Curriculum: 2009-2010

NURSERY

Our primary focus during Nursery School is on readiness for the basics, or the "three r's". We are using activities-based programs and ideas for pre-reading, pre-writing and pre-arithmetic.

Bible stories, read-alouds, nature walks, music appreciation, art projects and much more round out our curriculum for the year.

With the exception of hands-on art projets, nature walks, etc., each lesson is between 5 and 10 minutes long and is over when our student loses interest.


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Bible Stories
We have carefully chosen The Beginner's Bible for our first Bible studies. Daily readings from this wonderful Bible storybook are a hit here. Our student loves these stories so much that they must be re-read and retold throughout the day.

A coloring sheet or project from the internet is a common companion to the reading.


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Pre-Reading
We cannot say enough great things about the Leapfrog Learning DVDs. Our student knew all of his uppercase letters and their basic sounds before he was 18 months old. He learned them in under 3 viewings of the Talking Letter Factory dvd. The Talking Words Factory teaches basic blending and c-v-c words. These are the two main dvds we are using this year.

Starfall.com is a free site that teaches phonics through interactive lessons. There are printable worksheets and online books (which can also be purchases in print). Our student loves to play on starfall.com and learned his lowercase letters through the activities there.
We also use various games and activities for fun reinforcement.

In January, we will begin using the Explode the Code Primers starting with Get Ready for the Code (Book A). This set of three primers will help to reinforce his letter recognition and phonemic awareness while he works through the book below.

We will also begin using Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons* in January. This is a scripted program that uses the DISTAR principles to teach a young child to read. We will see how this goes, but it does look promising.

* We've since dropped this item.


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Pre-Writing
The title of the Kumon workbook, My First Book of Tracing, is a bit deceiving. The student does not trace in the traditional sense of writing on top of a solid or dashed line. Instead, the student follows a path that gradually progresses to both narrower and more complex paths. Removing the pages from the binding and placing them into sheet protectors allows for extra practice and mastery through multiple uses of each lesson with a dry-erase marker.

We also make use of various Montessori-inspired fine motor activities to both increase dexterity, control and hand strength.


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Pre-Arithmetic
Saxon Math K is really more of a hands-on, preschool math activities guide than a kindergarten math program. Our current goal is to do three of these lessons per week. Due to the young age of our student, we have opted not to use the meeting book this school year. We will begin our calendar activities next year (the second half of our Pre-K program) with the Saxon Math 1 Meeting Book along with the daily assignments.

In addition to Saxon, we encourage exploration and play with several types of manipulatives that do not necessarily coincide with the Saxon program.