Hello, conpro. With summer upon us, this is usually the time homeschool mothers everywhere start planning for their upcoming school year.
I have been happily and gratefully homeschooling since the beginning with my children, and it's something I thoroughly enjoy and highly recommend! It's a beautiful way to live life alongside your children. It's also something that fathers can and should be heavily invested in, as they are the rocks of their families and so important!
I am just humbly offering my help to any new, seasoned, or interested families who want advice or just to share an ear. I'm happy to discuss curriculum, educational philosophies, setting reasonable goals, how to get started, the logistics of teaching multiple students, or simply pray for you as your family decides what to do this year.
I treasure this group and am praying for you all. God bless you!
At this age, one of the most important things you can do is read aloud, consistently and often. It's how they will build their 'background vocabulary' and will encourage them to become early readers. Once you teach them to read, their independence grows and they can read to learn, rather learn to read. The whole world opens up to them!
Public libraries can be hit or miss, so I would work on gathering good books so you can create a home library. Some booklists that I've found very nice are from Memoria Press and Ambleside Online. Here is the one for boys: https://www.memoriapress.com/martins-essential-boys-books-list/ Thriftbooks.com and abebooks.com are places you can buy used books online, but I find many at library sales and thrift stores as well.
Other than that, I would work on educating yourself first. What type of homeschool do you envision, do you have a certain philosophy you want to try (classical, traditional, Charlotte Mason, etc), are there schedules and routines you can put in place in your home now to make homeschooling smoother in the future?
There are a couple books I recommend early on, "The Read Aloud Handbook" by Jim Trelease (edition 7 or earlier, not the newer, woke rewritten one) and "For the Children's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay.
If you're not already, get in the habit of narrating everything to your child. Take them to the store and point out the produce: what color is it? What is it called? How many are there? Does one weigh more than the other? What's the difference between these two produce? Sing nursery songs and start skip counting, give them age appropriate chores and teach them the importance of listening and obeying right away, all the way and with a happy heart.
If you're thinking ahead for curriculum, there is a curriculum called "Five in a Row" that is very sweet for little kids. It involves reading a picture book for five days in a row and includes activities and crafts that go along with it. My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum is also very precious.
You're at a really great stage. What you're doing might sound simple, but you're laying the foundation and it's so important. Teach them to love to learn, to appreciate reading, to listen and obey mommy and daddy, to see themselves as a valued member of the home with important jobs to do.
God bless you!