What Preschool Will Look Like for Tally This Year

It is crazy to me that my youngest child is just about to start her pre-K year.

My three big girls will all be in full-day school this year, which means it’ll only be Tally at home with me.

I’ve done basically every version of preschool with my girls – I’ve done it entirely at home, we’ve done co-op preschools (I wrote a whole post about why that is NOT for me), they’ve attended in-home preschools and preschool through the public school system in Arizona.

Because Tally is ultra-social, I knew she wouldn’t love the idea of being home with me alone all day.

We looked at several different preschool options, but when a spot opened up at the university preschool (my sister did it for her son and loved it, plus it’s super affordable), we snatched it up and she can’t stop talking about how excited she is to go.

It’s a few hours, four days a week, so I’ll also be doing some academic things at home with her.

I’ve done this with all my other girls and it’s been such a great experience – I love spending that one-on-one time with them and watching them grow and develop.

We also just hired a new babysitter who will come one morning a week (the day that she doesn’t have preschool) so that I have time to work five days a week. Our previous beloved nanny just got married and moved out of state, so I was super grateful to find someone new.

Here’s what my plan is for preschool at home for Tally this fall.

(For the record, I don’t personally care about using any of our preschool time for crafts or projects – my girls do TONS of crafts and art projects on their own, plus I’m certain she’ll do those at preschool. My main focus is on academics for this time together and I need to make it simple and easy enough that we can sit down and do this every day without any prep on my part).

preschool activities at home

Savvy Reading. This is the easiest one because it only requires me to get her set up and it’ll give me a little block of uninterrupted time to do some quick work in the morning. She’s been doing Savvy since January and really loves it, and we’ll do our preschool things together after her Savvy class. (Use the code JANSSEN for 10% off any subscription).

Reading Practice. Now that her beginning reading skills are starting to get pretty solid (thanks to Savvy Reading), I’m planning to do some reading practice with her too. We’ll use our collection of 4 Weeks to Read books.

Math. My three older girls have all LOVED math and really excelled in that area, and I’ve ordered the same math book for Tally that I’ve used with all my other girls.

Handwriting. I ordered her this handwriting book (I used it with Ella and Star too).

Reading Aloud. Tally sits in with us when I read aloud to all the girls every night, but it’s really fun to choose books that are aimed specifically at her current level. I’m excited to work through a bunch of my favorite preschool and kindergarten read-alouds with her this year (a list of 30 of my favorites are here!).

 

Overall, I’m just so excited about having this special time with Tally. It’s been such a special part of my parenting to get to work with each of my girls before they enter kindergarten and I can’t believe it’s here for Tally.

Any questions about these preschool activities at home we’ll be doing? Happy to answer!

 

If you liked this post about preschool activities at home, you might also like these posts:

• 5 tips for teaching your child to read
• 30 chapter books to read aloud to preschoolers
• How we did preschool with Ella

Photos by Heather Mildenstein