I LOVE teaching preschool! I am now homeschooling my 3rd preschooler and I have learned a lot. Mainly, I don't do as much as I did with my first two. I have learned what is the most beneficial and that is all I do. I don't worry about teaching all the subjects. Preschoolers need time to play and imagine and pretend and listen to stories! Yes, preschoolers can learn a ridiculous amount of information. But they don't have to do it right away. And they can learn a ton in just a short amount of time each day.
Reading to a preschooler is absolutely the most important part of their education. It covers all subjects and gives them a love for learning. Honestly, I think if you did no other schoolwork but read to a preschooler for at least an hour each day, it would be fine. Everything else can be learned easily in Kindergarten. With that said, I pretty much waited to start any preschool work til after Christmas with my little girl. She turns 5 in February and I really don't think children need to do much tablework before 5 years old. Yes, we read TONS of books everyday and did puzzles and used math manipulatives that she thought were all games. But I didn't do anything really structured until after Christmas.
Here is what our preschool day now looks like:
1. While eating breakfast, I go over our phonics cards. I have the lovely phonics cards from
The Writing Road to Reading and I introduce a new one each day if I feel like she has mastered the previous ones. She thinks this is a game and enjoys telling me the 3 sounds that the letter "y" can make or all 4 sounds that "ou" can make. Then we do a few math flashcards from
Rod and Staff. She isn't doing any math worksheets yet because I don't like her to have to write much because it is still hard work for her and I want her to enjoy math. But she likes these flash cards that ask what number comes before or after or which number is greater or smaller. And we use math manipulatives to count things (and she really likes to tell stories with our colored bears and pattern blocks). We also practice whatever poem we are currently memorizing over breakfast.
2. She pretty much plays for the next hour and a half. If the weather is good, we go outside and if not she just plays inside with her two-year old sister. Lots of imagining and pretending and cutting and coloring going on. It makes me smile! I wish I could say that I prepare crafts for them but my life is too crazy. I don't.
3. We read picture books for about 45 minutes (or until the 2 year old gets restless).
4. We practice our
CC memory work songs for about 10 minutes. This is the only structured history, geography, english, etc that she gets. But don't forget about all the reading we do. It covers all the subjects. :)
5. We have lunch and then go outside (unless it is raining).
6. Naptime for the 2 year old and handwriting practice for my preschooler. We only write for about 10 minutes and she also colors the answers in her Explode the Code book at this time. I don't make her write in her Explode the Code. The only writing she does is handwriting practice. After this quick tablework, we take turns reading. I read her a chapter from whatever chapter book we are enjoying It is currently
Besty-Tacy. Then she reads me a lesson from
her reading lesson book or
Language lesson book or a story from
Dick and Jane or her
McGuffy Primer. We go back and forth as I read a chapter and then she reads something short to me until her sister wakes up from her nap. Then school is over and she plays the rest of the day.
set of books. It was super reasonably priced at Amazon and has 4 awesome books inside about first words, colors, shapes, and numbers. They are so neat because they are cut in half so that the child has to match up the color with an animal of that color or a word with the correct picture, etc. (if that didn't make sense, just clink on the link to read the Amazon description :) Anyways, my toddler and I both love them. I started out making it a game for her. With the word book, I would say the word and then ask, "is this a sun?" She would grin and shake her head "no" and we would move onto the next picture til she found the right one. She thinks its so much fun! I have always done the sign for "no" with her (mainly for discipline purposes :) but have recently gotten out of the habit. And I never did "yes" with her very much. But I decided to bring it back as we read this book and introduce "yes" and she picked it up in just a few pages. She really thinks these books are so much fun and is learning so quickly that I just had to give my thumbs up for the books :)
