Each level includes a thoroughly written section describing the program, how to implement the program into your daily schedule, and recommended methods for getting the most out of the curriculum. Parents are also provided a list of any websites used, as well as books, supplies, and music needed for the year.
Within each year’s ebook, the authors, Martha Saunders and Carolyn Schulte, have also broken it down further and provide a very clear outline of what will be needed for each section of instruction. For the Birth to One program, it was divided into 1-3 month increments. For the Three to Four program, it was broken down by calendar month. Then, it is further broken down into what to do for each and every day! There is a table of contents to help keep you on track, and an appendix filled with related activities and suggestions for various activities throughout the book. I found these pages to be a great supplement, and it’s a good way to extend the activities even further!
My family used the Birth to One program for my now 10 month old baby boy and the Three to Four program for my three year old son.
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| Volume 1 is for babies from Birth to One Year. |
I have looked through other curriculum in the past for babies, but have hated the layout. Looking through and using the Flowering Baby program was such a relief, because it is laid out very well. I really appreciate that it’s split up well according to different developmental stages. Each day is separated and it sort of “chunks” activities into bite size activities that can easily be tackled within a day.
We used the 9-12 month section for my baby. Examples of some of the supplies needed for completing this section included tape, an exercise ball, blocks, new kitchen sponges, and other common supplies easily found around the home. The book suggestions were awesome and things that my older children loved being around for as we read. My favorite suggestions from the list for this age group were The Runaway Bunny and Very Hungry Caterpillar. The books were common enough that I owned a few, and the rest I was able to find at my local library. There was also a nice selection of classical music from great composers. I was able to easily find these music selections online and for free, so that was a plus!
I love that each day contains a nice-sized paragraph worth of activities to complete with the baby. It was then followed with a music suggestion. The activities were simple enough that they only took moments, but fun enough that my older kids joined in and had a good time. I also loved that they were listening to some good classical music each day as well. It was nice having a guide to sort of tell me some progressively challenging or eye-opening things to do with Charlie. It’s easy to forget how much brain development is happening at this age! This curriculum is helping me to make sure he doesn’t get left out, and the older kids loved helping me.
Some of the activities were a simple physical activity to try and reading a book or doing a hand play and song. The authors included information about what to expect when the activity is attempted so that I knew what to be looking for exactly when we tried it. Other activities were suggestions on ways to talk to my baby to help build his vocabulary and word recognition skills. It helped me to be more aware of providing him with rich language immersion since he’s obviously learning as he goes, even at 9-10 months!
The have generously provided a sample of the curriculum. Scroll to the very bottom for the link to check out a full month’s worth of activities.
We enjoyed doing this together as a family. On the days when I forgot, I was swiftly reminded, usually by my 3 year old! He was in tune to doing Flowering Baby because he actually had some school of his own to do with his curriculum!
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| Volume 4 is for children aged three to four years old. |
The book for Three to Four Years was a lot of fun to do with my three year old son. Again, the book contained the great organization to be able to quickly find where we needed to be in the book so we could quickly get started. This book is actually split between two – a Monthly Curriculum Guide and a Theme Curriculum Guide. For this age level, you have the option to choose a few themes to complete each calendar month, as well as the suggested activities that correspond to the month of the year. The themes can be mixed and matched according to your child’s interest, but the author also provides some suggestions. This provides a lot of flexibility, because you could easily spend longer on a theme of great interest to them while plugging right along with the main instruction. It combines unit studies with a well-balanced, whole early childhood curriculum!
The monthly guide does not provide activities for EVERY single day. Each month has 10-15 days of instruction provided. We used the themed guide to fill in the other days with my son’s interests. For us, that was Aquarium and Arctic Life and Fish and Frogs. Those themes worked well with the science curriculum that I was already completing with my older 2 children, so Heath felt very included, and they got some extra reinforcement in what they were already learning through the activity and book suggestions the 3 year old had! They enjoyed tagging along a bit and helping Heath out with his school! This provided a great opportunity to do things on everyone’s level, but the curriculum provided me with specific questions and activities to make sure that I was able to focus directly on my 3 year old. It’s important to make sure that the little guys don’t get lost in the shuffle! This curriculum serves as a great guide for this.
In addition to those themes, our monthly curriculum had us learning about the color blue, ears, cold days, healthy foods, and more. The book suggestions were excellent and easy to find at the library. The whole family enjoyed them! My three year old appreciated having his own activities to complete. Not only did he like the attention, but he found several of the activities challenging and fun! We plan on continuing with this curriculum until he “graduates” out of the program!
This curriculum is a great resource for parents hoping to give their littlest family members a solid educational beginning. The books provide tons of excellent ideas in a very user-friendly format that makes learning fun and easy for the whole family! The activities take between 10 and 45 minutes a day and can be extended if they’re really having a good time or shortened if time is tight that day. There is a lot of flexibility and room for expansion for activities and subjects that the child enjoys most. The program format is extremely organized and makes the system a cinch to implement. I really do recommend this to anyone looking for a solid program for kids under 5 years old!!
Parents can purchase each curriculum year separately for $30 (Birth to One, One to Two, Two to Three) or $38 (Three to Four or Four to Five) per child’s year of age. Alternatively, the entire curriculum, from Birth through Age Five, can be purchased at one time for $132. My readers get a 10% discount off of these prices! Please use the code “Blog10” when ordering. (The discount is only valid in the http://www.floweringbaby.com website.)
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.
