschool Room: 2020

 

For more homeschooling articles, check this out!

Hope this article has helped in some way and if it has, I would appreciate if you could share it with friends and/or leave a comment below! God bless your own homeschooling journey, whether you plan to do this for a year or for many years to come!