How I Teach Preschool At Home And Our Playroom Upgrade

Due to Covid-19 and me being a stay-at-home mom, our family decided that we were going to do preschool at home this year. It was a hard choice, our daughter loves going to preschool, we love our school, and she learns so much there. However, we are at peace with our decision now.

How to preschool at home?

So, we want to homeschool, what do we do now? I’m a nurse, not a teacher. I loved taking my developmental psych class, and taught Sunday School a few years, but I don’t know anything about education. However, one doesn’t need to know everything, just who to ask! Whenever I have education questions, I always ask my sister-in-law and friend – they are amazing teachers.

My sister-in-law is a big believer that kids benefit so much from going to preschool. They learn so much more than just their ABCs. They learn to listen to authority other than their parents, socializing and sharing with others, and many other life skills. Also, not to mention, school is such a safe haven for so many children. This pandemic has really opened my eyes to how much we take schools for granted. They do so much more for our children and community than we even realize. Good teachers are superheroes! Thank you teachers for all you do for our children! This goes for all the social workers, school counselors, administrators, volunteers, people behind the scenes, and everyone else that I didn’t mention.

I have asked my friend and sister-in-law a few times now, how do I teach preschool at home? They said that kids are expected to know so much more when they enter kindergarten than when we were kids. I think I remember taking my kindergarten entrance test. I had to count as high as I could and say my ABCs. I’m sure I was asked more questions but I don’t remember specifics. Now, that’s not enough. Kids are learning to read and spell earlier and it’s helpful for them to be able to identify some letters and sounds. A good list of child kindergarten readiness is here.

Read together

My friend and sister-in-law said that reading at least 20 minutes a day to our children is so important. Showing them how to read a book, how to turn the pages, talking about what is going on in the pictures, asking questions about what they think will happen next, and making reading fun with silliness! It’s a great way to spend quality time together. Our public library has a program called, “1000 books before Kindergarten.” It’s a very similar concept, it’s measured by the number of books you read rather than the number of minutes you spend reading to them.

Books are so important, but you don’t need to own tons. All you need is a library card. Now, libraries hold books online and have curbside pickup. If you don’t have access to that, you can check them out on youtube. There are many videos of people reading children’s books! Like the old show, Reading Rainbow – I loved that show.

Areas to focus on

I asked my sister-in-law (SIL) to go into some more specifics for me on how to preschool at home. She said that you don’t need to follow any specific curriculum. My SIL recommends focusing on a letter a week and doing all different activities related to that letter. She said to also focus on fine motor skills like drawing different types of lines, cutting with scissors, and holding a pencil correctly. Playing with play dough is a great way for children to build hand strength. In addition, having children learn to do basic life skills independently. Above all, make it fun and not to put pressure on your child!

This is extremely helpful information! I was trying to do these things from March through July. However, I had a hard time thinking of activities and staying motivated. So, my husband and I chose, God’s Little Explorers for our preschool curriculum.

Curriculum

We picked God’s Little Explorers for a few big reasons. One, my husband wanted a Christian centered curriculum. The preschool our daughter was going to attend was faith based and this is important to us. Two, it looked simple to follow with little prep time. I don’t have the time or energy to do big, elaborate activities everyday. I just won’t do it. Three, the curriculum was written by a teacher for her own children, I love her content, and it had great reviews. Forth, it was only $20!

Preschool at home

God’s Little Explores is 4 days a week, about 30-60 minutes long depending on how much you do or how quickly you work through the curriculum. The writer has the weeks correlating with the Christian holiday’s so she recommends starting the first week in September. We started in early August so we can take breaks here and there for various reasons. I use Monday to prep for the week, incase I need to print or buy something. Then I usually prep for 15 minutes the night before to write on the white board what we are doing the next day.

White board

I have a white board up on our wall where I write the date, theme, letter/shape/number/color we are focusing on that week, bible verse, books we are reading, songs we are singing, artist and composer focus, and our agenda for the day. It’s mainly for me because my daughter can’t read, but I like for her to check it off once we finish an activity.

Schedule

Once I put the twins down for their nap, my daughter and I do school. I pull out a blanket and lay it in our homeschool space so she knows it’s preschool time. This makes for easy clean up too. We go over the white board so she knows what we are going to cover that day. I have two lists of activities listed on the agenda. Things I really want to try to get through, and bonus activities if we have time. If we don’t get through the bonus activities (which we usually don’t), then we do them for fun another time in the day.

Remember, at this age, they don’t have super long attention spans, around 10-15 minutes. They need breaks, engaging and motivating activities to keep their interest.

I usually start by reciting the bible verse with hand motions, and having her do it with me. I follow this with the songs. They usually go together and she responds well to music and it helps her get excited about school.

Next, I read The Jesus Storybook Bible. There is an activity that relates to the story we read. Maybe even a song or short youtube video.

Next, we focus on a letter/shape/color/number and do a few activities related to that and the theme. The letter and theme are also related to the story we read. For example, the Creation Story focuses on the letter Gg, with the theme being, Gg is for Garden.

Then we read the books she recommends reading. If I didn’t get the book from the library (because they were all out, etc.) then she can read along with a youtube video.

Activities

I sometimes adjust some of the activities to fit what I think my daughter would enjoy more or what we have the supplies for. The woman who wrote the curriculum has some extra books and activities for the week, which we try to get to as well. I don’t usually do all of them, but at least half.

This curriculum also focuses on life skills. Either a new developmental skill, chore, or community service ideas. Kindergarten readiness has a lot to do with a child’s independence of basic life skills. For example, getting dressed and undress, expressing emotions and verbalizing wants and needs, learning to make her bed, picking out clothes that are appropriate for the weather, giving toys to a charity, learning how to act in a library, etc. This is how we usually end our school day.

Another reason why I loved this curriculum is because it focuses on art and music. Every couple weeks we learn about a different artist and classical composure. I get biography books written for children, about each artist and composer and have them out in our workspace. This way she can go to them whenever she wants. Then when we have time we read them together. Also, I have the music written by the composer we are learning about, playing in the background while we are doing school.

This all might sound like a lot, but we actually move through the activities pretty quickly. Don’t be overwhelmed. Remember you are trying your best to do preschool at home. It’s all for fun, we don’t want to put pressure on them. The goal isn’t for them to master anything, because they probably won’t (remember realistic expectations?). The goal is to have them have fun learning, start to develop these new skills and stay healthy!

Playroom upgrade

Now, the fun part! Before we started homeschooling, we packed up our family in the van and headed to Target! We got a bunch of fun crafting supplies, toy organizers, and homeschool supplies. When we got home we did a big playroom makeover! We sorted through all our toys and made a homeschool spot. We removed 4 big bins worth of toys! It took all weekend but it was totally worth it. Our kids love the new space!

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Homeschool and playroom supplies

Here are some links (click on the image) to some of the things we love in our playroom and homeschool workspace. We either own these or have something similar.

Toys

I have linked some of the toys we love above for a 3 year old. However, our toddlers seem to enjoy many of these toys above, as well. I obviously am not going to list all the toys we love, however, these are ones we play with all the time. I am hoping to making a post solely on books, so none are included in this list.

Less is more

With toys, less is more. There are studies that support that child actually play better and more deeply when they have fewer toys. Deeper play equals better learning. There are two main reasons for this. One, with less toys they are less overwhelmed. Have you ever seen a child run into a room and just stare at all the toys? If there are fewer toys to pick from, they can be more focused on what they are playing with. Second, the more toys, the bigger the mess. Child don’t like playing in mess. Do you notice how the messy toys spill out of the playroom? Children will pick up their toys and move them in a cleaner area to play in. Again, this has to do with being less overwhelmed and focusing on play. This article by Ralphie Jacobs explains it in more detail.

Montessori

My sister-in-law taught me that children seem to play longer with toys that are more generic. Meaning, toys that don’t have a specific outcomes invite longer imaginary play. I have noticed that my kids seem to get bored quickly with very specific toys. Montessori toys are perfect for this! Legos would be considered a Montessori toy because they can use their imagination, build different structures, learn by trial and error. However, a specific lego set would not be a Montessori toy because it has only one outcome.

Melissa and Doug toys are pretty big hits in this house. Melissa and Doug have tons of toys that fit with the Montessori approach. Similarly with Lovevery. We also love, Lovevery Toys. We received a couple of the toddler kits and even though they are technically for the twin toddlers, our 3 year old still loves playing with them. Check them out here.

I hope that if you choose to teach preschool at home or looking for playroom ideas, that you find this post helpful. Please leave me a comment, I love to hear your thoughts!

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