After months of researching and sorting and trying different things throughout preschool, we settled on using My Father’s World as our curriculum.
When I say I researched, I don’t mean that I just Googled a few things. I mean I thoroughly read the contents, purchased, and reviewed different curriculums. I took classes and seminars and even became a Montessori-certified guide. As part of the process, I showed materials to Bug to get his input to see which ones he would be the most interested in. It always came back to MFW.
The great part about homeschooling is that you can tweak it to your needs and preferences. The curriculum is great by itself, but there were also things I knew would help us on our way.
When adding, it’s important to remember that the Charlotte Mason style keeps things very light and playful, so you don’t want to get bogged down with too many additions! I try to add only things that Bug seems to enjoy doing.
As we go, I’ll create posts for the individual modules so that you can have links to some of our awesome add-on discoveries, but we added some tools we’d discovered in Montessori and others that we use as “core extra activities” that I felt really worked well for us. These are things that are fun, but also really help solidify the lessons.
Our Basic (Core) List:
I’ve included links either to the product or to a post on how we made/use the items:
- Tiddly Wink Letters
- Plasticine Letters
- Montessori Teen and Ten Boards
- Journal
- Montessori Sand Letters (I liked adding these because both upper and lower case are represented and we use these alongside the texture letters that MFW provides during the corresponding activities)
- Extra stuff to decorate the badges
- Mailing Letters
- Letter Pictures
- American Sign Language for Kids Book which is already separated nicely into weekly lessons
- Circle the letters in a paragraph activity
- Good and Beautiful Doodles and PreWriting, Science for Little Hands and Hearts, and K Prep Book
- Good and Beautiful Kindergarten Curriculum which is free as a download. We have it as a standby for when we are ready for a curriculum that pushes a little harder and he’s ready for that challenge. We just weren’t ready to start with it, being new to more formal schooling.
- Reward Tokens
Also added: (I separated this part because I don’t feel the value was as significant, though he enjoyed it)
- Byju for Kindergarten (Don’t pay full price for this, make sure you use a coupon because I don’t feel that the full price is worth it. It’s a cute little addition, but there are a lot of other comparable things that you can buy for less – some that are even free.)
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