I started researching curriculum last summer. I looked at many but the ones I focused on were ABC Jesus Loves Me, My Father’s World, Mother Goose Time, and Timberdoodle. I also toyed with the idea of continuing what I had been doing and create my own curriculum using my past experiences as a preschool teacher and the brilliant ideas on Pinterest; however, I knew I needed something pre planned and ready to go each day. Although, I’m sure I’ll still incorporate fun Pinterest ideas from time to time.
There were pros and cons to all the curriculums I researched. Ultimately, I chose timberdoodle, the one I had never heard of going in to my research. Snowflake is a very busy boy. He’s constantly in motion and very curious about how things work. There are many reasons we’ve decided to homeschool and his personality is one of them. I know that in order for him to get the most out of our learning time, I need the materials and curriculum to be geared toward his strengths. Although timberdoodle was one of the most expensive of the preschool curriculums I researched, it is the best for him because so much of it is hands on. I would say less than 20% is pencil to paper worksheets.
There were 3 levels to choose from: basic, complete or elite; or you could customize your own kit. I chose to customize the complete kit. I already had several of the items in the kit (or could improvise with things I had). This gave us the most bang for our buck. When I added in things I already had, we ended up with the elite kit for the price of the complete kit.
The kit I customized included:
- Big Book of Things to Spot
- Building Thinking Skills beginning
- Day and Night
- Montessori letter, number, & map work
- Wedgits Starter Tote
- Bunny Peek-a-Boo
- Farmland Math
- Let’s Cut Paper book
- My Very First Castles Book
- Primary Science Kit and Twisty Dropper
- Trail Mix and Match
- Draw and Learn Faces
- Mathematical Reasoning beginning
Things I already had on hand:
- ABC puzzles
- Bananagrams
- Preschool scissors
- USA and World Maps
- Jumbo pencils, markers and crayons
- Journal
- Books, books, and more books
- Playdoh
- Balls
- Nursery rhyme CDs
- Many other preschool learning toys and games
In all, the kit I purchased cost less than $350. Honestly, compared to a year of 3-year-old preschool, that isn’t bad. It also came with a parent guide explaining how many pages or activities of each game/book/activity to do each week to complete all the tasks in a year. I was also able to join a fb group of parents who are using this curriculum kit alongside me. So we are able to share tips and troubleshoot.
While timberdoodle will be our main curriculum, I will also be referring to ABC Jesus Loves Me. That along with The Jesus Storybook Bible, will make up the religion portion of the curriculum.
In my next post, I will explain how I’ve organized things in order to complete all our weekly tasks while still giving Snowflake control over his day… No easy feat! 😉
