Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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Homeschool Preschool

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January 30, 2017 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

For preschool, we’ve tried lots of different activities and curricula.

Preschool homeschool doesn’t have to cost really anything. I know some homeschool parents who buy these expensive boxed curriculum sets, but I think these are a waste of money and cause lots of stress for child and parent. The schedules are strict and seem to have a lot of worthless busy work.

Our homeschool days have always been only a couple hours of academic work, even for high schoolers!

I highly recommend the books by Louise Bates Ames. Good guides to follow are What Your Preschooler Needs to Know: Get Ready for Kindergarten and What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know: Preparing Your Child for a Lifetime of Learning by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

How We Homeschool Preschool:

While I believe that small children should play, play, play as much as possible, my younger kids wanted to “do school” like big sister, so I obliged with workbooks and fun activities and they soaked it up like sponges.

I read aloud to my kids from pre-birth through high school age. We all love books.

Autonomy

I don’t force anything on my kids. I allow them to explore their interests. We don’t worry about handwriting. Reading comes naturally, whenever the child is ready. They love learning about science and history.

Toys

Lots of plastic electronic toys are a waste of money. My kids prefer building materials and toys and recyclable items for craft creations. Pretend play is important. I shop after Halloween sales and thrift shops for fun dressup clothes.

Technology

Screens in moderation. Sometimes kids just need and want the downtime. When it’s bad weather outside or we’re not feeling well, it’s fine to curl up together or alone with the cats and watch a show or play an app. Why should we make kids feel guilty when adults do it all the time?

Outdoors

We spend lots of time outside. We play balancing and running games and run free and wild. We learn about and experience nature.

Practical Life

They use real tools in the kitchen, helping cook real food meals.

We explore textures and colors and drawing with real art supplies.

We go to the library weekly – for storytime and checking out lots of fun books.

Lots of fun field trips – farms, museums, science centers, historic locations, beaches, parks, nature centers. We prefer realistic locales over entertainment places like amusement parks. We love to travel!

My middle and youngest children wanted to “do school” almost from birth. They followed their sister around and wanted to do everything she did. I provided activities based on interests and needs.

Letter of the Week

We loved using the programs from Confessions of a Homeschooler and 1+1+1=1. It was lots of paper and printing, but the girls really loved it. Alex liked it ok.

My girls completed 2 levels of All About Reading and my son used their entire program. They all loved it! It was a fun and easy way to learn to read and they begged to do a lesson every single day.

Here are some of our random letter blog posts. I didn’t record all of our letter learning efforts.

  • Letter A
  • Letter D
  • Letter M
  • Letter N
  • Letter R
  • Letter U

Unit Studies

  • Astronomy
  • Beach
  • Back to School
  • Fall
  • Apples
  • Winter
  • Snow
  • Antarctica
  • Transportation
  • Royalty
  • Dinosaurs
  • Foxes
  • Wizard of Oz

Preschool Pinterest Board

Montessori Pinterest Board

I try to limit toys to encourage imaginative play.

Recommendations:

  • Sarah’s Silks
  • Branch Blocks
  • Geometric Blocks
  • Bilibo
  • Puppet Theater
  • Wiggle Car
  • Hopper Ball
  • K’Nex
  • Dome Climber
  • LeapFrog DVDs
  • Kumon workbooks
  • Kuhn Rikon kinderkitchen
  • Colored Pencils
  • Painting Supplies

Book Recommendations:

  • Your Self-Confident Baby: How to Encourage Your Child’s Natural Abilities — From the Very Start by Magda Gerber
  • Baby Knows Best: Raising a Confident and Resourceful Child, the RIE™ Way by Deborah Carlisle Solomon
  • Elevating Child Care: A Guide To Respectful Parenting by Janet Lansbury
  • No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame by Janet Lansbury
  • Help Your Preschooler Build a Better Brain: A Complete Guide to Doing Montessori Early Learning at Home by John Bowman
  • How To Raise An Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin
  • Montessori at Home Guide: A Short Guide to a Practical Montessori Homeschool for Children Ages 2-6 by AM Sterling
  • Teach Me to Do It Myself: Montessori Activities for You and Your Child by Maja Pitamic
  • Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
  • Unconditional Parenting: Moving from Rewards and Punishments to Love and Reason by Alfie Kohn
  • How Children Learn by John Holt
  • Teach Your Own: The Indispensable Guide to Living and Learning with Children at Home by John Holt
  • Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life by Peter Gray
  • Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry) by Lenore Skenazy
  • The Collapse of Parenting: How We Hurt Our Kids When We Treat Them Like Grown-Ups by Leonard Sax
  • A Disease Called Childhood: Why ADHD Became an American Epidemic by Marilyn Wedge

Preschool does mean Before Schooling. Kids before age six really need to play, play, play.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: back to school, curriculum, homeschool, kindergarten, preschool, tot school

My Last Baby is in Kindergarten

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October 23, 2013 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Alex is movin’ on up! He’s pretty officially doing Kindergarten work now. He was getting so bored! I’m accommodating. No holding back!

So I printed out the Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten letter A pages and he went to town.

He knew the pictures that started with A just fine and colored them.

phonics fun

He practiced the sign for A and chose the correct picture at the bottom. So proud of my boy!

LOTW ASL

I love that it has Bible verses for each letter!

He cut out his verse and glued it in order with very little help. He recited it to me!

cutting Bible verse

He still loves cutting and gluing. It’s his favorite activity!

Do A Dot markers with his letter A maze. He loves dot markers!

letter maze

He’s so careful with tracing!

tracing letter a lines

He loves his apps. His new favorites are Gappy’s First Words and Mystery Letters.

tracing A iPad

Kindergarten is bittersweet since this is my last child!

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: kindergarten, LOTW

Groundhog Day and More

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February 3, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

This month has flown by!

Here are the girls graphing…

I made Angry Birds cubes and graphs! They loved it.

They love their Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center for the graphing activities!

Crayola Dry Erase Play
Graphing Dry Erase Play
Dice and Graphing Math Game

Snowflake graphing with stickers.

Snowflake Graphing
Penguin patterns with stickers.
Penguin Graphing

Circus! The kids got to ride an elephant! So, at $10 per kid, we’re not eating this week! lol!

Elephant Ride

Letter O activities with You Can Read program…

Reading Crafts

Art with Artistic Pursuits, Book One: An Introduction to the Visual Arts.

Art Time

Our new lessons boards.

We’re transitioning into 1st grade, y’all!

I’m using a mix of The Well-Trained Mind and Ambleside Online.

Lesson Boards

On the bottom right, that’s our sensory table for Valentine’s!

Planning Wall
Groundhog puppet crafts from our homeschool co-op.
Groundhog Crafts

Time is going by too fast!

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: Groundhog Day, kindergarten, LOTW

Montessori Kindergarten

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January 27, 2012 By Jennifer Lambert 3 Comments

The girls are really enjoying the Montessori trays with works that I set out this week.

sorting corks
Sorting Corks

sorting solid geometry forms
Sorting Geometric Solids

Alex got into the geometry forms and Tori taught him their names.
Playing with Shapes

Sequencing Puzzle Cards

Sequencing Cards

geoboards

Geoboards and Letters

Fraction dot paint with Angry Birds K Pack
Dot Fraction Painting

color sorting the fractions on the pages
Fraction Painting

subtraction math game
subtraction snowmen math game

writing the days of the week
Writing Days of the Week

I love that we have the freedom to mix things up and try new things!

Montessori Kindergarten gives the girls lots of options to learn on their own.

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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: kindergarten, Montessori

First Snow

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November 28, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

We’ve added calendar notebooks to our morning time.
I’ve just been waiting for my little girlies to be ready for this!
We’ve pulled ideas from Mama Jenn and 1+1+1=1.
Kindergarten Circle Time

Our first snow…This is the Snow Bunny with Tori.

Snow Bunny

 
Katie was getting a snowball ready and I hurried on outta there.
Snowball Fight
We’ve been busy with You Can Read and RRSK.
 
We were sick all last week, which made for a not so fun Thanksgiving. We had dinner on Saturday because that was the final day we could cook that bird before it ruined. We are ready for the Advent season!
 
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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: kindergarten, snow, winter

Kindergarten Fall Update

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November 4, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

A Kindergarten update before the holidays.

Tori and Katie so graciously allow Bubba to “write” in their clay like ancient Hittites with a “stylus” (chopstick).

All the kids really enjoyed this activity from Tapestry of Grace.

History Project with Clay and Stylus

The end of the soccer season. Awards ceremony tonight.

Soccer Girl

Tori loved scooping out her jack o’lantern.

Jack O Lantern

Katie did not.

Icky Pumpkin

Tori as a lovely Chinese princess for a Halloween party with Daddy. (I found THREE Chinese dresses at a thrift store for the girls! Amazing!)

Chinese Princess

Katie and Alex sharing a sucker moment.

Lollipops

We’re loving the You Can Read program and the Raising Rock Stars Kindergarten printables from 1+1+1=1. My only issue is that the girls complete their pages super fast!

We’ve also enjoyed some activity packs about fall and firefighters and monsters and pumpkins (oh my!) from Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1. The girls’ favorite activity is the graphing with printable dice.

We completed some experiments from our Apologia Swimming Creatures book. The girls have this class at our homeschool co-op, but they’ve been doing other activities.

We’re reviewing the Imagination Station book series. Stay tuned for a giveaway!

 
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Filed Under: Homeschool Tagged With: fall, kindergarten

Kindergarten Games

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September 11, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

Victoria and Katherine are excited to be in Kindergarten.

They are growing up so fast!

Here they are, having fun while graphing our rainforest animals from our rainforest unit from 2TeachingMommies.

We’re loving our Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center.

Our calendar this month is all about the rainforest too!

Rainforest Game
Rainforest Dice Tally Game
Tori had her first soccer game this week! Katie will join her next year, probably on the same team (for my scheduling sanity).

Right now, since Katie is still four, she’s on a Smart Start team that only practices once a week, no games.

Soccer Player

The kids had fun reading Pete’s a Pizza.

I plan to start using Draw Write Now this week.

We’re planning to start back up with You Can Read.

We’ll probably need to review the first few units we started last spring. They’re about a quarter of the way through Funnix reading and math. We’re loving Greek mythology in Tapestry of Grace right now.

We’re starting science this week to keep up with co-op. I’m hoping to keep a better school schedule for the remainder of this month and include some fun stuff too! We need to start using our workboxes again.

We started participating in a weekly homeschool co-op last Thursday. I think the girls really loved it. There are three “classes” in the morning, then lunch, then PE.

The girls are in an Apologia Swimming Creatures experiment class, The Young Peacemaker, and geography (with a focus on missions!).

In a way, I don’t like not being with them every minute until after noon, especially since they weren’t able to tell me what all they did. The parents all rotate as helpers/teachers in the classes, so I will be in their classes occasionally.

Kindergarten is a busy year!

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