I have formulated my outlook or direction for two year old school and you can read about this in the post, "Where Do I Start? Choosing a Direction for 2 Year Old Home School."
Term One encompasses September, October, and November. I am planning to stick to the ideas below and save any new changes for the next term. This is my current lesson plan document. I like to make my own because I tend to change it. I keep it in a three ring binder for organization!
Bible:
Every morning during breakfast we read a daily devotional. Currently I am using "Day by Day" by Betty Free. I highly recommend this book! It is simple yet presents real gospel stories and lessons for children. It is gospel driven with biblical application.
I am also happy to share an amazing resource I have come across to help present biblical lessons to toddlers! Please visit Ministry to Children for free ideas and print outs to help communicate God's word to our youngest of learners!! I have been using the creation lesson ideas to help me begin a two year old creation journal that I hope to be sharing with you soon!
Our main focus this term in bible will be our daily devotionals and creation.
Read Alouds:
I will be using these resources as references of good living books to read aloud...the first is "1,000 Good Book List" (from classical-homeschooling.org) and the second is "Favorite Read-Aloud Books for Preschoolers" (from simplycharlottemason.com). I have already found a few books from these lists that I do not prefer, this has prompted me to keep my own book list of the stories I personally feel are good for my children. I hope to post this list later in the school year!
We currently are making bi-weekly trips to the library to check out new books!
Music/Art/Poetry:
My plan for this term is to listen to classical and instrumental music with a goal of listening to specific instruments then recognizing and identifying their sound.
Before I had children I had the wonderful privilege of taking guitar lessons from a wonderful musician. I will also be using my own skills to play songs, sing together, and enjoy music with my children! Currently I am using the resource "Storytime Songs" to print off simple songs and guitar chords.
Art will be discovery of different materials and mediums (crayons, markers, pencil, paint, etc.) with a goal to create one complete art project per month!
Poetry will simply be read aloud for enjoyment!
Nature Study:
My goal for this term is to begin our nature journal. I plan to incorporate learning colors with our nature journal. (More to come as ours develops!)
Academics:
Beginning Reading: I will continue to focus on ALL letters as well as a letter per week. We do this through several activities such as books, puzzles, environmental print, and games! I recently printed off our first simple reading book from readinga-z.com. This is a resource that I am familiar with from teaching at my local elementary school, it does require a paid membership. I will be using this book as one way to teach concepts of print.
Beginning Mathematics: We continue to review numbers with various activities. We also count aloud and count one to one correspondence. Recently we began sorting items and looking at the calender!!
Beginning Writing: Our main focus is exposure to writing and encouragement of pretend writing. I occasionally provide assistance to help my child hold the pencil correctly (encouraging good habits yet not discouraging her discovery and enjoyment of independent writing/scribbling).
Play:
My two year old loves to independently play with dolls, trains, bracelets, purses, babies, stuffed animals, and much more. I also give her things to play with such as water and rice for sensory activities, straws, pots/pans, and other random items that are much more fun then fisher price! We spend many hours outdoors as well.
Other:
I love seasonal learning! Although my home school philosophy is not driven by thematic or seasonal units I love to incorporate seasonal themed activities, learning, and projects! The following topics will be our focus for our first term; September-Apples, October-Pumpkins, November-Thankfulness.
Our learning occurs from morning till night, outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs, in the car, at the store, visiting grandparents, or in our community! I'm so thankful I can teach my children!! They have so much to learn (and so do I!).
Please visit soon as I share how our first term is going! I look forward to sharing our learning with you!
I'd love to hear which books you personally don't like from those lists. I obviously haven't read all of them, but I can only think of one that I don't like so far...I'd have to glance at the lists again though!
ReplyDelete