What Homeschooling Looks Like For Us: The Preschool and Kindergarten Years

I'm in a lot of mom and homeschooling groups on facebook and one question I see asked over and over is, how to get started homeschooling your preschooler or kindergartner. The early years are honestly really easy. There's no need to purchase fancy boxed curriculum or spend hours a day on academics. Young children learn so much from just living life and playing. In this post I share what homeschooling looks like for our family during the preschool and kindergarten years.

I don't typically do much in the way of formal academics before 1st grade. Preschoolers learn best through play and everyday interaction with the world around them. There's no need for anything beyond that unless you have an extra eager learner, in which case, just follow their lead. We might spend a few minutes a day practicing things like writing their name, recognizing and writing the letters and numbers, and practicing letter sounds, but even that isn't necessary. Believe it or not, things like unstructured play and simple craft activities are wonderful for developing pre literacy and pre writing skills. In order to learn to properly hold a pencil or even just sit upright in a chair, kids need time to move, grasp, grab, climb, play, and wiggle. These types of activities help develop the muscles and coordination needed for reading and writing. 

There are ways to weave learning things like colors, counting skills, shapes, and even letter and number recognition into play and everyday life. Your child can learn their colors just by pointing them out as you go about your day. Start out by pointing out different colors you see in nature or different color cars that pass by. Then start asking them what colors they see. 

Counting can be practiced pretty much anywhere. Count toys together while cleaning up. Count rocks, sticks, birds, whatever you see when your outside playing. My 4 year old has been learning to recognize numbers by pushing the buttons in the elevator in our apartment building. 

Pre writing skills can be developed by coloring pictures, finger painting, playing with playdough, stringing beads, and playing with Legos and building blocks. Just about anything that works the muscles of the hands and requires hand eye coordination can help make writing come naturally later.

If you want to add in a few minutes of something more formal each day, Brightly Beaming Resources has a really great free "Letter of the week" preschool curriculum plan you can access here. Or The Easy Peasy All In One Homeschool has a fantastic free complete online preschool program. My oldest really enjoyed their pre-k program. It only took about 10-20 minutes a day and she learned a lot from it. Here's the link.

In our household most of our preschool learning involves lots of time at our local library picking out books to read together, attending craft time at the library and book store, lots of nature hikes, play dates with friends, doing crafts, and doing simple science experiments. Pinterest is awesome for craft and experiment ideas. We also sing a lot of learning songs, here are a few of our favorites:
   -Phonics Song
   -Days of the Week Song
   -Months of the Year Song

To learn about the days of the week, months of the year, and the changing seasons, we use these printable learning wheels: Printable Calendar and Weather Wheel Set.

Even our early elementary years are handled similarly. Our formal learning time gets a little longer but still no more than an hour a day. I start introducing simple addition and subtraction. We play lots of sight word games like memory and go fish. We spend a lot of time at the library and the children's museum. And we still do lots of songs, crafts, nature hikes, play dates, and kid friendly science experiments. If you have an eager reader, the Bob Book series (https://www.bobbooks.com) is great for early readers. We have really enjoyed their books!

I think the most important thing to keep in mind during the early years is that young children are constantly absorbing information from everyday life. Learning doesn't have to be forced, it just happens. Keep formal learning activities short. Provide lots of opportunities to play, explore, and be creative. And most importantly, relax and enjoy these years with your kids. It goes by far too fast!

If you enjoyed this post, check out:
-6 Fun Activities for Teaching Sight Word Recognition and Spelling
-Bath Time Science for Preschoolers

Follow me on:

Facebook

Pinterest

Instagram