Our Journey Begins…

My husband and I decided we would homeschool around the time our son Ignacio turned a year old. I’ve had a lot of time to research and prepare as best as I could. I began to purchase material whenever I found a good deal and storing it. I’ll say my style is eclectic; I have quite a little collection of books. Although, I began “officially” homeschooling this year- I think its fair to say I’ve homeschooled Ignacio his whole life. I started building his library before he was born. I decided to use this summer as a transition into our homeschooling. I quickly realized that my collection of Preschool books was pretty much useless to us. They are so basic, at this point they really have very little to offer him. I’m saving them for future use with the baby. I’ve had to come up with a new plan. (Separate post for our curriculum.)


I should clarify that Ignacio will be turning four in November, according to our local school system he is not able to start K-4 until the 2011-2012 school year. Lucky for us, that’s not an issue. We’re ahead of the game!

At three years old Ignacio:

• Can count to 20 in English and fourteen in Spanish.
• Can count to 100 by 10’s
• Can write his numbers from 0 to 10
• Knows all of his colors (and is currently learning them in Spanish also)
• Knows the following shapes: square, rectangle, circle, oval, triangle, diamond, octagon, hexagon, pentagon, crescent, trapezoid, star and heart.
• Knows the alphabet and the sound of most letters.
• Recognizes all uppercase letters and about two-thirds of lowercase letters.
• Can write his first name.
• Has already begun sounding his way through Brand New Reader books.

I decided to do a few assessment tests on Ignacio earlier this month... just to document our "official" starting point in homeschooling. I used the Pre-K Assessments forms available through Cindy Downes website. I just had to share his alphabet. I told him to write the alphabet- by memory. That's right, I didn't show him the alphabet or show him what the letters looked like. I told him he had to show me how he thought they were written. He skipped a few that he didn't know how to write, but he wrote almost the whole thing.  I have to admit, I was taken aback by how well he did on all of the tests. I know he is smart, but he knew a lot more than I was expecting him to. I'm so proud of him! Can you believe he is three years old?!