Hi everyone! I hope you’re having a fun summer break…if you take one that is. We are, and we’re looking at starting back up in August, so I’m trying to get everything prepared and ready to go! Today I thought it would be fun to do a video review of my Letter of the Week curriculum for those of you who are interested in seeing what it looks like.
Click here to watch the Letter of the Week video review!
The Letter of the Week is a full 26 week preschool course designed to give your student a head-start on preparing for kindergarten! It has 5 days per week of lesson plans full of educational activities that focus on the letter recognition, sounds, number recognition, counting, basic math skills, pre-writing practice, and all the necessary fine-motor skills that will be required for your preschooler to be ready for kindergarten! Included are weekly lesson plans that cover all the subjects a preschooler needs and more!
There are over 1500 printable pages of games, ideas, and activities included in this curriculum! You can click the image below to see a SAMPLE of the daily lesson plans.
As promised here are some of the products mentioned in the video to help you get started! Again, these are optional supplies for my Letter of the Week curriculum. You really just need the basics, construction paper, glue, pencils, and scissors.
- Song time: Hide ‘Em in Your Heart Vol 1
- Leapfrog Letter Factory DVD
- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
- Expo Dry Erase Markers
- Pencils, Pip-Squeaks Markers, colored pencils, etc.
- Scissors (kid safe)
- Magnets (I use Power Magnets, or pom-pom magnets)
- Wooden Clothes pins (I got mini-clothes pins from my local craft store)
- 1 ½ “ wooden disks from Michaels, hobby lobby, or JoAnn’s for the letter match games. (Note: you can also use left over milk caps) It’s also helpful to have a Xyron Sticker Maker so you don’t have to glue or Mod Podge all the letters on, but that’s totally optional! Click here to see how to make them.)
- Hole Punch (For the Lacing Cards)
- A magnetic board of some kind: I found a colored cookie sheet at a used HS fair, but they have cute magnetic dry-erase boards that are small enough for workboxes in the school/office supply section at Wal-mart and Target.
- Counters: You can use marbles, beads, bingo markers, beans, cheerios, glass pebbles from the craft store, matchbox cars, dinosaurs, really anything you think your child will like. I have a few different ones just so I can switch them out.
- Yarn or string for lacing
- Laminator: You can either laminate at home, at a local teacher or office supply store, or not at all, it’s up to you. If you do choose to purchase a laminator, which most homeschoolers find quite useful, I recommend this one, you can find it at Wal-mart and Sam’s Clubs. It’s about $30 for the laminator and $14 for refill packets. ScotchThermal Laminator, 9×11 Scotch Thermal Pouches
- Glue (I usually go for glue sticks since they’re less messy!)
- Paint & Large Sheets of Paper for painting
- Colored Construction Paper
- Large Thumb Tacks or Tooth Picks
- Pattern Block Activity Pack
- CREATIVE COLOR CUBES
- Magnetic Alphabet Letters Upper/Lowercase
I’ll have a video for my K4 posting shortly, so stay tuned for that as well!
I hope that video helped you out, and happy homeschooling!
I just bought/downloaded the LOTW yesterday so this video was very timely for me. I have two 2 year olds (11 mo apart) and the oldest is about to turn 3. She is so so ready for learning. I have never done any homeschooling so I wasn’t sure where to start. Im so glad I found Confessions of a Homeschooler. When I was reading reviews for LOTW the most common “complaint” I read was that there was too much content or too much to print. When I read that I knew it would be a perfect fit for me and my kiddos. Im starting them early so I will print as I go and I will be able to span all this content over 2-3 years! Thank you so much for putting this wonderful curriculum together I know it will give me the tools I need to help my children learn in our home. Thank you Thank you!!
Hi Jessica,
I agree, I think I’d rather have too much content that way you can choose what you want to do, and skip things you don’t want to do rather than have to come up with extra stuff to do because there’s not enough 🙂 Thanks and I hope you have a great year! 🙂
I guess I’m doing what many first-time homeschoolers do, which is too much. I’m combining your LOTW and PreK curriculum, as well as some RRSP from 1+1+1=1. They’re all so great in their own way. So for my first week I just printed 140 pages. It took me forever to figure out how to combine them and now I don’t know what to cut out. Hopefully the kids are clear in what they like and don’t like.
I meant LOTW and K4, sorry.
I would just start off easy, and print a few things to see if you like it, or if it is working for your family. And then go from there. You can take your favorite activities from different places and mix them together like you’re doing 🙂 If your kids start not liking school, or getting frustrated, that’s probably a sign that you’re doing too much, so just reduce their work a little and make sure you’re covering different skills each day so that they’re getting a well rounded mix of activities and you’ll be fine! 🙂
This is a great curriculum! I used this for my daughter last year (she was only 2.5 at the start of the school year). This curriculum is easily adaptable for your student’s needs. Beause my daughter was so young, I didn’t follow the schedule provided. I let her do what she was interested in and worked mainly pre-learning skills (sitting, paying attention, finishing an assignment, attempting to trace, some counting, letter recognition, etc. ) Since I followed Erica’s advice and put the worksheets in page protecters and used dry erase markers, I am able to use it again this coming year for my daughter along side the Pre K ‘All About Reading’ program. I also LOVE the weekly themes, and so did my daughter! I was able to add corresponding crafts and books. It is engaging and affordable. I highly recommend this curriculum as main or supplemental curriculum. Great job, Erica!
Thanks so much Jennifer! I’m so glad to hear that you enjoyed it! And yes, it’s meant to be customizable for whatever works for your child, so I’m happy to see that you made it fit well with your schedule!
I bought LOTW during your fan appreciation sale. I have never home schooled before, but did work as a teacher for 6 years. I am so excited to begin. I am in the process of gathering the supplies and preparing everything for us to begin in August. My daughter will be three in September. She already knows her letters and their sounds and counts up to 30. She loves books and seems to be ready.
thank you for doing this!
Awesome! I hope you enjoy it, and have a wonderful year 🙂
Hi Erica!
I have a question about your curriculum and I hope it’s okay that I ask it here!
I was looking back at your lists of curriculum for the last few years and it seems that each year the kids are doing the same thing. For example it shows that 2-3 years in a row you’ve done the World’s Greatest Artists 2. Do you just repeat it yearly or do you only do a few Artists a year?
Thanks!
Hi Erica! Just wondering if you had time to touch on this subject 🙂 Thank you!
Hi Meg,
LOL! Yes, it’s taking us awhile to get through the units because I haven’t been faithful to complete them since they’re electives. So we’ve only gotten through a few of them haha! So no, I don’t repeat it every year, but we’re just stretching it out as we get through them! 🙂
Hi Erica,
I plan on buying your k-4 cur. soon. However I am still seeking out how to print it when I buy. You mentioned Best Value Copy. I checked it out, and having never printed anything online, I was wondering which product you choose to print it all off? Is it possible you could do an explanation of how you printed your cur.? Such as: was it a manual, or just a stack of paper? Did you send one file or all at once? How did you get them to print what we call cardstock (not sure what they call it or how to pick the weight) I am such a visual person, and NOT a numbers person. I checked out the website and youtube videos. Those helped a lot, however they don’t answer all my questions! If you can’t do this I totally get it and will eventually get it! 🙂
Thanks for sharing and helping us newbies out!
Thank you so much for these videos for K4 and LOTW! It really helped me see all the content available. I will be purchasing both soon.
Can you attach the link to the printing company you recommended please?
http://www.bestvaluecopy.com
How much is the LOTW? And how do I purchase it? Thanks!
Hi Erica, I just wanted to say that you’re amazing! I just purchased and downloaded the LOTW curriculum for my 3 year old. It is incredible and I’m so excited about it. It seems that through this work with your kids and for all of us homeschool parents, you have found your calling. I can’t wait to try out letter A in a week or so when we dive in. I’m going to use it with my 3 year old twice a week and also with my 5 year old who has some handwriting/fine motor challenges so I think he will enjoy it too. We’re going to do group time all together with our 7 year old including the letter A reading books. So excited! Thank you again for all that you do.
-Lisa
Hi Erica 🙂 Thank you so much for providing this great resource! I used it with my son 2 years ago and he’s getting ready to start 1st grade next year! I’m getting things ready to start this curriculum with my 3 year old now and I’d like to follow the lesson plans more closely than I did with my son.
In your video at 1:50 you show your teacher’s manual with the game summary pages for each letter. Where can I find those? I don’t have them in the pack that I downloaded in 2013, is that something that you’ve now included in the current version? I would love to have those as a visual to get things ready more efficiently. Thanks for any help 🙂
Hi Erica, I’d like what Laura asked about as well. Having an overview of each letter would be awesome, all right in front of me, so I can better pick and choose what letter games/activities I’d like to print out and which ones I’d like to skip this time around. I’m happy to purchase that from you (I did purchase the LOTW curriculum), however you would like to do it.
Please let me know- thank you so much!!