Last year, I started homeschooling my daughter for Pre-K 3! I knew she was ready and she looooved school. Unfortunately, the curriculum I used was almost 100% online and I realized pretty quickly that it was not a right fit for us. Also, we were scheduling our school time around my two year old son's nap time and half the time my daughter also needed a nap in our only window to get school done - it was pretty difficult and inconsistent. I got so discouraged and pretty much decided that I was not meant to homeschool and that I would not be able to do a good job of it.
Fast forward to this year, I somehow convinced myself to try again! And this time, my son would join us for school since he was now three and my daughter was now four. But not with that same curriculum. Because I wasn't using that curriculum though, I was so lost on where to even start. So I did what any basic, trendy, young mom would do and headed straight to Pinterest! The only issue with Pinterest is that it is SO full of information and articles and opinions that sometimes it is overwhelming to look through. I knew in my heart, though, that sending her to a regular preschool was not going to happen, but she loves structured learning so much that I wanted to try again for her. So I searched and searched and searched through everything and compiled what I think will absolutely work best for us! We have been doing school for two weeks now and it is already SO MUCH BETTER than it was last year.
When I shared pictures of our first day of school, I had a lot of interest in a post that compiled everything that I put together so thats exactly what this is!! Let me explain, though, that homeschool pre-k does NOT have to be this structured. I needed to do it this way because of the type of person that I am. If I was not fully prepared with the whole year prepped and ready, I know myself well enough to know that I would not stick to it. I function so much better when everything is prepped ahead of time and ready for me to just grab and do. I also will be having a baby when we are three months in and didn't want that to be an excuse for it to fizzle out so I NEEDED to have it all prepared. But, I fully believe that pre-k should be whatever works best for you and your kids! Structured or not - specific school room or not - scheduled or not. Everyone should figure out what works best for them and their kiddos! Anyway, here we go with what I put together:
First of all, I did buy a curriculum. It is a nine-week curriculum though and that was too short for me so this was just my starting point. It is $20 BUT when I downloaded her free ABC worksheet pack, it gave me a discount code to get the pre-k curriculum for only $10. So I would definitely suggest downloading that pack first to see if that code is still offered!! I do think that this curriculum is worth the money but $10 seems more reasonable to me for what it is.
Free ABC Worksheet Pack
Starting Point Curriculum
For this curriculum, I deleted at least 100 of the 475 pages because I felt like they were a waste of paper and ink. That is part of the reason why I suggest trying your best to get that 50% off code. Even if you can't seem to find the code, I still think the $20 would be worth it because it is a GREAT starting point. I felt like my kids needed one letter per week to fully be able to learn the letter and its sound so that is why I call this a starting point. I stretched it to 26 weeks but started with this.
Because I wanted to do one letter per week, my next goal was just to find more letter activities. The next thing I added were these free Handwriting Worksheets!
You could also include dot pages and dot markers. I would suggest reading reviews before choosing which dot markers you want though! I did read through a lot but didn't end up adding these to our printouts so I never chose one.
We only do school on Monday through Thursday, so using the free ABC sheets, the curriculum sheets, and the handwriting sheets seemed to be enough to have us learning the letter every day while also including the extras that the curriculum includes (like 5 senses, weather, opposites, etc.). Especially because colors, shapes, and counting are all already intertwined! Both of my kids already know all of the basic colors and shapes so some of the color/shape worksheets are a part of the chunk of pages I deleted. I didn't want to waste ink on things they already solidly know. I definitely suggest going through the curriculum and deleting anything you don't feel is needed for your child to save paper and ink. It is a lot of printing if you are prepping the whole year.
Now to tell you how I prepped everything! Then, I will include all the add-ons and fun things.
First of all, I printed out everything. Literally everything. And I kind of hated it because it takes so much paper (sorry trees, I promise I love you) but once again, I know it is what will work best for us! After everything was printed, I went through and separated everything by letter and cut out EVERYTHING that will need to be cut out. For example, the curriculum includes some paper puzzles and matching game flashcards. If I didn't cut those out in advance, I would most likely just say "ehh, we can skip that" on the days that we got to those. So, I bought some ziplocs and cut out everything for every letter and put each little activity in its own bag.
I got folders for 5/$1 at Kroger and separated each letter into a folder. So each little baggy of activities are in the folders with the letter that they belong to. As far as having the actual curriculum ready, thats about all there is to it! Each letter is separated and I included the extras in wherever she had them. So, for example, she had the 5 senses between B and C. So in the folder labeled as "B," I also put the 5 senses worksheets/booklet and included them in our week this past week as we did letter B.
The folder holders that you see pictured above are just from the Target dollar section. Literally every single decoration I used is also from the Target dollar section but keep in mind that decorations are obviously completely optional. I just knew my kids would love it and I loved the idea of decorating a little school room (including the little baby chair that we made sure to fit in there 💙).
The most important part of the decorations to me are the number poster, what we call "kind words," and the sight words holder.
We use the number poster to play our number game. My kids will stand on one side of the room and I will sit by the poster and call out a number. They take turns running to the poster and showing me which number I called out. If they get it wrong, they start at number one (pointing at each number as they go) and count until they get to the number that they were supposed to be showing me. My goal is to find an 11-20 poster next because they love this game SO much.
This is what we call "kind words." Its actually just bulletin board decoration ha! But what we do is read it every day out loud together (this isn't showing all of them, this is only showing the first few). I point to the words as we read them so that they are recognizing the wording. Next, they each get to pick one to tell to the other. So, for example, yesterday my daughter told my son, "you are a friend" and my son told my daughter, "you are important." Then, I also pick one to tell both of them. We are big on speaking life in this house so I love that this is an easy way to incorporate that into our school day while also helping them recognize how to sound out these words.
Then, we have our sight words holder. I seriously just sat down and thought of random short words that they could start learning to recognize. I probably could've been more intentional with this but this works for now haha. The pack of word cards came with 50 or so little cards so I will be able to change out these words whenever I want to add or take away a word. I considered writing out a sentence, but my kids are very good at memorizing (my daughter has the whole book of Llama Llama and the Bully Goat memorized but doesn't recognize the actual words) so I decided not to do that. I felt like they would have the sentence memorized within two days of me saying it and then would stop paying attention to the actual letters and sounds.
The other curriculum add on that I chose was a verse of the week to go with the letter of the week! I can't find the link to the one pictured because its from when I started with my daughter last year, but I will link a similar example in case it is something you may be interested in adding to your curriculum. You could also search Pinterest for more options or come up with your own!!
ABC Verse Cards
Next up: fun and add ons!
Like holiday crafts! Who doesn't love to incorporate holiday crafts? I bought a "holiday crafts" pack when I bought the curriculum but I think it is only available once you buy the curriculum. I don't super recommend it because every craft is the same (cut out pieces, color them, glue them on paper). We will definitely still use them! Like today, we used the butterfly from the spring holiday craft as a paint craft for letter B. But, there are more fun options for sure! I will link a fun craft for each holiday that you could make sure to have prepped in advance or just run to the store the week of when you're ready. Simple either way!
Halloween: Paper Pumpkin Craft
Thanksgiving: Turkey Name Craft
Christmas: Nativity Handprint Ornament -- Popsicle Stick Santa
Valentines Day: Toilet Roll Love Bug
Easter: Mosaic Paper Cross -- Shaving Cream Paper Egg
Other add-ons:
Kinetic sand and alphabet molds - We got a tray just like this one from the dollar section for each kid to play with their sand in and it was the best idea for sure.
Shapes and patterns
Pen control tracing workbook - We also go the letter tracing wipe clean book just like this pen control book but I can't find it online. It was also from Target, though.
Counting cubes or counting bears
Schedule:
We don't really follow a strict "schedule." Our routine is generally the same, but if my kids sleep in, I am not going to wake them up. So without actual time slots, our schedule pretty much looks like:
-Wake up - eat breakfast
-Chill time (I don't ever want to start school if they are still groggy from trying to be awake)
-Start school
-sing abcs
-sing letter sound song ("The A says ah, the. A says ah, every letter makes a sound, the A says ah")
-go over bible verse
-start worksheets - I will look through and choose which ones I want them to do for that day
-go over kind words and sight words
-play number game
-include fun activity (painting, sand, tracing books, extra craft, etc.)
Then we generally eat a snack and carry on with whatever else we wanted to do that day. Our school day never takes more than an hour to an hour and a half depending on what fun activity we decide to do or how well they were listening that day.
The last thing I want to mention is our calm down corner. So far, we have books and puzzles, but sometimes my daughter also brings her dolls when she goes. This is just an area for when they need to calm down or just want some time to themselves. I thought it was a cool idea when I originally decided to do it but now I have realized its AMAZING. I eventually want to add some sensory bottles for when they are actually needing help calming down, but so far, it is mostly just used for when they want some down time. I find my daughter in this corner all the time throughout the day and it's the perfect place for my son to go when his attention span is done with what my daughter is still doing. He has a book about colors that he seems to read every single time he goes and he loves to do the puzzles. It has been such a helpful tool for us.
Most importantly, in the midst of all of this, remember that this is only pre-k. They are prepping for kindergarten, not college. Don't stress yourself out or spend more money than you need to trying to make it big and extravagant! Kids learn SO well even just from intentional play time. I fully believe that a mom who does nothing more than read to her kids throughout the day and a mom whose 3 year old is in a real preschool and can write his name are both doing a great job. Every kid is different. Every kid learns differently and goes at a different pace. Even with just my two, I do not expect my three year old to perform on my four year olds level. They are different kids with different interests and different personalities and I don't ever want them to feel like they need to be like the other. In my opinion, the main goal should be to instill a love for learning. For us, that looks like more structured mornings where we sing and color and paint and they call me "teacher" (which is absolutely hilarious....my daughter will not call me mom when we are doing school hahaha). For someone else, that may not look like anything more than going outside to find bugs and flowers. To each his own. We should all do what works best for our families and our kiddos!
Hope this was helpful!
