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I am taking our Home Preschool much easier than our Tot School days. With two little ones, it is difficult to fit everything in that I have in mind! May (my almost-two year old) and John (my preschooler almost four-year old) are my pupils. They are always together, so May tags along except during nap time. I do have some very simple plans for Tot School for her, which I’ll share soon :)

If we read together, we call the day a success. But besides that, we take the days as they are. If there is an opportunity to read, wonderful. To read the Bible, great. To go outside and just be a kid (that also means being bored!), that is joy.

I must remember to read and play. Is there anything that is more important, vital, for little precious hearts and minds? Not really. The rest is just icing.

You can see full details of our Preschool Plans here. Below is our schedule, and at the bottom of this post are all of the materials that we use. We don’t use all of the listed materials for every letter, but we rotate around the curriculums and supplements.

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Our Schedule

1. Music, Movement, Dance Time

In the mornings, we sing songs and dance to fun children’s or Bible music. (I created free printables to our Sing the Word From A to Z and our Play a Little Bible Songs — these I keep in a ring binder.)

2. Bible Time

We try to read our Bible. We are trying to go through only one (the Preschool Hands-On Bible — you can check out my post on this wonderful Bible and how we create a page each day in our Bible Notebook). But, often, the kids will want to read more, so we will pick and choose between our many Bibles (you can check out our Preschool Bible Resources to see the Bibles we love!)

3. Recitation Time

Next, we move through our above chart (here is a similar one). All of the items on it are free (with the exception of our Montessori sandpaper alphabet cards)! Home preschool does not have to mean high cost! We don’t do a Calendar Chart — it would be lost on him, but we will probably do it in our next round of ABCs :)

We follow the following sequence for morning time:

What is the letter of the week?
Can you feel the letter? (We feel each sandpaper letter — putting our finger on the big B as you’d write it and the little b as you’d write it.)
What vehicle begins with the letter Bb? (We are using the Zoomin’ Movin’ Alphabet curriculum from Royal Baloo.)
What else begins with the letter Bb? (We are also using the Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.)
Let’s read our Bible verse together!
What is the color of the week?
Let’s put ___ (yellow) objects in the basket! May and John, take turns! (Or a color hunt!)
What is the number of the week?
Can you put (1, 2, etc) Legos in the basket? (John runs to get 2 Legos, and places them in a little basket, with the number two inside.)
Can you put the clothespin on the little letter?
Let’s read our little book together!
Let’s count from 1 to 30!
Let’s count by 10s!
Let’s count by 5s!
What month is it?
(We are beginning to sometimes sing the “Month Song” and the “Days of the Week Song” too.)
What is our poem of the month? (We recite a poem from my 24 Monthly Preschool Chants.)
What is our poem of the week? (We recite a poem from my 12 Poems of Robert Louis Stevenson.)
Let’s sing the Alphabet Song!

4. Letter Work Time

This is usually two focused times per letter. We work on alphabet letter recognition and sounds with various activities, games, and objects from our curriculums. I focus on hands-on learning activities versus “worksheets.” Cutting, gluing, making the letter with various manipulatives (resources are at the bottom of this post) occasionally coloring. We like to do this at the table. I create “stations,” that is, I put out about six activities at once, for him to cycle through. This takes him only 10 minutes max. He grumbles when he sees me putting them out, but then gets excited after beginning the first one.

I know my son (see Connecting with my son and how he learns) — I know that he will delight in his work once he gets started. I make sure that he only has one “difficult” sheet on the table. He often asks for a second round of stations after he is done. I will usually only do 2-3 rounds of stations per letter.

5. Craft, Sensory, or Practical Life Time

This time is often done with my younger daughter. We make sure to make our ABC Felt Animal and our Preschool Alphabet page for the week. We also try to do another sensory fun activity and a practical life activity. I am trying to stay very low key about this portion of our Preschool plans. John is not a craft little boy or a messy painty boy, but he does love sensory “clean play” (likes beans or water play) and playdough if I have him on the right day. So we will continue with these and enjoy the summer months.

6. We read books and enjoy one another.

Color of the Week

Going on our Color of the Week color hunt! We marched around looking for yellow items :)

We’re going on a yellow hunt,

We’re going to find some yellow things.

What a beautiful day!

We’re not scared!

Adapted from our beloved book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Stations

“Stations” on the kitchen table have been working very well for John. Check out the Learning Stations at The Measured Mom for some wonderful ideas for this presentation for children. This has been a wonderful invitation to work and learn for my son.

All of our curriculum printables are listed at the end of this post. If I ever use something that is not a part of them, I will list it here — but I won’t be going into every detail of our letter work ;)

Here is our first round of stations:

And our second round:

Using Counting Bears for numbers 1 to 5. You can see all of the Preschool Materials I recommend here.

Sensory

Making edible slime from Fun at Home with Kids. This stuff is truly amazing and I couldn’t stop playing with it!! Totally safe for little and big kids alike! (Make sure you wait a good 20 minutes before you expect it to be “slime-ready”!)

ABC Clothesline

Our letter work for the week.

Preschool Alphabet Notebook

We are making an alphabet book with uppercase letters. I save these and will put them in a “book” — probably just with three pieces of yarn — for him to remember each letter! We are using printables from The Unlikely Homeschool. This is simple — just decorate your letter with something related to that letter.

I got creative this week and we did B for Blue Bows — John watched and was excited to see his Alphabet Book take form (I haven’t “given” it to him because I want it all in one piece! We have done letters T-Z and now A-B.)

ABC Felt Animal

Our felt animal this week was a B is for Bumblebee! You can check out all of our ABC Felt Animals here.

ABC Preschool Books to Read

I am starting a new collection of Preschool Books to read for each letter. Here is our list for Preschool Books for the Letter B!

Our Chosen Materials & Activities:

Zoomin’ Movin’ Alphabet curriculum from Royal Baloo

Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler

The Preschool Journey by Teaching Mama. There are many wonderful ideas for crafts and activities for each letter in this eBook. We will pick and choose different activities according to my son’s interests.

My First Hands-On Bible: Reading through the Bible with our Preschool Bible Notebook. I adore this Bible and could not recommend it more highly. I devoted a whole post to “why” here.