Our Pre-Reception Class Curriculum

Since Nikki is going to be home with me all year, I thought it would be best to make some plans about what we are going to do. Curriculum is quite a strong word for what we will be doing, but 'vague plan with a couple of textbooks' just doesn't sound very professional!

There are four key subjects that I want to cover this year: Maths, English, Russian and Music. I have not made any proper plans for any other subjects, though we will certainly be covering other subjects in an informal way. I want to keep the formal stuff for the mornings and have afternoons free for outdoor play, arts and crafts etc.

So, here's my plan for now:

Maths.

I want to re-start our work with Saxon. I don't know how I really feel about this book, since it goes so painfully slowly and Nikki already knows a lot of the material, but since we can do a lesson in 5 minutes I thought it would be a nice pain-free way of including Maths into our daily routine.

I also have a collection of Montessori materials, board games and other Maths-related activities and hope to play at least one of them every day.

English.

Reading: we haven't really made any progress with reading lately. Reading Eggs got too difficult (not reading-wise, but in terms of computer and coordination skills) and so we didn't pay for a subscription and haven't had much luck progressing beyond CVC words. For this year, I have bought a new book, designed for early readers, called The Reading Lesson. I am impressed with the format (despite American spelling) and it promises a second grade reading level in 20 lessons. The lessons should take around 5-10 minutes and be covered in 1-2 weeks each. So we might even finish it this year if Nikki can get over his fear of reading sentences!

Writing: We have our amazing writing course Write from the Start. I am completely in love with this program because it is completely focused on fine motor control in a fun way. The worksheets take literally a couple of minutes - I swear he takes longer choosing his pen colour than actually doing the work! We will practice letter forms separately (jumping straight into cursive) and I hope to get to the point of writing words this year, too!

Story time: The most time-consuming part of our Language curriculum! I am currently putting together theme packs of 5 books to do a Five in a Row type reading program. The plan is, simply, that I will read the same five books every day for a week and we will talk about the books and find more themes and deeper understanding over the course of the week. I will probably use these books to base our arts and crafts and science experiments on, too.

Russian.

Nikki will be going to Russian school again this year. I also plan to make Russian lessons a part of our daily routine.

Reading and Writing: Use a combination of his school reading textbook and games to learn the letter sound and forms. I want to use last year's textbooks for daily Russian practice. His class is progressing to multi-syllable words this year, which means he might actually be reading fairly well in two languages by the end of the year! (Russian is much easier for learning to read because you just learn 33 letters - no funny rules or letter pairs making completely different sounds, there are only a very few exceptions)

Comprehension: Again, use games and his school language textbook to revise and get the topics into his active vocabulary.

Story time: Same as for English, except the goal is more to encourage understanding and narration than discussing themes, since someone is reluctant to actually speak in Russian.

Music.

This is our final set subject. Nikki is so musical that I really want to make it a daily lesson. We have our Little Musician lessons for theory and Soft Mozart for learning the piano. I have no goals other than to keep him loving music and getting familiar with the sounds of notes and instruments, and maybe learn a couple of musical terms.

Nikki is reluctant with piano lessons - he likes to play as if he's in a band, dancing to the music and pretending to play a tune. Very occasionally I can stop him for about 30 seconds of practicing "proper" playing techniques (finger exercise or note-recognition games). The best I can hope is that he picks up a couple of bars of Jingle Bells in time for Christmas!

The End.

So there's my vague plan / curriculum for this September. My goal is to do lessons in Maths, Reading, Writing, Russian and Music for at least 5 minutes every day. That is maybe half an hour plus story time before lunch - not too much for a nearly-4 year-old, I think. Story time will probably need a maximum time limit to fit everything into the morning, though...

Tchaikovsky is COOL!

Or that's what Nikki says, anyway!

Hot Cross Buns

Typically, I say he won't play nicely for a video and he does this...

Soft Mozart

Music is Nikki's big love. He still periodically asks me for a violin (the other day he wanted a trombone, too) but I have decided that he will not be starting any other instruments until he is 5 or 6. This is partly because there is no Suzuki teacher (or anyone else who would take on a three year old) locally and partly that the only instrument I feel even vaguely able to teach him is the piano - despite never learning it myself, there are loads of videos in the SM forum that let me figure out the correct fingers to use before I do a song with Nikki.

We are getting back into a rhythm with our Soft Mozart lessons again. It has taken a while to get back into it since all learning went out out of the window before Christmas, but he is now once more in love with his keyboard.

He has developed a general idea of which notes are where on the keyboard, and though he is still very dependent on the key guide, he looks at the right note almost every time. He often sings along, too. His favourite is definitely the Guess Key game, which familiarizes him with the note sounds and where to find the keys. He would play all afternoon if I let him.

We are now just starting Gentle Piano. This is the core program of the SM software, but Nikki hasn't really wanted to do it before. I think it is because there is less fun animation and a slower, specific pace that he isn't too keen on following. When playing a tune in Gentle Piano, you have to keep a hold of a note until the note moves up the screen (which, I guess, teaches note duration without adding the confusion of different note shapes for the absolute beginners) but Nikki is impatient and gets frustrated if he presses the right note but it doesn't move on because he didn't hold the note long enough. So we took a long break from the Gentle Piano and let him keep practising the notes and having fun, rather than turn piano practice into some form of torture.

So, back to the present, Nikki is now willing to at least try a song a few times on the Gentle Piano game. He plays the right hand of Hot Cross Buns with one finger very well and is trying very hard to figure out how to use the three fingers he is supposed to but they don't always listen to him.

He enjoys ordering his do-re-mi cards and singing along to the Note Alphabet song and I really should actually print off the Kingdom of Tune book to read with him (bad Mummy!).

Hopefully now that we're back in regular practice, we'll finally see some impressive progress with his Piano-playing abilities. I might even get it on video!

Music and Our Calendar

Nikki still loves his calendar. We haven't done it very much the last couple of weeks because he's been in Russian Immersion while his dad visits.

I thought I'd show a bit more of how we practice our music.

Every day we choose a musical note to practice. Today was G.

Nicholas rings his 'g' bell (I forgot to take a picture of that!) and we sing the note. At the moment, I lay out the necessary cards and he finds the 'so' or the piano key card and sticks it on the board. For every note, we have the solfege and letter cards, the position on the keyboard and staff, and our Soft Mozart solfege prompt. They are all colour coded to the scheme we are using with Little Musician

Later, I'm going to make him find the right notes for himself, starting with 2 options and building to all 7.

We then sing the song we are learning in Solfege. I still plan to change this weekly, but its been a hectic couple of weeks and so I decided to wait until our routine is back to normal. Nikki still enjoys singing Twinkle Twinkle, despite having memorized it three weeks ago!

I print off a large staff and draw on the notes in our Little Musician colour code. This is a big help for musically-illiterate me! When we sing, I point to all the notes - Nikki is usually busy dancing or standing ready to hit the last three himself... 

Making Materials: Music Manipulatives

Our Little Musician program teaches colour-coded notes, so I decided to make him some colour-coded notes and a staff to put them on!

I bought some mounting boards (I wanted something sturdy and cheap for the staff) and wooden disks for the notes. I was intending to string several boards together to make a super-long staff, but unfortunately, I was picturing the disks in inches and not centimetres  so they are a lot smaller than I intended and will soon be replaced by nice big ones!

For the smaller notes, I used just the one board to make a mini-staff. I simply drew on lines around an inch apart (the width of my ruler). The space between the upper and lower staff has a faint smudge where I turned the ruler over to double the gap, but this works as a nice subtle reminder of where to put middle C.

The notes are simply painted wooden disks.

do = red   re=orange  mi=yellow  fa=green  so=blue  la=purple  ti=pink

I also made some chord cubes. These can either be placed on the staff or stacked to make the chords we are learning (in the picture there is do-mi-so, fa-la-do and so-ti-re). I had ten blocks, so seven are one colour and the rest have a different colour on each face.

Staff with moveable notes and chord cubes

Linking to Montessori Mondays

Rocking with Soft Mozart

Calendar Update

This week I have added several new things to our calendar. We now do English in the morning and Russian in the afternoon, because there is too much to do at once! We now have a weekly memory verse in English and Russian, and a letter, number and note of the day, as well as a solfege song, which we do in both languages. Nikki loves singing songs in solfege.

The dinosaur pockets have been eagerly awaiting a purpose and make a perfect calendar-storage unit.

Nikki likes to get involved, so I have made sure there are plenty of activities, other than sticking everything on the board, such as circling numbers on the 100 square and writing the number on his book, finding it on his die and clipping on the right number of pegs to the number card. He also rings the bell for our note of the day and wishes he were big enough to point to all the notes on our song.

The space on the board is for when I finally finish our Russian exercise cards. I found a poem with gymnastics-style actions here and loved the idea, so I have made it into flashcards. The pictures will help Nicholas build his vocabulary (and make it more fun!) and individual cards let us pick a couple of exercises at a time - great for those moments when little boys just need to move!

Singing in Solfege

This is two of the ten parts of today's Little Musician lesson - yes, they are that short!

Learning Music, part 2

Little Musician has dramatically increased Nikki's interest in all things music. I am quietly ignoring his violin obsession (and hoping it will go away!) if for no other reason that there are no Suzuki violin teachers in my area, and lessons and instrument are not cheap. Instead, we will be focusing on general music skills and playing the keyboard/piano.

Now, I was intending to get Nikki a keyboard for his last birthday, since he was showing a lot of musical interest even then and I figured it wouldn't hurt for him to have something to play 'real' music. I was thrilled when I found a keyboard plus piano-learning software designed for kids on ebay for less than the cost of the keyboard I was looking at.

That software is called Piano Wizard. We tried it, but Nikki shows no interest in anything more than playing random keys. My ten-year-old brother enjoys it and played a couple of simple tunes with both hands in less than an hour, but it is not really toddler-friendly.

The software I have been longing for is Soft Mozart. This one is definitely todder friendly - it is designed for use from age 2! It is not cheap. I've been saving for the year subscription since last year (it will be Nikki's birthday present) but from what I have seen it will be worth it, and the subscription-fee counts as a reduction from the full price.

While we wait to get the software, I downloaded a couple of free things from their site. Nikki and I have been learning our do-re-mi's with Little Musician, so I thought he would enjoy the solfege flashcards. I also downloaded the song to go with them. 

Learning the Do-Re-Mi song

For the first couple of days, Nikki was having a bit of trouble with where to point as we were going up and down the scale (he seemed to think bashing along the edge of the table counted) so I made these felt mats to help him. The colours are the same as the ones used in Little Musician to help him make the association.

Linking up to Montessori Mondays

Learning Music part 1

We've been doing a lot of music this week. Music has always been something I've wanted to do with Nikki, but since I haven't really learnt anything music-related since giving up the violin at age 11 (I scraped past my Grade 1 exam) I don't really have the skills to teach him  more than note-sounds on the bells or xylophone.

When I realised that Little Musician had finally been released, I was thrilled. From what I had heard from discussions during beta-testing it was just what I needed to offer Nicholas a more rounded music education.

We started on the trial Monday and I am speechless. It is so much better than I hoped. Most importantly, Nicholas loves it. He asks to watch the lesson many many times in a day. I try and keep it down to 2 or 3.

The whole lesson for each day lasts around 5 minutes and is split into many parts:

Chord Recognition - a chord is played, named and then sung in solfege. This is repeated for two chords.

Solfege - the note sounds and solfege names (do re me etc.) are taught for three different notes.

Note Sounds - a simple scale is played.

Musical Knowledge - either three instruments are introduced, including the sound and how they are played, or pictures of three composers are shown while one of their famous compositions plays.

Music Appreciation - an excerpt from a famous classical piece.

Clap-Along Rhythm Lessons - Nikki's absolute favourite. A nursery rhyme tune (so far we have seen Mary had a Little Lamb and the ABC song) is played while an animated baby claps the rhythm.

At the introduction to each section, Nikki announces 'I like... !' He happily sings the notes that are played, and enjoys listening to all the music.

I've decided its worth investing in the full version - I think Nikki would melt down if the trial ended and he couldn't have any more! I really like the program: it is fun, quick and full of information with a year's worth of lessons pre-loaded (the software and lessons are both for life).

There is a free 14-day trial available for Little Musician at the Brillkids website. If you are thinking of buying, please use my code to get a 10% discount! BKAFF49125

This post has turned out a lot longer than I anticipated, so I'll write about our other musical adventures separately...

Little Musician

Since I've been focusing on Montessori, I haven't been on Brillkids for a while. This evening I was thinking about how to teach Nikki music, since I don't know the subject myself (scraping a pass in grade 1 violin while at primary school doesn't count!), when I discovered that Little Musician had been released!!!

I waited impatiently for months when they were beta testing, but the release didn't come and I got distracted learning all I could about Montessori. Today, I have downloaded the trial and am impatiently waiting until I can share it with Nikki in the morning!

It looks amazing - it seems to cover all areas of music theory, and is broken into bite-sized chunks designed to entertain preschoolers. The only thing I need to know is whether my little musician shows any interest!

You can read more and download a free trial from the Brillkids website. If you want to buy it, use this code: BKAFF49125 to get a 10% discount!

Violin

Nikki is currently obsessed with violins. He needs one, he says. I made an offhanded comment that he should ask Grandma for a violin (she has my old ones from primary school) and he insisted on phoning her every day for a week until she told him that her violins were put away and he couldn't have one.

He ignored all my attempts to help him find a pretend violin, and was rather put out when I said that puzzle pieces and parts of his Brown Stair could not be used as one. Two minutes with Uncle Harry and his rubbish, free-with-a-magazine guitar (which he loves) and the lid from a biro were transformed into this:

I don't even know where he saw violins being played in the first place! I always said that I would make Nikki choose cello if he wanted to play a string instrument, because I know from experience how bad violin sounds when you start out. If this keeps up, I may have to give in and see if there are any Suzuki teachers in my area...

Rock Star?

I am almost certain that Nicholas will be a musician, at the very least as a hobby. He is always singing and/or playing with instruments.

Although I try and give him only well-tuned 'proper' instruments (bells, xylophone, recorder, keyboard etc.) he got this tacky toy guitar in a magazine my auntie bought him and loves it!

This is an example of one of his many daily 'concerts'...

Sometimes he sings with actual words (nursery rhymes etc.) but more often it is his own compositions.

And if you think the sunglasses look a bit off - he has learned how to put them on himself, but hasn't figured out which way up they go...