I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to get started with our preschool homeschool – age three to four. I’ve been reading preschool blogs, homeschool blogs, and packaged curriculum websites. I’ve talked with my mother who worked in a preschool for twenty years, my cousin who owns a preschool, and my sister-in-law who has a child in preschool.

Based on this, I’ve complied the following list of skills and activities that will be the basis of our free preschool homeschool curriculum. It might look like a long list at first but there is a lot of overlap and things that we already do naturally (like reading, counting, and nature walks) or Boo does completely on her own (imaginative play is huge at the moment as well as drawing and climbing). Our planned activities will focus mostly on literacy, math, and science because the rest just happens in the life of a three year old. I’ve listed the others more as a reminder to myself that even if we do nothing extra in a day, Boo is still learning.

The most important thing I want to accomplish this year is for her to love school and crave learning. I’m going to start small with one or two planned activities a day. As soon as she starts to lose interest, we’ll stop and move on. I’m hoping to leave her hungry for more!

Literacy and Language Arts:

• Read a lot: ask questions during and after the story
• Start learning letters: uppercase, lowercase, and letter sounds
• Practice drawing and writing with a variety of tools: pencils, fingers, paintbrushes, chalk, crayons, sticks, etc
• Ask to tell a story from memory
• Sing songs and read rhymes for phonemic awareness
• Make books: picture books or write the words while she dictates her story

Cognitive Skills and Math:

• Identify colors, shapes, sizes, and weights
• Count everything and put numbers to use (put four plates on the table)
• Recognize numbers and use objects to represent numbers
• Practice grouping, sequencing, completing patterns, and graphing
• Compare and classify (more/less, bigger/smaller, same/different, long/short, light/heavy, holds more/holds less)
• Match pictures or objects that are alike, opposite, or that go together
• Encourage problem solving skills: both working it out for herself and helping me come up with solutions
• Talk about positions (inside/outside, left/right/middle, above/below, top/bottom, under/over, in front/behind)
• Make a play clock and talk about time
• Play with puzzles, do mazes and dot to dots

Science and Nature Studies:

• Use science experiments to learn about cause and effect
• Learn the difference between living and non-living things
• Plant seeds, watch them grow, identify parts of plants and what they need to thrive
• Develop data collection, record-keeping, and classification skills through nature walks and a nature journal
• Participate as much as possible in Dada’s work with wildlife conservation, plan some activities around the upcoming lion reintroduction

Play:

• Encourage unstructured imaginative play
• Lots of arts and crafts to develop fine motor skills: include stringing, tracing, cutting, and pasting
• Lots of outdoor play to develop gross motor skills: climbing, jumping, running, balancing, rolling, throwing, kicking
• Music: singing, dancing, rhythm instruments, songs with motion
• Build with blocks and legos

Life Skills:

• Learn about the body and self care: move towards independence with getting dressed, brushing teeth, using the toilet, washing hands
• Learn to clean up after self and basic table manners
• Learn about emotions and how to deal with them

Computer Skills:

• Use the computer for educational games
• Develop ability with mouse

What do you think? Have I missed anything? We plan to start homeschooling more formally in May and I’ll be posting regularly with details of how we turn this list of skills into fun activities.

For more information on how to introduce letters and begin a reading program see “Thoughts on how to Teach Reading to my Kids”

• Links to all our age 3 weekly lesson plans