August 9, 2016

A Song for Everything: A Little Home-School Pre-School for Resa

This year while my oldest three kids attend brick-and-mortar schools I will be doing a little homeschoolin to get Resa Rie ready for next year, when she will attend Kindergarten.

Now, most real homeschoolers I know don't do preschool, successfully covering pre-k curriculum in the first weeks of Kindergarten or just introducing their children to the concepts through life. When my oldest, L, was 4 we opted to homeschool her, too, but I was pregnant and naps quickly became more important. However, being a girl, the oldest, and the only grandchild meant that she still learned her letters, numbers, the days of the week, and a few other things - and that was mostly from books and conversations, not PBS Kids! When she went straight to Kindergarten she was fine. We knew that Ben would benefit from attending Pre-K4 and we were right - it was a good investment and really helped him do well in Kindergarten. JF, of course has been in preschool for three years, as that was how he received speech therapy.

Resa, though, is in a different place than her siblings before her and so we will do actual homeschool with her. But when I say that please know it will be super casual and laid back. 


She already can identify all the shapes, colors, numbers 1-10, and about 1/4 of the alphabet. She also sorta knows how to write her name and how to say most of her prayers. We'll need to solidify the Hail Mary, Our Father, and Glory Be, though.

My other goals - which we have a whole entire year to accomplish - are to teach Resa:
- the days of the week (we got a song for that)
- the months of the year (we got a song for that one, too)
- how to identify the letters of the alphabet
- how to write the letters of the alphabet
- how to write numbers 1-10
- how to count to 20 on her own, 100 with me
- her address (another song)
- my phone number (yet another song)
- how to writer her first and at least sorta write her last name

Days of the week song: the days of the week sung to O My Darlin'. It works in Spanish, too.

Months of the year song: Singing the months through to the tune of Ten Little Indians with "these are the months of the year. Good job!" at the end. 

The address song is our address to the tune of Ten Little Indians (the second half). So, for example and not my real address:
Two-Fifteen Oak Tree Avenue / Chicago Illinois!

My phone number is sung to Knick-Knack Paddy Whack. Is that what the song even called? Anyways, again not my real phone number:
123-456-7891 with a knick-knack paddy whack give my mom a call / her name is Bonnie.
It works. My older kids don't want to sing it to people but they have used it to remember my number so grown ups can call me. #winning

Other resources - books I'll be using:
Catholic Icing's Preschool Curriculum


This summer we had a pretty good run for going to the library and reading books. I'm hoping to continue that with Resa and spend some time reading classics with her. I think I'll make a list of A-Z books (like A for Alexander and the Horrible...Day - sorta like what Haley did here) and loosely try to follow that through the weeks. We'll see. I call myself a fake homeschooler (unlike the "real" homeschoolers I referenced) because my standards are loose and low and none of it quite feels legit, yaknowwhatI'msayin?

And I have changed up my shelves a bit to make things a bit more schoolish. We'll see how long this lasts but yay for mason jars, toys my kids were given, and Target dollar bins!


I figure two days a week for 30 minutes will be great. We'll probably start after Labor Day - once the big kids have settled in school and our home is off to its new rhythm. Honestly, I am really glad for this time with Resa. She is so peaceful and sweet, the middle child with no health issues or anything else to call attention to her, and so it's easy to let her be. It'll be good to intentionally sit down with her and work with her. One more year for her to be with me and be my little baby girl.

That got sappy so we'll wrap this up. If you have a favorite book for my list or another resource you'd love to tell me about please share!

9 comments:

  1. So I consider myself in your camp of not a real homeschooler for sure. I blogged a lot this past year about my little homeschool coop this past year for 3yo Preschool. We had 3 kids and rotated houses. Anyway, Hands On As We Grow blog, The Measured Mom blog and the Have Fun Learning YouTube channel were very valuable assets to me and the other two moms. Everything you've got planned sounds great!

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    1. Thank you for sharing those blogs with me! I will definitely be checking them out.

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  2. Bonnie, I love that you have songs. Love love love music for learning - works like a charm, and the more annoying the better! I also love your A-Z book idea, one for each week. I might steal that when my time comes! PS the song is called This Old Man. It's still a song in my book!

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    1. This Old Man!!!!
      (Can you tell I'm sick and tired? Because I am both sick and tired.)

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  3. I clicked on this post from bloglovin thinking, "It's nice to see what other people do for preschool, but I think I've got this figured out." You had me running to go get a notebook! I love the songs. We have a chant to remember our unusually long last name with lots of extra letters, but I didn't make one for our address and phone number.

    With our 3rd child as a preschooler at home this year, his only goal is "don't do anything that causes anyone to go to the emergency room." We can easily add a few songs to that curriculum. :)

    Thanks so much for sharing!

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  4. I love the songs!! Love them. We do a lot of spontaneous singing around here anyway, and they would fit right in. :)

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  5. Things like this are one of the struggles I have with homeschooling. When my older kids were younger, I had time to take them to more places and do cute crafts and such. I feel like so much of my time and attention is now spent on the older kids' homeschooling that the younger ones are often just "along for the ride". Enjoy that cuddle time/learning time with the littles!

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    1. Thank you, I will enjoy the cuddle time! I really am looking forward to it.

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