We wrapped up our first week of Pre-K homeschool using The Peaceful Press curriculum. Now that we're a week in, that makes me a professional, right? Probably not, but I will share some of my thoughts with how the first week went.
I originally purchased the Peaceful Press because I loved that it took the guess work out of the planning for me. I love that the books they recommend are actually good stories- no twaddle books as Charolette Mason would say. Another thing that was really important to me was memorizing scripture and I love that there's scriptures that go with each letter!
One thing I wish I had clearer direction was how to actually facilitate the lesson time. The lesson plans are really short, thankfully. On the flip side of that there wasn't a lot of direction of how to actually teach the lesson. Even as an elementary education major and former classroom teacher, I felt a little lost the first few days.
After using the curriculum for a week, here are a few things I would tweak to make this curriculum work best for our family. This is the beauty of homeschool - we get to change things to make them work for each season and each child!
1. Morning Circle Time
The traditional school day starts with circle time. While a part of me wants to do everything opposite of the traditional model, I really love circle time and see the benefits of it. Our "circle time" is the start of our daily lesson. We start with prayer and a short children's devotional. Then, we sing the Days of the Week, talk about day it is today, what day it was yesterday, and what day it will be tomorrow. This helps us talk about our daily routine. Afterwards, we look outside and talk about the weather. This time also gives us the opportunities to sing songs about at colors and shapes, too! From our morning circle time, we go into talking about our letter of the week and our lesson.
2. Bible
The Peaceful Press does have scriptures that go with each letter. While most of the weeks are fine, the first week's was really hard to explain the importance or meaning of the scripture of the week, other than it had the word apple in it. Next week, for letter B, we are reading a Bible story, but it's not in the curriculum like a daily habit we would like to incorporate for our family. We will be adding a devotional in circle time, ABC names of God and Attributes of God to go with the scripture memory. For ABC scripture memorization cards, I love the scripture cards from Pip and J Papery.
3. Math
These lessons would be really great for kiddos who've never learned about numbers. We've never had formal education on numbers, but starting the year, Rhett can count to 14. We've tweaked these lessons for him to count to a higher number and recognize numbers 1-20.
So far, we've enjoyed our first week of homeschool and can't wait to continue making adjustments as needed to work for our family!