About a year ago we started doing a very casual, loose “relaxed homeschool preschool” with the boys. I want to share what I did for those who are looking to start homeschooling their preschoolers too!
First of all I have to give a little disclaimer: I do not think preschool is at all necessary for most kids. If you choose to do it, fine. But please don’t feel like you HAVE to do any sort of formal preschool. Play, read, talk to your kids, and involve them in life and that’s PLENTY.
That being said, I did decide to do some very informal preschool at home with Hudson right after he turned five (and Parker had just turned three). Here are some of the reasons why:
- I knew I planned to homeschool Hudson for kindergarten and thought that doing some preschool would be a good way for us to get a feel for the whole homeschooling thing before it became “official” in kindergarten (although to be honest there is still a ton of wiggle room in kindergarten and time to figure out what you’re doing!)
- Though my kids do pretty well playing on their own it’s also helpful for them to have some structured activities so I felt like starting some more structured homeschool preschool stuff with them would be good to help them with having a routine
- We had talked a little bit about homeschool and from that point on Hudson was begging nearly daily to “do school”
- I wanted to be more intentional about doing Bible lessons and learning activities (crafts, sensory bins, etc.) with the kids and I knew if I had that planned out as part of our homeschool preschool I’d be much more consistent
So because of all of these I decided to start a loose homeschool preschool program with the boys. When I say loose I mean we didn’t spend a lot of time on it, I didn’t stress if we missed a day, I didn’t stick to a strict schedule, if there was something they weren’t interested in I didn’t push it, etc. It was enough structure that I had a plan but not so much structure that every day/week was planned out in detail.
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During the time we did preschool at home we went through a couple of different phases of what that looked like for us. Here’s what we did:
Phase 1
When we first started I didn’t use any sort of curriculum at all. We had several preschool workbooks and educational sticker books that we’d gotten from the Dollar Tree or they had been given for Christmas so we used those during our homeschool time. I would just pick one and we’d do several pages. We read books, we did did puzzles and activities we already had here at the house.
We called that homeschool and Hudson was happy with that.
Phase 2
Right after the boys turned 5 and 3 I decided we were ready to be a little more structured and intentional so I started looking for some actual curriculum to follow. I was looking for something free or inexpensive and that had a Bible emphasis. I looked at quite a few (and there are some great options out there – I’ll put a list at the end of this post of some of the others I looked at) but ultimately settled on ABC Jesus Loves Me as our main framework.
ABC Jesus Loves Me
ABC Jesus Loves Me is free (you can purchase a printed version but I just went with the free online version). The biggest draw for me was that there was a heavy emphasis on Bible stories. Each week there is a Bible story or topic to study along with a corresponding Bible verse, song, and even some activities.
Making the sun, moon, and stars when we learned about the days of creation.
ABCJLM also covers letters, numbers, shapes, has suggested gross motor and fine motor activities, a poem for each week, and suggested books that go along with the topics. It’s a very comprehensive curriculum (though a bit dated and nothing fancy when it comes to graphics or anything).
I didn’t use all of it every week, some things I didn’t do, other times I’d add in my own activities to expand on the Bible story.
When we learned about Noah’s ark I make a water rescue sensory bin to go along with it
Calendar Time
Hudson was always asking what day it was, what month it was, how many days until xyz activity, so we spent a little time each day learning the days of the week, months of the year, talking about the weather, putting dates on the calendar, etc. (this is the calendar set I bought then laminated for durability)
I also made a list of other things I wanted us to work on – spelling their names, learning the Old Testament books, memorizing Bible verses, etc. and we worked on learning/review those during our calendar time too.
Sensory Bins and other activities
There are two accounts I follow on Instagram that I love for preschool-appropriate activities: Busy Toddler (@busytoddler) and Days with Grey (@dayswithgrey). I added a lot of these activities in to our school time.
Sorting colors
Rainbow rice sensory bin
Dot stickers are great fine motor activities!
When our fridge/freezer went out I used the ice that was quickly melting and turned it into a sensory bin
learning to spell his name – Hudson did a similar one with our phone number
kinetic sand
mega block match
number line match
uppercase and lowercase match with Easter eggs
Explode the Code
I also ordered the Explode the Code: Get Ready for the Code series of workbooks to help Hudson with handwriting and phonics. However I didn’t like them at all and don’t recommend them (but I’m including them here just to share what we did).
Phase 3
During the summer before kindergarten we continued doing school time every day since the boys loved it and it was helpful to have that set, consistent time to do activities every day but we didn’t do as many ABC Jesus Loves Me activities and added in a few other things in their place.
Handwriting without Tears
I would have not worried about handwriting at all until kindergarten, however, Hudson had already taught himself how to write all of his letters and he was not writing them correctly (mostly starting them from the bottom instead of the top). I wanted to get him properly writing his letters before he got too used to the way he’d been writing them so I went looking for a good handwriting curriculum and found Handwriting Without Tears. It was perfect!
There are a lot of components if you go with the full curriculum. I didn’t use all of it as he already had a good grasp on writing so we just used HWOT to make sure he was forming the letters correctly. I was able to find most of it used locally and only had to buy a few things. We ended up with the teacher’s manual, student workbook, cd with songs, wood pieces, magnetic pieces, and chalkboard slates.
I definitely plan to use this with Parker as he starting to write! In fact, he’s starting to form a few letters and I’m able to use HWOT terminology to explain to him how to write them. When I was doing HWOT with Hudson last year Parker wasn’t ready for the writing part but he liked listening to the songs and playing with the pieces so he learned Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve, and Little Curve and that has been helpful as he’s starting to write.
Preschool Math at Home
The final thing we added in the summer before kindergarten started was a book called Preschool Math at Home. It was highly recommended as a precursor for the math curriculum that I’d already picked out for kindergarten (Right Start Math). Preschool Math at Home has a bunch of very simple (and fun!) math games and activities that emphasize subitizing (soo-buh-ty-zing: being able to look at a group of objects and name how many of them there are without counting each one).
We used the Preschool Math at Home book along with some bear counters (the counters are not necessary, you can use things you have around your house, but I found it helpful to have these on hand)
I love love LOVED both Handwriting Without Tears and Preschool Math at Home! And Hudson did too, especially the Preschool Math at Home activities! I highly recommend both of those programs and wish I’d started using them earlier.
A typical homeschool preschool day
A typical homeschool preschool day for us looked like:
- Calendar time – days of the week, months of the year, weather, as well as other information I wanted the boys to learn like how to spell their names, our phone numbers, address, etc.
- Bible time – a Bible story from ABC Jesus Loves Me, memory verse, song, and then later in the day usually a snack or activity that went along with the Bible story for the week
- Letters/numbers/shapes – activities or lessons from ABC Jesus Loves Me, Handwriting without Tears, or Preschool Math at Home
- Reading books – nothing specific, just making sure to read aloud to them each day
- Other activities – sensory bins, crafts, play doh, outside games, inside games
How long did this take? It looks like a lot but it really didn’t take very long. Our main school time where we all sat down together to “do school” (calendar, Bible, and letters/numbers/shapes/etc.) took about 30 minutes. Then we did the other things (reading, crafts, activities, etc.) sprinkled around in our day.
Other homeschool preschool curriculums to check out
Like I said earlier, there are a lot of great homeschool preschool curriculums out there to choose from in a variety of price ranges. I looked at several and though I ultimately decided to go with ABC Jesus Loves Me, I wanted to link to the others so you can do some research for yourself.
- The Gentle + Classical Preschool – free (if you print the digital version yourself), uses a classical/Charlotte Mason approach (really great if you’re planning to go the Classical Conversations route for homeschool later since it follows that same type of instruction style)
- Busy Toddler’s Playing Preschool – as I mentioned above I’m a big fan of Busy Toddler and her activities! She also has a preschool that’s full of fun, hands on activities
- A Year of Playing Skillfully – This one came very highly recommended, it has a big emphasis on playing and being outside. It’s not preschool specific and I’d like for us to do this one eventually as a supplement for what we’re doing now!
- And of course there’s Pinterest with a bajillondy-million options if you search “homeschool preschool” where you can print worksheets, find activities, and more
My reflection
Looking back I can see that I spent wayyyyy too much time trying to find the “perfect” set up. Like I said, you really don’t *need* to do anything special for preschool anyway but if you’re trying to incorporate some fun learning activities into your child’s day there are so many great options out there that you can’t really go wrong – just pick one and go for it!
Good luck as you’re starting your homeschool preschool journey!
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