Changing Curriculums

There is a waterfall of free curriculum choices for homeschooling and I may have over researched to the point of overwhelming myself.  I know I want the style of BFIAR for 2 year old Ant.  And I was so impressed with the 2 Year Curriculum of ABC Jesus Loves Me.  But I wanted also to follow our Liturgical Calendar and have a lot of Marian influence - since she is the best homeschooler.  I found Catholic Mom's site which is wonderful!  

"Some of our lesson plans contain links to Christian, non-Catholic resources. When preparing your lessons, we urge you to inform yourself on the teachings of the Catholic Church with respect to the Sunday gospel and readings." - from Catholic Mom site.  

And after attempting to do the suggestions (I have to remind myself they are suggestions only), I realized that Ant has her own curriculum to follow.  I constantly have to remind myself that it must be child led and that character formation is the primary objective and not for her to learn her ABCs or 123s and to speak clearly!  So I have put together a lot of things I have researched on - online - and came up with our own home made stuff.  

The key is to keep ourselves organized!  It seems I constantly have to organize the playroom/learning room!  I finally sorted out the toys, kept them in storage boxes and in bags.  I have yet to label them so I won't get confused looking for an item when I prepare for the following week.  I noticed that when I laid out a few toys, Ant was more focused and did have some favorites.  She kept going back to her sorting clock and tongs.  

 She prefers using her right hand often.  Surprisingly, she switched tongs and used her left hand to put the marble from the bucket to the ice tray.

Ant seemed to love the Montessori inspired trays.  I simply have to prepare more!  And the book of the week seems to have changed - she doesn't show much interest with Good Night Moon anymore.  She likes The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Whistle for Willie.  So we will have to adjust. 

I made some sorting with red foam blocks (since red is the color of the week), but it didn't interest her.  She was distracted by the other things in the room.  For visual perception purposes I drew the block outlines on a poster and laid it on the floor. I then started laying the blocks.  Of course she didn't find it interesting.  Later I tried again.  Still no luck.  The frustrating thing about homemade items is that you are so eager for your child to use them and then you get disheartened when they show no interest for your efforts.  So I tried again and this time I stuck it to the wall.  And the blocks were 3D again!  As they should.  And soon enough she was following me.  In my next post is a summary of our first official week of homeschooling - starting the year 2013.