pre-kindergarten curriculum & workboxes

I am excited to share our preschool curriculum plans and the workbox system we use.  I hope these resources will be helpful to you and your family!

My sweet May is now 4 and a half years old!  I have to remind myself that she is SO blessed to have a baby sister.  They have a bond that is such a joy to see blossom.  In the times I feel (homeschool mom) guilty over not doing all the activities with her as I did with John, I remember that because of her and her sister, Lin, I am a better mom.  We walk slower through our days and we are all forever learning.

In the last few weeks, I have been incredibly inspired by Charlotte Mason and her teachings, particularly about how to read wonderful, living books, how to narrate, and how to simply live.  I am looking forward to sharing some of my excitement and thoughts on the blog.

Below is a list of what we are using for my dear daughter.  Above all, she has play.  Outdoors and indoors.  And perhaps more important to her, she has an abundance of art materials always available to her.  She loves to color and draw and create and I am happy that we have a created space that allows her to feel comfortable to do so naturally and often.

ART

• Art all the time using her many Art Utensils.
• We are going through Drawing with Children to give her more tools to draw.
• Nature Journal when we go outside or have hikes
• We try to have sensory time with homemade playdough, clay, or kinetic sand.

WORKBOXES

Each of my children have a Trofast bookshelf (from IKEA).  We love them to stay organized by subject.  However, lately, the kids have so many more subjects that it’s hard to know where to store everything so an overhaul may happen soon!  For now, John is on the left and May is on the right.  It is nice to be able to ask them for their correct material and have it right there for them or me.

Here you can see our Kindergarten Workboxes and his Kindergarten Curriculum.  And my son’s recently shared First Grade Workboxes and Curriculum.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

I do a very loose Letter of the Week with my four year old. I like knowing that we are focusing on a letter and having materials available for that letter and not missing any of them!

On our chart that we switch out:

• Our two ABC verses that go with songs from Songs for Saplings (ABC printable – cd) and Sing the Word (ABC printable – cd)
• Poem for the month that we continue to recite (Poems for Children – free printable)
• Some alphabet magnets (we love these and these too)
• Other free ABC resources.

Basically, we update our letter of the week each week and read together:

• Letter of the Week story from Alphatales
• Animal Story from Christian Liberty Nature Reader (we always follow this with a YouTube video of the animal, which the kids love!)
• Letter Character Lesson from Big Thoughts for Little People
• Red Letter Book which is a wonderful hands-on book for little hands
• And our Illustrated Alphabet Book is simply gorgeous

HANDWRITING

May’s written work consists of some independent learning with fun activity and coloring sheets from both Animal ABCs. I organize these in our folders in a canvas bin and often set them up in stations (see it in action here on my Instagram).

When she is scheduled to work with me, we are going through the first 3 Explode the Code books that are actually titled (Get Ready, Get Set, Go for…. the Code).  She is almost done with each. (Before each lesson, we review each letter from our Lauri letter puzzle that we have in a little bowl.)

She may also, as desired, work through her Lowercase Letter book or her ABC Sticker Book (she loves workbooks which is very different from my son — she loves to sit down while I’m working with him so I have to keep her busy!) :)

After these three are completed, we will move on to Memoria Press’ Alphabet Books.

LETTER WORK

Once a week, I also will either set out her Montessori Sandpaper cards and Montessori Alphabet objects for her to explore or sort between different letters. I do this or our beautiful fabric letters, big and small, for her to sort on a mat.

MATH

We have Numbers and Colors and the Numbers Coloring Book from Memoria Press, which she loves to color and go through while her big brother has math time.

Her other books, that we have tried to fit into our schedule for the week (more on my newfound love of a schedule later!) First Numbers Sticker Book, our Math by Nature series, Telling the Time, and Montessori Numbers.  Find the free tracing cards at my post here.

But we also do simple counting practice using Montessori beads, the spindle box to understand number sense, or always have Spielgaben and the prompt cards that come with it.VIRTUE & MANNERS

Twice a week, we like to focus on virtue and manners.  We are also beginning a Habit Study with Simply Charlotte Mason.  The materials we are using weekly include:

• Manners by Aliki
• First Virtues
• Crossroads of Character

POETRY

See my full post here on poetry.  And of course our poetry collection.  Right now, we are focusing on Robert Louis Stevenson.  But we have a nice collection that we like to take out from time to time.  The kids memorize one poem at least each month.

READ ALOUDS

I want to always read high quality literature to my children.  I love the Enrichment Manuals from Memoria Press, they encourage narration and deep thinking about give a lot of ideas for how to dig deeper into classical and beautiful read aloud books.

Pictured: Abe’s Fish, The Frogs and Toads All Sang, Cactus Hotel

AMERICAN HISTORY

And of course our American History books from Beautiful Feet Books.  I love this program, we are working through it slowly but surely.  What a treat for children to experience the history of their own nation!

BIBLE STORY

Bible Story is in the evenings. Right now we are reading through the Story Bible. This wonderful Bible has not only beautiful paintings to gaze at, but also has the vocabulary words listed (without definitions) as well as some questions and a prayer at the end of each two page story.  You can see other bibles in action here.

EXTRAS

• We attend Classical Conversations which is our History, Geography, Latin, English, additional Science & Math Facts. I’m not super intensive about the memory work. As a review outside of our class, we listen to the cds in the car 1-2 times a week as well as have a review time on Fridays where we mostly review the fun history song, timeline song, and geography.

• The kids also attend a homeschool group that some other moms and I created for our Moms Bible Study group. There wasn’t childcare past 5 years old, so we made a fun group with multiple ages from 4-10. I teach a music class, then they go to the gym and have snack and play time, followed by an art lesson (using the Art Treasury book, learning about famous artists and emulating their techniques and work.) This has been a wonderful time. However, I have felt constrained having to leave the house twice a week, so we’ll try to tack the music and art time onto our Classical Conversations day.  I’ll detail my music class and its contents in a future post! So fun!

• Lastly, each of my kids gets to “choose” one sport they’d like to do. My daughter did choose ballet, but this semester chose gymnastics, which works nicely since her and my son do it about the same time. Only out once a week! As it should be. I don’t want to cart my kids around each day to various activities. The reason I homeschool is to be less busy, more present, more joyful, less rush.

I hope this has helped you see our calm days.  Loving being home and learning alongside my three.