ABC Jesus Loves Me

Good morning, mommies! Recently, I was introduced to a fabulous resource for home-schooling our littles. Before I elaborate, home-schooling throughout the school years is a personal choice which should be made within your family while considering personalities, time, resources, and willingness of every family member. Because our Caleb is an exceedingly social child who does well in group settings and has never been a homebody or needing excessive snuggles by his momma (sniff sniff!), and because many of the public and charter schools in our area are absolutely wonderful, we will probably send him to school for kindergarten and beyond. Things could change in the next few years, as he's only two, but my gut tells me that he will be chomping at the bit to have a teacher other than mommy by the time he's five!

In the mean time, though, he still wants to learn! And, I need to let my creative teacher juices flow! I've noticed how he's picking up concepts from his PBS cartoons (I know...parenting at it's finest!), and he's re-telling things he heard in Sunday school (warms a momma's heart!). I wanted to start some intentional "school" time with him during the day, but I didn't know where to begin. I met a new friend a few weeks ago, and she told me about this incredible site! Check it out at :

ABC Jesus Loves Me Pre-School Curriculum

If you use this curriculum exclusively with your own child(ren) in your own home, then you may use it free of cost! If you are going to use it in a school setting with children who are not your own, then they ask you to purchase the materials. You can order the workbook to use with your children, or you can go through the weekly lesson plan ideas and keep a note in a journal of what you will try with your children (this is what we do). For instance, we are on Week 2 of the 2-year-old curriculum: 2YO Week 2. On Sunday evening, I go through the page and decide what will probably be successful with Caleb. I write down what activities we will accomplish, and I pick and choose a few each day. We talk about the concepts throughout the day (i.e. color of the week, the number, etc.), but then we have devoted "school" time post-nap/pre-dinner preparation (no more than thirty minutes to one hour of time). Choose a time that works for you, but I've found that this particular time of day needed some structure.

Some other tricks I've learned for this program are to print your pages off at the library. Our library allows you 10 free prints per day! This way, you aren't using your own printer ink. Check out the suggested books from the library, so you aren't buying all of them. Add other activities that your child enjoys to the suggested plans (playdough to identify colors, reading books electronically on the iPad, etc.). Finally, make it a fun part to the day. Honestly, there have been a couple of days that Caleb won't have it. I'm not going to force it, as I want "school" to be something which he enjoys. Also, we don't even get to it every day. If we can do four days of school in a week, I'm happy! 

A little something is still something :-)

Take it or leave it, but I thought this website was too cool not to pass on!