Preschool 101

I have mentioned before that my degree is in Early Childhood Education.  I worked in a day care setting for almost 10 years.  My passion was for children in the 2-5 year old range, so naturally you would think that doing preschool with my own children would come naturally.  Actually I have found that the opposite has been true!  Preschool at home is so much different than in a class room setting!

I want to start with a little background so you can get an idea where I am coming from.  When my first child was born I knew I would positively be going back to work.  Not really what I wanted to do but its what I needed to do.  I was ok with that and accepted it for what it was.  It really wasn't so bad because I worked at the day care and he was in the room right next to me.  When he was preschool age (about age 2), I began doing extra stuff with him at home.  We would do crafts, shape games, puzzles, and we constantly read to him.  Then as he began to progress I would add more things, like workbooks and such, he loved it!

When my second son was born and my oldest was now age 3, I knew that going back to work was going to be really hard.  Unfortunately I still needed to work, and so back to work I went.  Once again not so bad, because as an infant he was right next door to my room I got to peek in at him all the time and feed him on my breaks.  When he was about 3 months old, he got super dehydrated and was in the hospital for about 3 days.  It was during this time that I knew I couldn't go back to work!  I wanted to be home with my babies!  When I finally got back to work after his being in the hospital, things began to change around my workplace and I just knew it was time for me to leave.

So in May of that year, when my second son was 4 months old, I was able to quit my full time outside of the home job and be a full time in the home mom!  My oldest son began a 3 year old preschool program that fall and he loved it!!  My second son, when he was 3 also went to a preschool program. I loved that they could be somewhere playing and learning other than our house, even though I knew I was perfectly capable of teaching them preschool at home.

When we began homeschooling, my second son was 4, I decided that I would do his preschool at home.  How hard could that be, it is my degree after all?!  As I soon found out, really hard!  We plugged away that year and I think he had fun and learned a little bit.  What I found though is that I kept thinking I needed more, and so I would try to add so many unnecessary things just to keep him busy.

Now that our third child is age 3, he is enrolled in a preschool program two days a week.  He loves it!  His big brothers love it, or should I say they love the quiet house while he is gone.  It has worked well for us at this stage of life.  But I kept thinking that I should be doing more with him at home.  So a few weeks ago I began my search for things to do with him, that would help his fine motor skills and challenge him.  Of course I found some great little units to work through with him.  We began that this week, and will hopefully continue through out the rest of our school year.

Next time I will share a little bit more about what we will be doing in our home preschool program.