Our homeschooling journey has begun for my 4 year old son.
Up until this point I have been following his interests and supporting them with materials as needed. At the beginning of September I decided to switch things up a bit with him. He currently has an intense desire to know what every word he sees says. I have started working with phonics and increased our reading together. He loves books and has his favorites. Granted, those favorites periodically change. He has started memorizing these books and reads them with me. He has the desire to know what each printed word says. I was really worried about my ability to teach him to read, though at this point I think he has taken the reigns in that department. All I need to do is support and guide him right now.
He is a very active and squirrely boy. It appears that he may not need as much pushing and heavy guidance as I thought. He is really interested in learning many skills.
As I tend to do with a lot of things, I may have went overboard in trying to figure out what to use with him. I have multiple different methods of teaching to read in various forms. I have flash cards, electronic phonics and books, BOB Books, workbooks, a teach your child to read book, and Montessori tools and books. So far I have been using all of them in one manner or another.
I am still testing out to see what type of learning method works for him. We tried the hooked on phonics program this summer for a few months as well. The idea of it was good. It started out really well. However he got bored of the lessons pretty quickly. There are only a few different formats of lessons. He realized pretty quickly how the lessons were set up and got tired of them. I also realized I wanted to combine learning to write the letters with learning to read.
We worked consistently all summer on getting a good pencil grip and confident movement of said pencil. I realized that he tends to only want to do physical activities and that I needed to push him into writing, painting, etc. in a relaxed and fun manner. We are getting there. He is still struggling with tracing letters and numbers. However, he does know how to count to 20 and understands the value of the numbers. He is a negotiator of the quantity of things. We have been using a Monkey scale balance game to reinforce numbers, quantity of the number and the names of numbers. He really enjoys this method. It is hands on with no writing. I'm hoping he learns to enjoy writing, drawing, etc. But for some reason he tends to try to get out of it.
When it comes to using scissors, we have been practicing holding them correctly and cutting things out. He is quickly improving in this area and really enjoys it. I have also introduced glue. That has become an obsession of his. The little goof ball wants to glue everything.
Nature walks are a frequent additions to our days. He loves running down trails and exploring. Creeks and rivers hold great fascination. He asks many many questions about everything he hears and sees.
With endless curiosity, boundless energy, and a thirst that absorbs everything around him, he is plowing his way into learning. It is amazing to see everything he is learning and picking up by just following his lead.
