Flowering Baby Review

Flowering Baby, LLC is a curriculum with a whole development approach for birth to five. Martha Saunders and Carolyn Schulte wrote this to develop a solid and full foundation of cognitive, language, gross motor, fine motor, social and self-help skills in your child.  Flowering Baby is split into two curriculum guides: the monthly curriculum guide and the theme curriculum guide.

The monthly curriculum guide has daily activities and can be started at any time and work through the next twelve months. There is a focus on the alphabet, numbers, shapes, physical activity, reading books, music and a special Learning Through Stories section which focuses on a Charlotte Mason narration for young preschoolers by slowly reading a book several times through and then asking simple questions about the book and recording your child's answers.

The theme curriculum guide has theme selections such as Aquarium and Arctic life, bugs, farm animals, and more.  Every month has suggested themes, but you can pick the themes that best fit for your life. It is suggested that two themes be done during the month. Each theme has a list of book suggestions and suggested activities to do.

 

 

While planning  and printing out the schedules for the Four to Five level, I also looked through the Three to Four level to see if there was anything I could add or use. I was greatly surprised by the similarities. They do use the same themes and books and many of the same activities. The biggest difference was the Three to Four level had activities more on the level of the three to four year old, while the Four to Five level had added more book titles, more writing activities, and a Spanish language book. To some this may seem redundant, but I think since these two levels are used over the course of two years it makes for a great opportunity of repetition and familiarity, plus it is always fun to revisit favorite books and activities that your child has previously enjoyed. 

 

I have been using the Four to Five level with Delani. Every week we focused on a different letter and number to learn to write, we counted objects and aloud, we read books about colors, senses, healthy foods, nursery rhymes, snow and cold days. We listened to different types of music--country, folk music, and classical. Also, we read such books as Blueberries for Sal and The Snowy Day for the Learning Through Stories activity. We added in the themed activities and read about bugs, aquarium life, and farm animals. She made a fish water globe (bottle) and when we read about bugs we found a picture of a butterfly which she colored.

Aquarium water "globe"

 

With three children doing school work, I have found that doing things with Delani just seems to never happen. Here are some things I especially liked:

• The choices were easy to do 
• Not very time consuming
• Didn't require extra things that I didn't have in the house already
• If I couldn't find the exact book suggested in the curriculum guide I could easily find another listed in my library's catalog since the topic and themes were very common ones.

 I also appreciated the advice of the authors to enjoy doing the activities with your child and if they are getting frustrated to just stop. Also, to not be afraid to focus on a theme longer than suggested if your child is really enjoying it. There were some days I couldn't get in everything listed and I didn't feel pressured to get it done, but rather to just pick up where I had left off and keep going. The best part was Delani's reaction. She absolutely loved it and would open her binder and point to the pages and tell me, "Let's do school, Mommy."

If you are looking to do activities with your preschool children and need something simple and easy to implement I highly recommend Flowering Baby, LLC  which is available in a PDF and CD format. You can see a whole month sample for Four to Five here.  Flowering Baby is available in Birth to One, One to Two Years, Two to Three Years, all for the cost of $30.  Three to Four Years, and Four to Five Years are available for cost of $38.  All five years are available for $132. Receive a 10% discount by entering "Blog10" when ordering.

 
 

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.