Curriculum for Preschool Homeschooling
I wanted to share with y’all what I chose this year for our curriculum for preschool homeschooling. With a degree in early childhood education and being a former classroom teacher in public school pre-k program for three years, I am familiar with the type of curriculum geared toward preschool-aged children.
This is by no means me declaring my picks are THE best preschool curriculum. The most important thing to remember is the best curriculum is the one that works for your family.
Homeschooling give you and your children unique learning opportunities that many young children these days do not get to experience. The point of homeschooling is not to recreate the classroom setting at home, but to do life together, learning along the way making home your school.
Is Homeschooling the Preschool Years Necessary?
As you look for the right preschool homeschool curriculum for your family I suggest keeping a few things in mind. I hope these reminders help you to keep what’s important at the forefront.
Know that you do not HAVE to have a time of formal learning with young children in order for them to learn. I believe homeschooling in the preschool years should only be done if your child is interested.
The work of childhood provides plenty of opportunities for learning, especially in the early years. Forcing little learners to sit down and complete book work when they are not interested does no good.
I have chosen to begin homeschooling my four year old because he has shown interest in learning to read. He LOVES books and has built up his letter recognition just through daily activities.
He remembers things so quickly, can sit and look at picture books for hours, and enjoys phonemic awareness word play without being prompted. He is great with numbers and has begun asking on his own what two numbers added together make.
Because of his expressed interest in formal education I am confident that I am not forcing him to enjoy school. However, many four year olds are not ready for the same type of formal learning.
As a former classroom teacher I saw many four year olds that struggles to pay attention to formal lessons. They shut down when they were forced to complete activities, and began to build a disinterest in learning.
Forcing a preschool program when the child’s interests are else where will just backfire. If your young children would rather not sit and work through a workbook or complete math problems that is totally okay.
There is nothing wrong with using the early years to create practical learning opportunities for young children. As a matter of fact, that is one of the best ways they can learn.
You can turn just about anything into a learning experience. Spend lots of quality time together. Work on fine motor skills with fun activities like playdoh, baking, and sensory and water play. Practice letter sounds while singing songs. Read lots of books together. Build gross motor skills while playing outside. Improve language skills by talking about what you are doing, talking about your day, talking about what you enjoy.
Practical life skills provide the littlest learners with a solid foundation to build on. If your little learners are not quite ready for formal learning, no worries. There will be plenty of time for school later.
If you find that your child is interested in formal learning, I hope you find some great resources below.
Homeschool Preschool Curriculum Picks
I decided to not go with a full curriculum from one provider. I felt that at this age, with my son’s ability levels varying, it was best for us to pull different subjects from different curriculum providers.o
Many preschool children are not on a standard “grade level” ability in all areas, so I suggest you make your first step when choosing curriculum evaluating where your child is in different areas.
Does your child enjoy books and letters, but struggle with numbers? You may not want to get the same level language arts curriculum as you do math.
Maybe your child does well with few directions and can work with more independence. Maybe your child needs more direct guidance. Consider things like this when making your curriculum decisions.
My son is very book smart, but has low muscle tone so I wanted to make sure we had a curriculum that did not start out with him needing advanced fine motor skills.
Think about your child’s strengths and weaknesses and factor those in when choosing the best homeschool preschool curriculum for your preschool kiddo.
Language Arts
For language arts I decided to a letter of the week (this is what I did when I taught public pre-kindergarten). I wanted to make sure my son had a solid foundation in letter sounds before we started any kind of reading program.
We are focusing on letters name and letter sounds with the Learning My Letters and Sounds Toolbox from The Five Girl Schoolhouse. This bundle has six pages of activities for each of the letters of the alphabet.
My son does one page on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Thursday we do the sticker dot and q-tip painting pages.
We talk about the letter name and the sound it makes as he works on each page. With each picture we isolate the beginning sound and identify it as the sound of our letter of the week.
Three of the pages for each letter have a cutting activity. This is a great way for us to work in scissor practice to strengthen his fine motor skills.
For phonics I also decided to use Get Ready for the Code. I use these books as another way to practice letter recognition.
We do not use these books in order. I just find the letter we are working on that week and we complete the pages for that letter throughout the week.
These are great books that give a lot of practice with letter sounds. Many of the pages have educational activities working on identifying the beginning sounds in words using pictures.
Vowels are not included in these books, so when we have a vowel for our letter of the week we just do the My Letters and Sounds Toolbox.
Handwriting
All preschool children benefit from activities that strengthen their little hands. Because David has low muscle tone I wanted to make sure we had a handwriting curriculum to give him extra practice with holding writing utensils.
I chose My First School Book from Learning Without Tears for David’s handwriting curriculum. The book starts out with basic coloring skills then builds to drawing straight lines for letters, eventually adding curved lines.
The progression of the book has been really helpful to teach him good habits with coloring in small spaces, filling up the white space when coloring, and keeping his hand steady to make straight lines. I like that the book begins with these readiness activities before jumping into penmanship.
He gets many opportunities to build the muscles in his little hands and gets plenty of practice with each skill before jumping onto the next. When he finishes this book we will move onto the Kickstart to Kindergarten book from Learning Without Tears.
Math
I chose Singapore Essential Math for our math daily lessons. We started with level Kindergarten A even though David is in pre-kindergarten.
This level starts with basic math skills, like same and different and gradually builds to number recognition and counting. It gives young children a solid foundation before jumping into bigger concepts.
Even though this is a kindergarten level curriculum, I think it is a great option for the preschool years because of its gradual build up. David has done great with this level so far, and is even going faster through it than I anticipated.
I think this book does a great job at introducing concepts and giving plenty of practice with each skill. There are plenty of visuals and the book presents them in a variety of ways to make sure the student understands each concept.
Each page also provides simple instructions and a little parent guide at the bottom of the page if needed. There are also fun ideas for interactive activities for students who need help with the concept or students who can go a step further.
He is moving quickly through this book, so when he is done we will move onto Singapore Essentials Kindergarten B.
Your Student’s Needs
I think it is always a good idea to base your curriculum decisions off of where your student’s skills are versus what “grade level” they are in. It’s important to allow children to go at their own pace, especially when building a solid foundation for the later years.
Choosing your curriculum by subject from a variety of providers may take more effort and research, but it can allow you to individualize your student’s learning. You can pick curriculum that is more challenging in subjects your children excel at and curriculum that is slower paced for the areas where they need extra assistance. You can also go up or down in grade level based on their abilities.
Picking a boxed curriculum with all subjects in the same grade level from the same provider has its benefits as well. This option can be a time saver when picking curriculum, it can potentially save money, and can even provide weekly lesson plans.
Think About Your Family’s Needs
When you are looking to find the best homeschool preschool curriculum the most important thing to look for is what will work best for you and your child. Do you need a teacher’s guide with the workbooks?
Do you need an open and go style or do you want curriculum that needs to be prepped? Do you want more hands-on activities?
Are you looking to do a nature study? Do you like Charlotte Mason style unit studies and thematic units?
Do you have older children to teach as well and need to ensure you have availability for longer lessons with them? Do you want to do every subject on a daily basis or do you plan to break things up throughout the week?
Take time to think through what you want your homeschooling to look like. Keep in mind what is important to you and your family.
Think about what your goals are for you and your children. What do you picture when thinking about homeschooling during the year ahead.
All of these things can shape your decisions when choosing the best curriculum for your family.
Supplemental Educational Activities
In addition to the curriculum books above, we also use hands-on activities I have created that are available in our shop. Our Learning Mats have fun preschool activities that help reinforce concepts learned from curriculum.
We have learning mats on counting, number, shapes, colors, and alphabet among others. My two year old daughter who loves playing preschool uses some of these as well.
She particularly enjoys are Early Learning Mat Bundle that has ten matching interactive activities. These are a great option for young children to enjoy while you are working with older siblings.
We also have unit studies, like our Pumpkin Unit Study Workbook, that have multiple subjects for a few grade levels all centered on a fun theme. These are great for families that follow a Charlotte Mason style education.
Each morning we use our Student Calendar for a morning warm-up and daily calendar work. My two year old and four year old each have one in a binder where we work together to identify the date, day of the week, month, weather, and season.
Encouragement
Another important part of homeschooling is finding like-minded families and homeschool mamas to be encouraged by. I have found some wonderful accounts on Instagram that have been a huge help as I have prepared for this journey.
I hope that our account on Instagram @abelovedhope can provide you with some ideas and encouragement as well. So, be sure to follow us and you’ll also stay up to date with all that is happening in our shop.
Homeschooling is such a wonderful privilege, but it is also hard. Having somewhere to turn when you get stuck or need a pick me up is so helpful.
Just make sure you don’t focus too much on making your homeschool exactly like someone else’s, and enjoy the journey.
