NOTE: I do NOT have a problem with homeschooling, or the fact that she wants to homeschool our son. At this point, he’s not even old enough for formal schooling.
My son Joseph is 3. My wife is a stay at home mom and she has decided that she wants to teach him herself for preschool. I have to work, so it would just be my wife and Joseph. She’s getting really into it, drawing up lesson plans and stuff. There is an example of one at the bottom of the question. She will be assigning him “homework” as well – which he would complete outside the lesson times with her help.
Honestly, it seems really intense for preschool for me. It’s a full day of classes, which would mostly entail him sitting at the table and listening to my wife/doing worksheets. There’s no space or time for him to play or take a nap. It’s all very rigid. I want my son to get a good education, which is why I want him to learn to enjoy learning – I went to an Ivy League and I noticed a big difference performance-wise between the kids who were honestly curious and loved to learn and the kids who just wanted a fancy degree and didn’t give a rat’s ass about what they were studying – not to mention that I want him to be happy. In short, it would be a damn shame if he’s burned out by the time he starts kindergarten. What do you think we should do’ Personally, I would feel a lot better if it were more along the lines of “reading time, free play time, art time, play games outside, lunch time, nap time, go to the library/zoo/farm, etc.”
Here’s the sample lesson plan:
8:00 – Reading (The Giving Tree). Read once to him, once together, once by himself.
8:30 – Math – practice writing numbers 0-9
9:00 – Social studies – learn the following words: continent, country, ocean, north, south, east, west
9:30 – Physical Education – have him practice catching and throwing ball
10:00 – writing: practice writing the following words 10 times each: boy, cat, man, dog, toy, bed
10:30 – computer time – 30 minutes of Jumpstart preschool
11 – art – practice cutting out shapes along dotted lines (circle, square, triangle, heart, star)
11:30 – science – learn the names of the planets
12 – music – learn “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” on piano (right hand only)
12:30 – lunch time
1 – French – use tapes
1:30 – Language Arts – using pronouns (e.g. “I am happy” not “me happy”)
It’s not that I don’t think he should learn how to read – in fact, we have already started working on it. I just don’t think 3 year olds are develomentally at the point where a schedule like that is needed – I mean, for Christ’s sake, language arts is on there!