Hello Friends,
Thank you for all the love and support on my last blog post. I wasn’t even sure if anyone was still around to read this little blog… so it was great to hear from some of you!
Now that I am in a season of actively teaching my littles, I thought it would be fun to share what we are doing for pre-school this year. We aren’t doing anything advanced, just having fun and reading lots of books. However, I do have some goals and objectives I would like to accomplish before we officially start school next year.
I hope this is helpful for any other young mamas out there just getting their feet wet in the world of homeschooling. (My husband and I were both homeschooled and loved it!)
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Our Pre-School Goals for 2024-2025
Work Our Way Through the Playing Preschool Curriculum
With the goal of keeping things fun in this stage, I purchased the Playing Preschool Curriculum last year because I thought it would be a good fit for my son. I think this curriculum is a bit below his current level, but it has been enjoyable for both of us and I can pick and choose what we work on each day. (Instead of doing five days a week like the plan suggests, we are doing 2-3 days each week. I use the plan as a spring-board and pick the activities that work best for us, adding my own ideas here and there).
The first unit was an apple theme. We borrowed apple themed books from the library and I found some really cute (and FREE!) apple activity pages on Pinterest. Our next unit will be all about colors!
>>> This blog post with 22 EASY Apple Crafts and Activities was so helpful!
Weekly Bible Lessons
Our fall has been way busier than I expected so we haven’t started up this routine yet (we’ve done it in the past) but I plan to pick a Bible story for each week to teach to my son using the ABeka Bible Story Flash-a-Card sets (David and Goliath is our favorite so far!). I usually just teach the story from memory and we look at the pictures and talk about them together.
Proverbs and Bible Memory
During breakfast (not every day) I like to read through the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds with the day of the month. Even though my four year old doesn’t understand most of it, I’m always amazed at what he does pick up from the text! During this time I also like to review some letters and Scripture memory using the ABC Scripture Cards from Chad and Erin Co.
Memorize Ephesians 6:1-4
Over the summer we worked on memorizing Psalm 121. It’s truly amazing how easy it is for little ones to memorize with daily repetition. Now we are moving on to memorizing Ephesians 6:1-4. I am sure you can guess why I chose these particular verses. 😉
Read Through Stories of the Bible
This is a Bible story book we own that is perfect for my son’s comprehension level right now. My plan is to slowly read through the stories in this book over the next several months to give him a good overview of all the stories in the Bible. I’m pretty sure this will become our bedtime story book. 🙂
Read 100 New Books Together and One Chapter Book
Books are the main source of my son’s learning right now (and probably always will be). We love to read together. I am not sure if I will actually keep track of all the books we read this year, but 100 new books sounds pretty easy considering we typically borrow 10-15 books from the library every time we visit! Before the end of the school year, I hope to read a chapter book together as my son is reaching the point where he has a much longer attention span and comprehension of stories.
Visit 2-3 State Parks
We live in Pennsylvania which has over 124 state parks! We usually end up visiting at least one or two each year, but I want to make the effort to visit some new ones together this year as a part of our learning adventures.
Work on Learning Life Skills Together
My friend Sam from Our Blessed Homeschool is putting together her own pre-school curriculum! While we are sticking with Playing Pre-School for this year, I am also borrowing some ideas from her curriculum as well. She has a list of life skills to work on with your pre-schoolers so we have the list printed out and will be checking them off as we do them together!
>>> Our Blessed Homeschool Preschool Bundle
Other things we hope to learn along the way:
- The letters of the alphabet and their sounds (Playing Preschool covers this)
- Learn the days of the week and months of the year (we are having fun with this children’s calendar)
- Memorize the pledge of allegiance
- Learn some basic math (my son loves numbers!)
- Learn to write first and last name
- Continue going to co-op (something we started last school year)
Phew. After writing all that out, it sounds like a lot! However, I promise things are a lot more flexible and laid back over here than they sound. Playing Pre-School will touch on a lot of things I mentioned above.
I Would Love to Hear from You!
If you have pre-schoolers at home, I would love to hear some of the resources you are using to teach them! Feel free to leave a comment below and share what you’re learning with your little ones and any goals you have for this school year!
My little ones are 19 months and 3 months so we’re not quite ready for preschool yet but I already have Preschool Science: Exploring Creation Together from Apologia. I also use the ABC memory cards from Chad and Erin Co. My oldest is only just starting to talk but we started saying memory verses months ago already just so that we are already in the habit as soon as he can start saying them along.