Monday, January 3, 2011

Brightly Beaming Resources: Week 1- Cows

So I have finally decided on a "curriculum" that will work for me as my son is now 2 years old.  I found Brightly Beaming Resources which offers parents a fun, easy and unique way to "teach" your child while not doing a whole lot of work.  I am starting with the Preparatory Curriculum which is the first program in the Steps to Reading for ages 2-4.  There are 26 lessons and each cover a Weekly Theme, vocabulary word, color/shapes, letters, numbers and nursery rhymes, not to mention books that support the weekly theme.  I made a little poster that covers the topics for the week as outlined on the website.  I'm very flexible and I actually spent about 2 weeks on this lesson.  Anyway, take a look and see if it's something you want to try with your little one.  I love it and it gets me ready for lesson planning in a small way when I move to homeschooling some day.  Also, I do refer to this time I spend with my son as "school."  I'm not regimented or anything, but I try to get him to focus for 5-10 minutes a day.  My goal is to do about 2 lessons a month.

This first week (Lesson 1) I made a poster using the theme (cows), shape (square), number (1), vocab word (calf), letter (A) and nursery rhyme (Hey Diddle Diddle).  Shrade was very interested in the calf and we had fun searching for squares and learning letter A.  He even found the letter o in the Nursery Rhyme on the poster.  I leave the poster out so he can look at it frequently and also I review what we learned at night with daddy and I use it for reviewing what we learned the previous day.  It's so fun to teach this little sponge!
Theme Poster: Cows

Day 5: Art project (cow made of squares)