Teaching 3 year olds!!!

Before I explain how I taught my boys when they were 3 I want to list some things that I did not do-
--I did not make school a huge priority. Spending time together talking, reading, and playing are my number one priority. Learning needs to be relaxing and fun.
--I did not (and do not now) let my kids watch television during the day. The television stays off from 7:30 am- 3:30 pm. We do not watch television in the evening unless there is something special that mom or dad wants to share with them. I feel that too often TV becomes a babysitter.
--I did not plow through books without regard to my child. If the curriculum I was using suggested a book that I thought my child was not ready for, I put it aside for a later time.
--I did not do things perfectly. I made mistakes everyday.


Now to the good stuff ! I used Sonlight Preschool as my base for my 3 year olds (they have changed the package; you can now choose 3-4 year old preschool, or 4-5 year old preschool). It was filled with books that my kids and I enjoyed.

Here is a list of books that come with this curriculum (does not include some great books they have recently added to the package).
-The Gods Must be Angry
-New Toes for Tia
-People
-Stories from Africa
-Then and Now
-Things People Do
-A Child's Book of Art
-Children's Book of Virtues
-Eric Carle's Animals Animals
-The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book
-A Treasury of Mother Goose Rhymes
-DR. Seuss- ABC
-First Thousand Words
-The Berenstain Bears' Big Book of Science and Nature
-What's Under the Sea?
-The Year at Maple Hill Farm
-Why Do Tigers Have Stripes?

Here is a list of more great books I found on Ambleside Online-these are great for any age!

-Winnie the Pooh series by AA Milne and Ernest H. Shepard (Winnie-The-Pooh, The House at Pooh Corner, When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six). Accept no substitutes for the original stories!

-Beatrix Potter series (Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny, etc,)

-The Little House by Virginia Burton

-The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack

-The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper

-Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

-Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey

-One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey

-Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

-Ox-Cart Man by Barbara Cooney

-Stone Soup and other folk tale retellings by Marcia Brown

-Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney (CM idea of duty in bringing beauty to the world)

-The Story of Little Babaji by Helen Bannerman

-Brer Rabbit books by Joel Chandler Harris

-Poems and Prayers for the Very Young by Martha Alexander

-A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (illustrated by Eulalie, Jessie Wilcox Smith, or Alice and Martin Provenson)

-A good collection including classic stories and folktales such as The Little Red Hen, The Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff.

-A good collection of Aesop's Fables, such as the one illustrated by Milo Winter

-The Real Mother Goose illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright Mama Goose, a collection by Edelen Wille, or versions such as those by Rojankovsky, Marguerite De Angeli or Tasha Tudor, or Lavender's Blue, a collection of nursery rhymes compiled by Kathleen Lines, illustrated by Harold Jones

-Illustrated classic poetry such as Poems for Young Children compiled by Caroline RoydsA good collection of classic children's poetry such as A Child's Book of Poems by Gyo Fujikawa; The Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry selected by Louis Untermeyer; The Oxford Book of Children's Verse edited by Peter Opie

In addition to Sonlight and books I picked up from the library I added simple things like playing play-doh, painting, coloring, scissor practice, nature walks, cooking, going to the zoo, and the discovery museum.

I think classical music is great for any age. Our local library has a large collection of CD’s that can be checked out. Here are some composers that my children enjoy-Franz Joseph Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi, and Bach.

I also made an “art wall” to display real artwork. Each week I Google a new artist and find some interesting paintings. I normally choose six different pieces in order to get a wide range of the artists work. I then display these pictures on my “art wall”, which is actually the front of my refrigerator. It is amazing to see me little one staring at artwork :)