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 Three encompasses March, April, and May. 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 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!!
Our main focus this term will be "Toddlers Knowing God" a free resource provided by Ministry to Children.
Read Alouds:
Most of our read-aloud stories are seasonally themed or books of high interest.
I refer to these two lists of recommended 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).
Music/Art/Poetry:
We will continue to listen to classical and instrumental music with a goal of listening to specific instruments then recognizing and identifying their sound. We continue to enjoy Serge Prokofiev's musical Peter and the Wolf. This is an excellent way to listen and learn specific instruments! Enjoy the video clip below (or click the link here)!!
Before I had children I had the wonderful privilege of taking guitar lessons from a wonderful musician. I will 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. So far we have been singing Five Green and Speckled Frogs with the guitar while also using the correlating book and felt frogs for interaction and play.
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. I have also introduced both scissors and glue to my toddler. With supervision she enjoys trying to use these new tools! For gluing projects we have used both glue sticks and liquid glue. When using liquid glue I like to teach her this saying, "Just a dot not a lot!'
Poetry will simply be read aloud for enjoyment! Our goal this term will be to pick a focus poem each month.
Nature Study:
We have continued our nature journal and it is going very well! We focus on completing one page per week. If you would like more information on how to begin a two year old nature journal please see the post, "2 Year Old Nature Journal: Getting Started."
We continue to receive the magazine Ranger Rick. We use this resource to help us explore nature that we cannot see in our backyard (for example we recently we studied koala bears). This provides us with an opportunity to see a different genre and form of reading material as well! Unfortunately Ranger Rick does promote the theory of evolution in some articles. I will be blogging soon on how we continue to use the good information in the magazine and correct the evolutionary concepts that we do not believe in.
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 count aloud and count one to one correspondence. Starting at the beginning of the year I purchased the Melissa and Doug magnetic calender. Each day we add the date to the calender. This has been an excellent way to create number awareness! I have seen an increase in my two year old's number recognition as well!
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 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.
We have recently introduced her to pretend food! This has been so much fun for her. She received a DIY play kitchen for Christmas, check out the photos HERE!
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!
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!).
Happy Learning!
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