Hi
The O.P. was how the best homeschoole experiences for at pre-schooler. I’m Danish and the Scandinavian tradition, children don’t start school untill 6-7 years of age. So up-untill then we just consider it parenting if they aren’t in kindergarden – and kindergarden is 99% play, and 1% school prep (more and more school prep these days, unfortunately). So my son was “naturally” unschooled untill he was 6 and well now we unschool, because I simply just could not imagine that he could learn more any other way.
His daily life is very very free – up until he was 5 1/2 we lived in Denmark and we went to a playgroup once a week and a friends place once a week, we had neighbours who were also home with their kids and spent time with them almost every day on weekdays. Other than that we had an annual pass for the zoo (we lived close by), and went on as many field trips as we possibly could. His primary interests have always been animals, so we have been visiting Zoos all over Europe, Natural Parks, Dinosaur exhibitions, Museums for Natural History etc. etc. We have always bought him loads of book about animals, helped him find Documentaries about animals online etc. He is now 8 and knows more about animals than most grown ups.
My daughter is 5 1/2 and she loves cooking, especially cakes (cup-cakes), and I help her bake as much as we possibly can. She loves to dance so she we practise at home and we are looking for a place for her to take dance lessons.
Reading, Writing and Math comes in through games, conversations, computergames, and we also have workbooks which they can use as they want, plus games and reading books on the iPad.
We now live in Spain, and this means that my kids are now trilingual – Danish, English and Spanish. We have a playgroup that we see once or twice a week, the kids want an annual pass for the local Zoo here, so we are looking into that again. My son is thinking of starting a lemonade stand, and I am negotiating with my daughter about raising rabbits.
I personally think Montessori is great, and we have had Montessori toys in the childrens play-room. I don’t however want to limit myself or my children in any specific method – we can also take elements from Waldorf/Steiner, Freinet and use all of them. In the end the most important is to follow the child (which is – I think – the basis of Montessori).