I'm hoping to start Winnie in a light schoolish routine in the Fall. I think I need the practice too, lol. I think she would enjoy the Waldort curriculum I just read for Kindergarten. There is no sample page for Preschool, other than the introduction. Is Preschool similar in flow? Is there no letter, number stuff in preschool? What are the lessons like? If I went with Kindergarten, could I use it 2 years in a row, maybe even 3, and just reduce it down this year? Is there another Waldorf Curriculum you'd recommend for comparison? How about Montessori? Can anyone point me that way? TIA!

Where is Elizabeth! LOL!
She always has good suggestions for preK!

I have never seen an Oak Meadow K, but I had a used copy of the preK
I was VERY disappointed.
It was two books for the adult to read.
I really like lesson plans and cutesy craft ideas and songs and guidelines.
It was NOT for us.

Do you want letters and numbers and light academics?

Why not go with
www.fiveinarow.com?
or Peak With Books.
Both base lessons around a classic book.
A gentle learning approach that many children and parents seem to enjoy.

www.sonlight.com can be used for more than a year
It is a Chrisitan company, but can be adapted to secular.
There is a secular users yahoo email group.

For my first dd's 'preschool' we read, read, read. Songs, crafts, and she helped out a lot around the house.
We tried to keep a focus... one week, one letter.
We would always check out library books about subjects that started with that letter... an animal, a country, a story book, etc
She really loved that.
Basically what Five In a Row is, but I only had one child and I liked to plan so I did not need a book. ;)

You could use this:http://www.letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html

Ds is now 5. For his 'preschool', he liked to do math and lots of it.
He has really enjoyed the Singapore Math workbooks. We started with Earlybird.
He also liked the preK/K workbooks from Wal-Mart.

My third child is 3.
Right now, we are using PRE-K materials from www.hwtears.com and lots of crafts and stories.
We have 'school' each morning while my oldest dd completes her 'on her own work'.

I think the best thing to do in early ages is establish a rhythm to your days.
Let them help around the house, sing songs, create, play in the dirt. Often schools mimic the home environment then homeschoolers try to mimic the school environment which is a model of the home environment...
We (speaking for myself here! :) get really caught up in getting the 'right' books or 'right' curriculum. There is no one right curriculum. Winnie will benefit from having some one on one mom time.

I know, these were not waldorf or montessori suggestions!
But, I hope you can glean something from my comments anyway.

Hope

I really did *not* like the Om Preschool stuff. It's very expensive and offered no activities. I like the K stuff even less. The k stuff is all built together, so it would be very hard to make it last for two years. There are no activites for letters or numbers in the Preschool stuff. There are no *activites* in the preschool stuff, just suggestions on how to structure your day.

For Montissorri I liked the book "Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Pre-School Years"
by Elizabeth G. Hainstock.

For Waldorf, I am begining to be a "build your own curriclum" believer. I am reviewing "You Are Your Child's First Teacher" again and it's like reading a whole new book. It really does have all the resources you need in it.

For my home Preschool with Annabelle I am pretty lax right now. Here's what I'm doing -
Monday - "Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready" which is preschool in a book
Tuesday - Library day. We are working throught he suggestions for Preschool from "The Read Aloud Handbook", "Books that build Moral Character" and fairy tales suggested by "YAYCFT" for three year olds. I really like "Story Stretchers" mosr than "Five in a Row" because it had a lot more books and books that we already know and love. But then again I am a freak : D
Wednesday - home-visit Head Start
Thursday - nothing planned
Friday - Head Start playgroup
Saturday "Earthways" by Carole Petrash suggestions for Spring that are good for Annabelle.
Sunday - home religous education from a book titled "UU and Me" that is a preschool curriclium put out by my church. If there was a church near me she'd just go to it.

Waldorf does not introduce academics until after a child is about 6 or 7, when they start losing baby teeth. So, Kindergarten is all about daily rhythm and letting the child be in a more dream like state, not asking much from their intellect, giving lots of time for physical, bodily learning which they can build on later. There is a big emphasis on rich oral environment, not reading so much as story telling and singing. And also, for children under seven, adults being involved in meaningful work that children can imitate and sometimes participate in.

Montessori has similar bodily learning ideas, but with a focus on academics. Really, the two things are quite different and each usually appeals more than the other. Research!

Nice site to start researching Montessori homeschool -- members.shaw.ca/montessori4all/ (http://)

More Montessori books -- Montessori Play and Learn by Lesley Britton
Montessori Read and Write by Lynne Lawrence

Videos: Preschool Power -- our library has these, yours may, also.

Daisy (who wrote the site I linked above) has a "thing" for David Gettman's Basic Montessori: Learning Activities for Under-Fives. It's a great book if you're hardcore into Montessori, but if you're just interested in messing around and having fun (like me) there are better choices.

My favorite Yahoo group for Montessori is Playschool6 (Daisy has a link). Cruising the archives will give you gobs of info about doing Montessori in the home with young children.

Waldorf curriculums are reviewed here: www.waldorfresources.org/reviews (http://) , and the best yahoo groups for reading archives are WEHS and waldorfhomeschoolers. As others have said, the point of Waldorf K is to emulate the home environment...well, you're home anyway, so why do you need directions on how to emulate yourself.

Try to come up with a routine -- Monday is housekeeping, Tuesday library, Wednesday playgroup, etc. -- no matter what you use as "curriculum". Coming up with a routine and sticking to it seems to be a major hurdle in homeschooing, lol. TONS of posts on various forums and yahoo groups deal with the topic of routines!

Sorry this is disjoint. Must go fix lunch, then do history, Chinese and music.

Hey, Gwen! I have the OM preschool stuff. You can read it anytime...and, yes, it IS sad.

You don't need to buy anything. You could just come over one day and we'll plan ya a year. I've got more than enough stuff to plan a year of waldorfy preschool.

Oh, cool Gwen, you asked my question before I did!
I'm definitely going to look more into Montessori. From the very little I have read and seen, it is a much closer match for Morgan than even Waldorf, which I like a lot of aspects of. (can I end in a preposition in the alternative learning forum??)