Our Homeschool Preschool Curriculum for 2014-2015

I know it’s cliche, but I cannot believe we are beginning homeschool preschool this year. I really enjoyed our intentional toddler time together and even easing into more of a preschool model with Before Five in a Row Curriculum, but I’m elated to begin preschool with Sam. He’s beyond excited himself, which makes it even more fun!

Today, I wanted to share with you my plans for our 2013-2014 preschool year.

First, some details:

Samuel is currently 3 years old (4 in January). He has always been naturally inclined toward anything fine motor related, crafts, and books. We’ve been doing intentional toddler time since he was about 16 months old. It started with purposeful, indoor toddler activities and busy bags, then moved into the posts you’ll find on this page.

Sam is accustomed to structured learning time (and even enjoys and asks for it), so I’m confident that the following plan is a good fit for him. But homsechool preschool is at it’s base all about learning through play.

Each child is different (I suspect my second child will follow a totally different path seeing as I can’t get him to sit through a single book with me … )! I share the following as an example for you to consider (and for me to reminisce down the road), but not a blue print for you to follow to the T with your child. Deal?

Here’s our homeschool preschool curriculum plan for this year.

:: Family Devotions – Family devotions include scripture memorization and memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism.

:: God’s Little Explorers– This will be my base guide throughout the year. I am specifically using God’s Little Explorer’s for the Bible story ideas, letter of the week pick, hymn study outline, and monthly composer study ideas. It is a great base guide for preschool.

:: Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum – This will be our base for character study this year.

I’ve been creating The Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum for Toddlers for nearly two years. It’s built for 2-3 year olds and can be a stand alone curriculum, but we’re going to use it as an add-on since my son is moving out of the 3 year old range.

:: All About Learning Pre-Reading Program – The Pre-reading Program is incredible! We’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and my son adores Ziggy and all the lessons we have done. He often asks if he can learn about another letter when we finish our work for the day. I’m probably most excited about adding this into our learning time together!

:: Before Five in a Row Curriculum – We will continue rowing books as they fit our theme for each week. We are a literature rich homeschool so though we may not always do an add-on activity, we will be reading a book from this list frequently.

:: What’s in the Bible DVDs and Theo DVDs – You can read my thoughts on these here. But we will be using these sparingly as my son doesn’t do well with a lot of screen time (even good messages on the screen). However, sometimes I need a break and these will be my go-to picks during the week.

:: Music – Music is a great way to instill truths into little ones’ hearts.

• Songs for Saplings {specifically – Questions with Answers: God in Creation album} – This particular album reinforces what we’re learning in our catechism during family devotions.
• Crazy Praise, Vol 2
• To Be Like Jesus
• Wee Sing Bible Songs
• Hymns to go along with each week’s focus (God’s Little Explorer’s suggestions)
• Geography Songs

:: Math – I considered buying a curriculum to guide me through teaching my son early learning math skills. I believe early learning math skills are just as important as reading literacy.

But in the end, I settled on creating my own hands-on learning activities each week using living books.

We will not be doing worksheets or workbooks (at least not many), but instead will put heavy focus on manipulatives. You can see my collection of ideas for math on my 123’s Pinterest Board.

Some of my favorite math manipulates:

• Learning Resources Three Bear Family Sorting Activity – I got this off Zulily for $25! If you don’t have a Zulily account, then you’re missing great deals on learning toys and homeschool resources.
• Color Cubes
• Lauri Tall Stacker Number Express

You can see all the learning toys we use on this page. Just click each category I’ve created on the right hand side to scroll through.

Most all of these have been bought on sale at Amazon or Zulily, at consignment sales or dollar stores, and gifted to us from a very generous Grammy. 🙂 I never pay full price!

Science & Nature :: It is one of my greatest passions that my son learn all there is to know about God’s creation.

We’ll be taking a lot of nature walks and working through this Preschool Science and Nature Printable Pack from Living and Learning at Home, which will be lots of fun! I also have a nature table set up, which I’ll share more about later as we begin to use it more.

Art Study :: I will be using Artistic Pursuits: The Way They See It with Sam throughout the year.

Note: I did not pay full price for this guide. I don’t remember what I paid, but I’m sure it was less than $30. I got it on major sale a couple of years ago to have on hand for preschool.

It’s my desire that my children develop a deep appreciation for art. So at this stage, we’ll be exposing Sam to various forms of art and teaching him in fun ways about different artists and their beautiful works.

The main purpose in using Artistic Pursuits: The Way They See It is to expose him to various artists, yes, but at this point it is a great way to help him develop observation skills which will benefit him in many, many areas of study and life! Plus it teaches me how to teach my son through art study.

Geography & Social Studies :: We will be studying a different country each month throughout the school year. Again, this is about exposing my child to a world outside our own four walls, developing observation skills, and the start of instilling a biblical worldview. We will mostly cover these topics through living books, which I’ll share more about down the road.

We’ll also be taking our children on a road trip this fall to see Mount Rushmore, visit the Badlands National Park, the skyscrapers of Chicago, and flat plains of Tennessee. We are excited to share this trip with our children! We’re accustomed to traveling  as a family via airplane, but this will be our first road trip to see the sights in our own country. A perk of being a homeschool family with two work at home parents, I guess. 🙂

I know this sounds like a lot for a three year old.

Trust me, I realize this. But as I’ve prayed over each of these areas this summer, I decided to follow the Lord’s leading as well as my son’s.

My son thrives with structure and enormous amounts of information. Plus no one ever believes me when I tell them he’s just three. The summer was hard on him because I decided to take a break for my own sanity’s sake, and we focused on simple nursery rhymes. He was not a fan, and begged me every day to do crafts or read books or learn something. No joke. It’s the way God created him, and I might as well go with it, right? 🙂

For me to keep up with him, I have to have a plan. I’d rather have too much planned than not enough. God really affirmed this for me over the summer. I’m grateful for my eager learner.

This preschool curriculum has already proven fun and engaging to him as we’ve eased back into routine these last couple of weeks. I plan on sharing a weekly preschool post to round-up what we do each week. Right now, I plan to share them on Saturdays.

Okay, that’s our plan. I’ll share some ideas I’m planning for my tiny toddler soon!

What about you? What are you using in your preschool this year?

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Want to share the Gospel with your toddler on a more regular basis? Want to start teaching biblical truths to your child but not sure where to start?

Click here to learn more about my Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum for Toddlers.

It’s a great way to start teaching biblical truths and early learning skills all at the same time!