Monday, August 17, 2009

Kindergarten prep Viking style

This is a post which makes me feel very conflicted. I had every intention of homeschooling Flicka for the first few years of elementary level schooling. However, due to the shakeup around here due to DaHubby's full time work with full time schooling, and due to his occasionally cut back hours which made us feel I might be going back to work this fall, I reluctantly enrolled Flicka in kindergarten.

I deliberately picked a kindergarten via Michigan's school-of-choice outside our current district. While our district is ranked in the top fifty districts in Michigan, we just didn't feel it was a good fit for us or for Flicka at this time.

That all being said - I still want Flicka as prepared as possible just like any other mom would. So, with a little research and with pulling out some homeschooling resources, we're having a mini-preK skills review the next three weeks.

I made up a calendar for myslef with the countdown and a list of skills. I also made a countdown device (which I'll share tomorrow for my Tuesday Tip Jar) and each day we will review a skill as was recommended on a handful of sites.

Yesterday, it was counting and numbers. We had Flicka counting everything we could find. For example, while we were waiting in line to eat after church, she counted the clean trays at the deli - up to 16 without assistance.

Today, it's practicing her name - knowing the letters, their sounds, and forming them. So, I typed out her full name in Comic Sans, blew it up to about 60 pt font, centered it, and copy/pasted it 6 times on a sheet of paper.

So, much of it is self-driven or opportunistic learning but the more the better to prepare for the big change of formal, structured, government school learning. LOL

No comments: