Marek's 1st read word

Hooray! M1 just read his first word! We were reading his Alphabetti Book (from Progressive Phonics), and he read d-o-g. He's well on his way!
Take a look at Marek's reward. Maybe it doesn't look like much, but he sure is happy about it, and we are, too.

While waiting for Pre-K

A number of M1's "batchmates" (those born in 2008) have already started their formal schooling, nursery/pre-K. But since he's among the youngest in the "batch", born towards the end of December of that year, I'll start his Nursery level when he's 3 and a half years old. That's still a good one year from now. M1 is almost perfect at his letter recognition, so I will just re-inforce his alphabet, and then his numbers, with themed lessons from Everything Preschool. I'll also incorporate Play and Learn Activities, read to him everyday, use Brain Quest for 3s, play children's music and Bible songs. Markus will tag-along. He picks up bits and pieces of Marek's lessons, and is wonderful at it.

Programs for Preschool (then maybe Kindergarten)

Since I've abandoned much of our 'daily lesson guide', and since I'm not an 'unschooler', I have a little compulsion to make a semblance of a structure. If not for this school year, then the next-- for Marek's preschool. These things need a lot of consideration... hence, I'm planning a year ahead! I'll be putting them under the Mater Amabilis program (a Catholic Charlotte Mason approach) intertwined with Catholic Heritage Curricula. I just found out about the latter, and reading through their catalog, I felt like I had just found a treasure!

In the meanwhile, we'll make use of the books we already have, that means lots of read-alouds, nursery rhymes, Bible stories, and their accompanying music, and Brain Quest ("my first brain quest" and "for threes", for Markus and Marek, respectively). As for the Kumon First Steps Workbooks, I don't think Marek is ready for that yet. It will have to wait for a little while).