To do homeschool preschool with your little one or not to do preschool at home with your little one? That is the pressing question nowadays, isn't it?! Besides that, just what does homeschool preschool "look like?"
Let me first say that I use the term "school" pretty loosely here. I don't think it will be too different from Tot School-- it's simply more of a name change.
I will continue to follow my preschooler's lead and my intention during this next year of learning for my 3 year old is more, "Purposeful Play"-- which I feel is what we have been doing all along, or at least trying to do.
We will read books, sing songs, and play outside.
We will discover numbers and letters with lots of hands-on, playful activities.
We will craft and explore and move.
We will Purposely Play in our Preschool!
With that said, I've broken down our Preschool year by months, and our months into weekly themes with a focus on math and literacy skills, sensory play, crafts, and extra fun.
Our weekly themes are subject to change, however, here are the themes I will be organizing and gathering materials for the upcoming year. Some months I plan on incorporating a Before Five in a Row title as our weekly theme using the manual and activities I come up with as a guide.
I wrote out our themes with a 3 week on, 1 week "off" rotation. The last week gives me time to prep for the next three weeks and do any activities I wanted to do, but for whatever reason didn't get around to doing.... you know life happens ; )
Preschool Weekly Themes
** UPDATE! Click on the themes below to see a highlighted activity and/or snippets of the rest of our week from us or !)
September Preschool Themes
- Five Senses - Fill up your week by focusing on one sense a day! For the sense of smell, my preschooler LOVED this Spiced Name Recognition Activity.
- Nursery Rhymes - Work on number sense such as counting, number recognition, and adding with this creative Itsy Bitsy Spider Race to 20 Game!
- Carnival/ Circus - Enjoy scissor skills practice with this Lions Mane Cutting Activity
October Preschool Themes
- Pet Theme - Explore making shapes, letters, and more in this fun Bird Seed Writing Tray!
- Princesses - My daughter LOVED this Ice Castle Excavation Activity during our Playful Preschool Princess Theme.
- Pumpkins - Work on visual discrimination and fine motor skills with this fun Pumpkin Matching Sensory Bin!
November Preschool Themes
- Turkeys - Work on fine motor skills and patterning with this creative Turkey Patterns Busy Bag Activity.
- Family/ All About Me - Learn how to make your own 3 Part Montessori Cards to learn about your family members!
- The Big Green Pocketbook (B4FIAR Book Selection) - Little Sis had a great time exploring these 7 different activities for The Big Green Pocketbook; I think our little "field trip" was her favorite part ; )
December Preschool Themes
- Gingerbread - Work on scissor skills with this cutting tray inspired by Gingerbread Baby!
- Angus Lost (B4FIAR) - Work on letters or sight word recognition with this cute Feed the Dog Reading Game!
- Christmas - Your preschooler will love making/crafting Twigsicles for the Christmas Tree!
January Preschool Themes
- Penguin Theme - Grab these Free Penguin Ten Frames to work on number sense!
- Snowy Day (B4FIAR)/ Winter - Practice Letter Recognition and Writing Skills with this Snowy Day inspired Writing Tray
- Corduroy (B4FIAR) - The Textured Bear Craft was one of our favorite activities during our Bear Themed week inspired by Corduroy!
February Preschool Themes
- Luau/ Hawaiian - Make this fun P is for Pineapple Letter Craft
- Love/ Kindness - Fill up your week with something from this collection of Heart Themed Activities
- Outer Space - Learn about the planets and work on fine motor skills while making these creative Solar System Window Clings!
March Preschool Themes
- Birthday - To celebrate my daughter's birthday month, I made this fun I SPY Cupcakes printable to work on visual discrimination and counting skills!
- Dr. Seuss - Teach your preschooler Color Theory with this Truffula Tree STEAM Craft!
- Rainbow/ Colors - Snippets of our Rainbow Preschool Themed Week! A great time to explore colors!
April Preschool Themes
- Fairies - Create with Fairy Dust (aka glitter!!) with this Shiny Materials Process Art Activity
- Bunnies/ Easter - Work on letter recognition with this ABC Carrot Sensory Bin
- Going on a Bear Hunt{B4FIAR} - We LOVE this book!! Enjoy this No Mess Going on Bear Hunt Sensory Bag
May Preschool Themes
- Gardening {Flowers & Vegetables} - Work on patterning skills with flowers!
- Rainforest - Make your own Rainforest Clip Cards to work on number sense concepts like counting and number recognition, and fine motor skills!
- Bugs & Butterflies - After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar use this creative activity to work on sequencing.
Preschool Planning Sheet
To help me not go overboard in all my planning, I've made myself a simple preschool planning sheet. I am *hoping* this helps me to keep things simple! During Tot School I found myself continually adding more activities to Little Sis's shelves and it just got to be a bit overwhelming.
I set up this preschool planning sheet to focus on one "subject" a day; that day may have 1-3 activities planned.
For example, you can schedule your days like this:
Monday- Math
Tuesday- Craft
Wednesday- Literacy
Thursday- Sensory Play
Friday- Extra Fun Activity
.... or switch up the subjects to fit your schedule!!
Print out a planning sheet for each week and separate them by month so each month is already planned for! Get ahead of the game & start planning!!
>> Click to print your Preschool Planning Sheet <<
Here's a general topical explanation of what each "subject" may work on:
- Math Skills: Counting, Number Recognition, 1:1 Correspondence
- Literacy: Letter and Letter Sound Recognition, Name Recognition
- Sensory Play: Something to touch and explore with one or all of the five senses
- Craft: Something artsy
- Extra Fun: Science Activity, Fine Motor Activity, Field Trip, etc!
Stay tuned-- hope you follow along our preschool journey with us!
Another Update!! If you are looking for lesson plans to teach your preschooler for the year, check out our new literature based preschool lesson plans!! Take out the guess work, the planning and prep, and teach your preschooler one or all of these fun preschool units!! Each unit includes 24 activities to help you teach your preschooler with fun, hands-on activities!
I will definitely be following along and implementing plenty, I'm sure! I need to gather all the stuff I've done that you have inspired and take a picture for you. Just the other other day, my littlest was playing with the colored block tower I made for my middle :) (The one you shared about with the velcro blocks. Huge hit with all 3!)
ReplyDeleteI love how you are organizing your preschool. This is the first year I am officially homeschooling my 4 year old (before that I was just supplementing and she went to a christian preschool) and I am struggling a little. I'm not sure I'm doing enough "fun" stuff. That's pretty much all I was doing before but now I feel like we just do reading stuff and math stuff and I'm not so great at making it fun. That is why I love your blog! It is fun stuff that my brain can't come up with, but it is pretty easy to implement. And it's normally stuff that my 2 year old and my 4 year old can do together (on different levels of course) which is a huge plus :) A lot of times, she'll just be "helping" him and not even realizing she is learning or reviewing concepts for herself.
Ok, I'll stop my novel now! Just love your blog!