Hello all! I have not posted in a while. I joined a homeschool group for my area. A lot of them do an online public school. My worries about this is I want to be able to go at our own pace, and study what my children are inerested in at the time. Do any of you use an online public school? What do you think of it?

Thanks ladies... I think I will download one and see if we like it, then purchase the others as we go. My daughter is 3 so I wanted something fun. These unit studies seem like they will be interesting and easy for me to adjust to her level if needed.

Anyone use Amanda Bennett unit studies? They seem very cool... I just want to hear from someone who has used them.

Thank you mother of faith, I am big on unschooling and we always try to make everything we do fun! That's why before I purchased some products I wanted to make sure it wouldn't be too overwhelming. I am curious about those tests that evaluate "life skills". How do they work? We spend most of our time playing because I know how important simple play is for children. Unfortunatly, we do not have Internet at home. So an Internet based curiculum would not be possible. I have Internet on my iPhone. Thanks so much for being so helpful

Thank you Mom2Bee for the reccomendations and thngs to avoid. Exactly what I was asking about. I am researching some educational material to buy now. Just a few things to get us started. I am also wanting to buy Wink, but I think I'll wait til next year for that. Kota is only 3 now.

We have been doing early childhood education for a while but I am soon goin to be purchasing some homeschool curriculum. I have been doing some research on kindergarten and first grade standards for our state. My 3 year old has mastered some of the skills in first grade and surpassed kindergarten so I am wanting to buy some first grade material. I am just wanting to ask if there is anything I should avoid in the curriculum until later. I don't want to overwhelm her so we are going to be taking it slow. Just do a few activities or workpages or whatever a few times a week. I don't expect much structure at her age but I want to know what y'all think about this... 

I love moments like these! Fun, and educational. And also shows what good parents you are. Just talking and playing with your child makes such a big dfference!! I babysit for a friends and her 3 yo daughter thought her dad (who had been deployed for 8 months) was still in the plane, when I asked about her daddy. Surprised her mother never told her. I took her over the world map and pointed out Cuba, where he wad "working hard". Now she can point out Cuba every time she is asked. And doesn't think daddy was in the plane for more than a year, .

Now for our learning moment today: My dd who is 3, gets to watch 1 NickJr show a day. She picked NiHao KaiLan for today. The ants in the show were wearing construction uniforms, and helmets because they were building a bridge. Dakota pointed out that they were fire fighters... So I told her they were dressed as construction workers. We went on to learn about what construction workers do and why they were wearing those uniforms and helemts. She was very interested and had a lot of fun with it.   

Thank you Shen-Li. I am going to purchase a book on the Suzuki method. I hope my daughter finds it fun and interesting. Please keep us posted on how your son does with Piano Wizard and how you like it as well. Thanks!

We bought my daughter, 3, a keyboard and I am trying to teach her the notes a-g and how to read music. She understand where the notes are on the board and she gets most of them right when I ask her where an F is. I am now working on teaching her to reccognize each note on the scale and where it is on her keyboard. But I am stuck on finding a fun way to do this. I always find some fun way of teaching other subjects we encounter but her and I both get bored with this quickly. So I was looking for ideas or products to buy, hopefully products that aren't too extravagent in price. Lol. Thank you for the tip on buying real music CDs instead of the ones made for babies. I am wanting to purchase some classical music CDs for her. Probably should have done so already. Thanks again.

I feel like I need a little help with the music part of our learning program. What products do you use? books you've read on teaching music? DVDs? And any other advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

I have a 3 yr old and a 15 mo old, we do many learning activities (of course) but I am wanting to homeschool officially so I want to know where to start. We live in the states and I also would like to know of any curriculum recommendations. Anyone know of any websites with info on homeschooling in Washington state. Thanks!

We never used a program. My daughter is 3 as well. I always came up with most of the activities we did and still do. At first we did a lot of visual math. Count, add and subtract using real objects. Or pictures of objects on paper. Then when I was sure she had a concrete understanding of how that worked we moved on to #s. I made a # line. We learned how to count, add and subtract on her fingers. Now she has a real good understanding of it and can add and subtract #s 1-10 in her head. She has a good understanding of how 1-100 works even though she has never counted it all the way through. We are working on understanding multiplication now. And having great success! We also work on order, measuring, and fractions. With my younger daughter I am going to start math dots. But if that does not work out for us I'm not worried at all! My oldest is doing great in math without it!

I hate how left out I feel! I only have internet on my iPhone and I can't get any of those Internet websites, games, and resources for my girls. I make up a lot of the stuff we do. Can you ladies give me an idea for a few art activities we can do? Thanks!!

Thank you very much for your input! I try to stop before she wants to but I also to make the most out of our lessons. Lol. I do think she is understanding how to get up to 100. I like the idea of starting from 35. I will just continue with our games and try not to bore her with counting all the way to 100. Thanks again...

I need help teaching my 3 year old to count to 100. She is understanding how to count to 100 very well, but I was wondering if you all had any ideas for games or activities to do with her. I have 1-100 on the wall in the toy room, and taped around the coffee table. She counts to about 35 then gets bored. She has trouble going from 29-30, or 39-40, or 49-50 and so on. We play teacher and I point to the numbers and count til she wants to stop. I also made these cards with #s 0-9 on them and we arrange them to make different numbers. Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks! Oh and also how to introduce mulitplication? She does addition and subraction 1-10 with numerals and 1-20 when we do visual math.