Homeschooling "Underaged" Children

A question has been raised about how to home-school children who haven't reached school age. When formal lessons for Kindergarten started my girls have often been disappointed because it looks a lot like what we've been doing. Before school age, we spend lots of time reading, drawing, cooking and being together. For Kindergarten we start a few formal things like how to read and do math, but that really only lasts a few minutes. Gradually, I have added fun workbooks or other types learning tools, but as in Lydia's case, Kindergarten is more about loving to learn. I have never had done a formal lesson in recognizing shapes, letters or counting. Those things just came about in life. Playing card games like Uno or word games like Boggle with a little one in my lap makes for a lot more fun teaching pre-school than anything else I can imagine. I am fully convinced that the best place to learn science for a small child is in the kitchen. So, don't worry about buying lots of teaching tools for your young children. It's great if you can get educational toys, but most of all, just BE with them as much as possible and read.