Inspiration (blog)
Curriculum and Activities for Homeschooling Preschool – 3-year-olds
Preschool at Home: An overview It is now widely accepted that the work of the early years is PLAY (thank goodness!). However, there is still an overwhelming amount of advice out there, often conflicting, about what you should focus on at this age, whether you...
Our Top Tips for Homeschooling Preschool
Whether you are homeschooling or simply want to make the most of your time at home with your little one, the tips for homeschooling preschool below will keep you on track with what really matters at this age in terms of their education. There are tons of other...
Case Study: How one mum has changed her daughter’s learning trajectory for life
Savannah Parker is a British mum currently living in the US. She started the Key to Learning at Home curriculum with her 4-year-old daughter when her daughter was just 3, and has raved about it to us so many times, we decided to interview her and find out what she...
Playful Learning, Learningful Play – by Patti Blackhurst
In April 2019, Dainfern College in Johannesburg, Gauteng, hosted 300 delegates from all over South Africa at a 2-day Early Childhood Development (ECD) conference themed 'Playful Learning, Learningful Play'. Our very own Galina Dolya was their keynote speaker....
Choosing the right homeschool curriculum
This article provides invaluable advice to all homeschoolers and stay-at-home mums/dads of 2.5- to 6-year-olds. Whether you plan to homeschool longer term, or are homeschooling preschool, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, pre-nursery, nursery or reception to get...
A revolutionary home education
This is the story of the beautiful and gratifying reality of a home education dedicated to ensuring a deep love of learning, the development of outstanding learning abilities, and happiness. In the last 2.5 years in our house, our 5-year-old has been:A builder, an...
Why your pre-schooler needs to develop their ‘learning abilities’
LEARNING ABILITIES are EVERYTHING! Focusing systematically on LEARNING ABILITIES through PLAY for your 3- to 6-year-old, over and above knowledge and skills, is proven to develop QUANTUM LEAPS in their COGNITIVE, COMMUNICATIVE and SELF-REGULATIVE development,...
Viva Vygotsky!
By Galina Dolya and Sue Palmer LEV VYGOTSKY - A THINKER WHO CHANGED TEACHING He lived for only 38 years, but in his last decade (1924–1934), the Russian thinker Lev Vygotsky transformed the study of developmental psychology. His cultural-historical theory...
Numbers and comparison of quantities
Understanding numbers and the comparison of quantities Most pre-school children learn to recite numbers, to count a small number of objects correctly and to recognise figures. And yet many of those same children have difficulties starting Mathematics at school. They...
How the learning revolution started
Sue Palmer reports on a revolution in early years education. When a north London secondary head travelled to Russia in search of new ideas for his school he made a discovery that changed his career. Moscow, 1988. Perestroika. The work of Russian psychologist Lev...
High-quality, shared, story-telling activities
How do we help young children develop a love of story, ownership of story language, a profound understanding of story structure and a repertoire of rich language? All young children like to listen to fairy tales and other traditional stories, but do they really...
Playing games makes your child clever
This article was written by Helen Rumbelow and was originally published in The Times newspaper. Gabriella is a seven-year-old at a state primary school in Hertfordshire. But when her teacher asks her to put on a pair of giant gold heart-shaped glasses to read...
How your child can excel in math
It is unwise to push children prematurely into working with big numbers. This is NOT a way to give your child an academic boost nor to help them excel specifically with learning math. 10 is the ceiling for a four-year-old; 5 is plenty. What is really important is...