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TryingMyBest
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| Posted: June 29 2013 at 1:02pm | IP Logged
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For those of you following my saga, I've been going back and forth between working and being a SAHM and homeschooling. After much thought and prayers, I'm finally feeling much peace with a decision to stop working. And the new development is that we will probably be moving as well (long story - but it makes this much easier for us financially).
With that out of the way, what kind of supplies do you recommend for a new homeschooling family? DD is only 3 1/2 so we won't be doing much academic work. She's in a Montessori school now and while I really love Montessori, I'm not planning on doing Montessori at home.
Is it worth it to invest in the Montessori sandpaper letters?
What kind of art supplies do you always keep on hand?
If we do move, it will be a pretty small apartment so we won't have much space.
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: June 29 2013 at 1:24pm | IP Logged
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paper, crayons and watercolors.. playdoh is easy enough to make, and so much else is just what you want to work with *this week* rather than something to have on hand all the time.
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Jodie, wife to Dave
G-18, B-17, G-15, G-14, B-13, B-11, G-9, B-7, B-5, B-4
All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.
-Sir Walter Scott
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guitarnan
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| Posted: June 29 2013 at 1:55pm | IP Logged
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A library card - invaluable resources await you at your public library! (Books, videos, special events, and much more!)
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Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
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TryingMyBest
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| Posted: June 29 2013 at 2:34pm | IP Logged
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The place we'll be moving is half a block from a public library branch. 
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SallyT
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| Posted: June 29 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged
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Art supplies. Good picture books and, before too long, chapter books to read aloud. Resources for imaginative play -- when my younger two were preschoolers, I used to keep baskets of tiny plastic animals, figures from Safari Toobs, blocks, lego, word tiles, etc, in our common living area which was also our school area in that particular house.
Mostly I had these things out so that younger children would be occupied while older kids did school, but one thing to ponder as you plan your move is how you might set up your new home as a learning environment, with resources available to be freely interacted with. "School" with a preschooler/kindergartener involves very little formal, structured work (at least at my house!), but a lot of exploring the world through play. What I tried to do was set things up so that kids had good things to gravitate toward, while screens (computer, mainly, since we don't have a tv) were located where children would not gravitate toward them.
Specific art supplies:
crayons, the best quality you can afford. Triangular beeswax crayons are nice for encouraging a good pencil grip.
Colored pencils (again there are triangular ones for good grip, and it's worth investing in these if you can)
we like sketchbooks, but for little kids who tend to produce ten masterpieces a day, scrap printer paper is good, too
sidewalk chalk -- my youngest daughter LOVED drawing outside with chalk
watercolor paints/brushes
playdoh
The basics, really, are what I can think of right now, in terms of art supplies. Thinking further about the general environment: If you can get a poster of the liturgical calendar (one of those "wheel" calendars), that's a really nice thing to have on the wall, so that you can track the seasons and feasts of the Church together. There are some really pretty ones -- I'm looking right now at a nice one (from year before last) that my son won in a raffle in his Faith Formation class! Making a little altar or prayer area, where you can change an altar cloth with the seasons, is a really nice thing for the whole family -- I don't have altar cloths myself (our living-room mantel is basically our altar), but I do have green, red, purple, rose, and gold tablecloths for our table, some of which are actually shower curtains I bought for $2 at a thrift shop. When we lived in a smaller space, especially, I tried to come up with ways to weave our observance of the liturgical year into our normal daily life -- when you're not a "crafty" person, as I am not, sometimes you have to get creative!
I know a lot of people do do Montessori things at home, and that always looks so lovely. If there are elements of your daughter's current education that you'd want to include in your homeschool, I don't see why you shouldn't, even if you don't want to do the whole thing. Can't speak to the sandpaper letters myself, though it seems to me that someone here mentioned them recently . . .
Of course, the main thing you'll be acquiring is time: time to spend with your child, living life together, reading, going for walks, cooking, talking. And that's free and takes up no space!
Godspeed you on your new adventure. I'm so glad that you're feeling more peaceful.
Sally
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Castle in the Sea
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SeaStar
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| Posted: June 29 2013 at 7:19pm | IP Logged
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Big, empty plastic storage tub that can be filled with beans or rice or water...or plastic dinosaurs, toob animals, whatever! Good for hours of fun  and my kids (who still enjoy doing this) looked on their tub creations as art.
You have very good timing with all this- school supplies will be going on sale within a month or so. After school starts you can get great clearance deals. 
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Melinda, mom to ds ('02) and dd ('04)
SQUILT Music Appreciation
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Supplies Needed to Get Started?
