Fall School List

Princess’s school starts soon. She is in preschool and goes 3 half days a week. We send her to a Christian school where she will continue on through 8th grade. Before any one starts blasting me, let me say, we don’t have a problem with public school in general but with the local one in particular. Even my aunt who is a public school teacher for the Chicago area said, after seeing the school stats, that she wouldn’t send her own kids there.

My husband and I also know that as her parents we are responsible for her education. No school can teach our kids everything they need to know. I look at her school as a helper to us. As an only child, it gives her interaction with other kids and with adults other than family who I know are there because they love kids. It also teaches her the basics. We have to support those basics and fill in the areas that they can’t teach. So here is the fall list (I break it down to fall, spring, and summer semesters), it is a very loose lesson plan because she is only 4.

Music- listen to classical (she calls it fancy) and folk music (Mommy’s favorite). Singing folk songs. At Christmas we’ll switch to Christmas songs.
Spring semester- will probably be jazz (Daddy’s favorite) instead of folk.
Next fall she will probably start piano

Music is one area I think gets pushed to the side by most schools especially public. My ultimate goal for her is to be able to read music, play an instrument (or several) and know different music styles and composers.



Art- Draw with paint, pencil, and crayons. Also embroidery or other hand crafts.

It is another area which is often neglected. Ultimate goals are for her to develop her creativity and incorporate it into her everyday life. I also want her to have head knowledge of artists and types of art, but that will come later.


Reading- read more poetry with her along with her regular books. Learn all letters and their sounds by sight. Begin sight words.
Spring semester will start reading chapter books for memory retention.
Ultimate goal is a love of reading and introduction to all kinds of literature/books.


Writing- Write her entire name. Also work on writing all letters of the alphabet.
Ultimate goal is for her to try writing poetry, prose, thesis papers, journaling, etc.

Nature Study- Nature walks where we will explore changing leaves and press some in books learning their names as we go. We will also build fairy houses, go to the pumpkin patch, apple orchard, replace summer flowers with mums, etc.
I would like to start a nature table but we don’t have a spot for one right now. As our house renewal continues I hope to come up with one.
Spring- put up a bird feeder and learn the different names.

Physical Education-I want to get her in a dance, preferably ballet class. No, I don’t expect her to become a professional, don’t even want her to. But growing up, there was a big difference between the confidence and self esteem the girls who were in dance had and those who were not (me). Problem is the only dance studio I know of is very competition oriented, and expensive. So I have some research to do. She will be doing more walking and bike riding with me along with yoga. She loves “oga” as she calls it. Weight is something every one on both sides of the family struggles with. I want to set her upon a good path.

Life Skills- There are so many areas under life skills, and I think many parents don’t intentionally teach them. Schools do not teach them at all, so it is something parents must do! Things like budgeting, insurance, meal planning, cleaning, decorating, cooking, nutrition, dressing, etc. My own education was lacking in many of these areas, and I am still trying to play catch up. I want to intentionally teach these to Princess. But she is still young, so for fall we will be working on picking up after ourselves (toys and dishes) and setting the table at dinner.

Character Building- See the above.
Joyfulness-still working this out.

This list (and this post) seems really long. Most of these things will be taught as we are just living life together. Plus I have decided to severely limit TV. I was wiling to remove it totally but Hubby didn’t go for that. Plus, I admit I would miss HGTV a lot. But this will give us a lot more time to work with.