I had a dear friend ask me for workbook suggestions for learning at home with her preschooler.   And I realized that most of the resources I suggest here are free ones I find online from other blogs.  It can be stressful to choose which resources and ideas are best when we look online and there is just too much to choose from between all the blogs and the sometimes awful, guilt-invoking Pinterest.

There are a lot of us moms who don’t have the time to print free resources online — and it takes loads of time — sometimes purchasing a few items can be much easier and more do-able for parent and child.

{This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclosure policy.} 

Every child has different learning needs.

My son was not the “sit down and color” type at two years old.  Now that he is three, he enjoys art projects a bit more.  He may work on something for 5 to 10 minutes, and be very proud of himself, but he won’t spend an hour on coloring or a craft like I’ve seen other children do.  This is why I can’t stress enough that we must, as parents and educators, meet the child at their interest and skill level.  Some children need more sensorial opportunities, while some thrive with a paper and pencil.

At this early age — playing equals learning!  There are so many opportunities to utilize toys as learning manipulatives.  This is where my son thrives.  But your child is different from my son.  Just as my daughter is oh so different from him.  That is why I present so many choices below.  I hope you can take a little time to evaluate each of these.  I’ve stripped down my choices to my most-highly recommended learning materials, but there are differences in each, so keep your child in mind when you purchase!  As always, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have a specific question.  I’d love to try to help you and him/her on your learning journey together!

Here are my suggestions, based on my Stages for Early Literacy (you can check out my series here).  I am writing basic ages as a starting point, but remember, every child learns at a different pace, and you should meet your child at their level!

Early Literacy Stage: Uppercase letter recognition, Tactile uppercase letter writing

Basic Skills: 

Abeka – (I love Abeka’s bright pages for early coloring and crafting.  These books make teaching easy for any parent!)

• Child Art for 2s
• Numbers and Skills with Button Bear
• Arts and Crafts with Button Bear
• Learning Numbers with Button Bear

Early Literacy Stage: Utensil prewriting and uppercase letter writing

Letters: 

• All About Reading – Pre-Reading Program
• Handwriting Without Tears – My First School Book
• Schoolzone – Uppercase Alphabet Book
• Abeka – Letters and Sounds for 3

Basic Skills:

• Heart of Dakota – Little Hands to Heaven (This program requires more planning for the parent, but is an all inclusive, biblical program for preschool learning ages 2 – 5. More recommendations for Dakota Bible learning is here.)
• Rod and Staff:

1. Adventures with Books (For a child interested in cutting, pasting, colors, drawing lines and circles)
2. Bible Pictures to Color (Consists of sweet pictures to go along with the simple Bible stories to Read)
3. Counting with Numbers (Introduces math concepts and shapes and writing numbers)

Art:

• Abeka – Child Art for 3s, Arts and Crafts with Amber Lamb 3s, Summer Fun with Amber Lamb
• Doodles: Alphabet Coloring Fun
• Super sweet, inexpensive ABC coloring books by Dover: Little ABC Coloring Book, Animal ABC Coloring Book, Nature ABC Coloring Book  (There are lots of books in this series!) 

Early Literacy Stage: Lowercase letter recognition (and matching uppercase with lowercase letters)

Letters:

• All About Reading – Pre-Reading Program
• Memoria Press – Alphabet Books
• Queen Homeschooling – Printing with Pictures Primer

Basic Skills:

• Developing the Early Learner Volume 1 – 4 (Provides your child practice with visual, auditory, motor, and comprehension skills — Used by Sonlight Preschool curriculum)
• Memoria Press – Coloring Books (this is a two-book set with beautiful, simple alphabet and numbers-based pictures)

Art: 

• Abeka – Art Projects K4, Bible Activity Book K4
• Memoria Press — Book of Crafts, Junior Kindergarten

Math:

• Memoria Press – Numbers Books

Early Literacy Stage: Lowercase phonetic sounds, Lowercase letter writing

Letters: 

• All About Reading – Pre-Reading Program
• Memoria Press: First Start Reading Books A – D
• Explode the Code workbooks:  Books A, B, C (consonant phonics work), Books 1,1 ½ (vowel and consonant phonics work)
• Abeka – Writing with Phonics K4
• Alpha-Phonics – Developmental phonics program.
• How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons
• Primary Phonics: Workbook 1

Reading: See suggestions in Early Literacy Stage 5 for more details on the below books.

• Alpha-Phonics: Companion Readers
• Primary Phonics: Storybooks Starter Set 1
• Abeka:  Little Books, Owl Books, Basic Phonics Readers Set
• Usborne: Very First Reading series
• Sonlight: Fun Tales, followed by their I Can Read It! series
• BOB Books Readers: Phonics based reading
• AlphaTales: Fun books, from A-Z, to learn beginning letter phonics from A-Z.
• Developmental reading books: I Can Read Level 1 books

Basic Skills:

• Abeka – Readiness Skills K4

Handwriting: 

• Handwriting Without Tears – Letters and Numbers for Me
• Abeka – ABC, 123

Working with your child, whether you choose to homeschool or not, will always be beneficial to your child. First, read together.  Next, try some of the above suggestions.  But remember that the precious young days of learning through play will come to an end all too soon, so if your child doesn’t want to “sit and do school” — that’s okay!  Instead, make being together and playing together a priority.

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