I’ve spent the last few weeks preparing for Baloo’s transition to preschool.  He turns 4 in July, but we are moving twice between now and then.  I’ve already prepared theme’s and some tot school work for the next few months, but I would like something a little more organized for when he turns four. 

First of all, it has taken me weeks to plan and prepare 3 months work of work.  And it’s not detailed planning either.  That was a big challenge for me, but I think I have enough stuff to keep us busy for the entire month and it’s nicely boxed up and just waiting for us.  Hopefully when we start opening the boxes I will have prepared sufficiently.

The next step was choose a curriculum for preK.  I didn’t think that would be so difficult.  I knew I wanted a detailed lesson manual because something as simple as gathering materials seems to take me awhile.  I know that for homeschooling to be successful I have to meet Baloos needs first.  He’s an active boy.  He is always up and running around and doesn’t sit still for any period of time.  I don’t think a literature based program would be right for him.  Something that involves a lot of play is likely best.  With that in mind, and knowing I needed a detailed lesson manual, I ended up with Calvert.  I have spent hours just looking at curricula, reading about them, reading reviews, etc…  I also like that Calvert is expanding into high school.  It would be nice to stick with one curriculum the entire time.

Then we had the honor of attending a homeschool conference here in Tampa.  I wasn’t really expecting to find so much that I wanted, and wanted now.  So we added a few extras onto our curriculum.  We’re going to add in science kits from the Academy of Science for Kids.   (AcademyofScienceforKids.com).  I’m going to start out Baloo with the Rocks kit, and we will see how that goes.  These seemed to be aimed towards older kids, but we were told that the rock kid would probably be on Baloos level.  We’re also going to do Rocket Phonics (http://rocketphonics.com/OrderPage.htm)  which also uses games and activities to teach phonics.  This is supposed to go up to a 5th grade reading level.  The last  program we’re going to add is Math U See (http://www.mathusee.com/default.php?cPath=17).  Again, it’s a lot of hands on. 

I’m still feeling a bit overwhelmed.  With any luck I’ll be able to buy at least the Calvert curriculum about a month before we’re ready to start so I can sort through it all.  I plan on using Sue Patrick’s Workbox system and will actually be getting that set up tomorrow so we can practice using it before jumping into a curriculum.