How We’re Doing Preschool at Home This Year
I spent much of the spring and summer going back and forth about sending Star to preschool.
She’ll start kindergarten next fall and both of my other girls attended preschool in some form (both of them did a co-op preschool where we rotated with other moms, Ella attended an in-home preschool one year and Ani did one year of daily afternoon preschool through the public school in Arizona).
Originally, I’d planned to send Star to an in-home preschool just down the street from us, but in April, we got word that the woman who ran it was moving and so it was no longer an option.
I considered a few other options, but finally settled on doing preschool at home with her.
There were a few reasons why preschool at home seemed like the best decision for our family.
First, I already have a babysitter who comes three mornings a week so I can work, so the childcare aspect of preschool was unnecessary for me.
Second, I didn’t want to commit any more of my time to driving than I possibly have to, so once my “down the street” option was gone, the idea of driving even 7-10 minutes was very unappealing (plus, Tally still takes a daily nap, so working around that gets tricky).
Third, I really wanted to be able to work with her myself. She’s started showing a LOT of interest in reading over the summer and I wanted to be able to spend time helping her really learning to read.
By the time August rolled around, I was THRILLED at the prospect of doing preschool at home.
Here’s our preschool schedule at home for this year:
Preschool at Home
My plan for our preschool schedule at home is to set aside about 30-45 minutes a day after Tally goes down for an afternoon nap (please let her keep napping the whole school year).
It’s after lunch, after I’ve worked in the morning three days a week or gone to the library or park on the mornings I don’t work, and before I start my afternoon work and Star does her daily quiet time.
preschool at home curriculum
I’m not interested in using this time for crafts or projects – my girls do TONS of crafts and art projects on their own. Since we only have a limited amount of together, my main focus is on academics.
Learning to Read. My number one goal for this year is to help her learn to read. She picked up the sounds of the letters in no time flat, and she understood the concept of blending like none of my other children did. Frankly, I’ve been floored at how fast she’s learning to read, and I think that she can be reading completely fluently by kindergarten if I’m willing to put in the time. I’ll be using the same resources I’ve used with my other girls, which I talked about in detail in this post.
Math. My two older girls have both LOVED math and really excelled in that area, and I’m pretty sure the thing Star is most excited about is the math book I ordered her. I’ve used this same math book series for my other girls and we’ve all been big fans. My older girls constantly asked to do it on their own, which is something that never ever happened to me in all my years of schooling.
Poetry. I did a lot of poetry memorization with Ella (you can see the world’s cutest video here of her reciting a few poems – I’m zero percent biased) and I’m excited to pick it back up with Star.
Reading Aloud. We just started B is for Betsy and although Star sits in with us when I read aloud to the older . girls, it’s really fun to choose books that are just perfect for 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!).
Handwriting. I ordered her this handwriting book (I used it with Ella too), which she does during quiet time on her own.
Online learning games. 2-3 afternoons a week, I let her play on the computer or tablet for about 15 minutes. We have a subscription to ABCmouse, and we also use Starfall.
Basically, I’m so excited to have this time to focus on Star and helping her get ready to go to school next year. I don’t know that full-time homeschool is ever going to be part of our schedule again, but it’s fun to have this little preschool at home opportunity this year.
If you liked this post about preschool 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
I wish you lots of joy and together-time with Star as you home-preschool! Your plan makes it sound exciting, and so do-able. Also- I used Handwriting Without Tears with all three of my girls. Highly recommend it! Have fun!
Great resource list and that sounds like a lovely preschool plan. Have you heard of Upstart? Free online preschool created by Waterford – they just ask that you use it 15 min a day 5 days a week. I see you are in Utah and it is open to all Utah children the year before kindergarten. I didn’t know about it with my oldest but I have used it with all of my other children and found it very beneficial.
Are you doing Upstart now that you live in Utah? It’s the best!
I agree with the others that have suggested Upstart! It’s an amazing program. My daughter just started kindergarten and her teacher said she can tell a huge difference between the kids that have used upstart and those that did a more traditional preschool. It’s an awesome resource we have here in Utah, everyone should take advantage of it!
This post just made me sad that we don’t have preschool aged kids at home anymore! You and Start are going to have such a fun year, she is one little cutie!
This is so timely! I’ve been debating and asking advice about my 4 year old for months, and I just decided not to send him to preschool. This post makes me feel like maybe I’m not the only parent to skip preschool, and that maybe he’ll be just fine come kinder next year. Good luck!
We don’t send ours to preschool. It seems strange to send them when I don’t work and I feel like it’s important to keep them home with me when I can. However, my first is going to kindergarten this year so how well she does might determine what we do for her sisters. I know she’s ready, but it’s hard not to let those seeds is doubt creep in because I did it different than everyone else.
I completely understand this! Our oldest is in 1st now and was the only kid in a ~55 kid kindergarten (in two classrooms) who didn’t go to pre-school. I worked with him at home but there is so much he didn’t know about being in a school environment. I only know a few other people (at other schools) who don’t do preschool but I feel the same as you, I’m home with the boys and I want them with me as long as I can! But our now 18 month old might end up at preschool when he’s 4 after troubles we had with our oldest. We’ll see how we feel in a few years! But you aren’t alone!