It’s quite overwhelming for parents to choose the right curriculum for preschoolers. Often parents tend to make a rigorous routine for the tiny humans but it’s an absolute no-no in this case. It’s important that the child doesn’t feel burdened rather gets inspired throughout the process.
Preschoolers are just starting their educational journey hence it’s vital that you build up a knack inside them for learning. Children should be motivated towards education instead of forcing the overall concept on them.
Table of Contents
Homeschooling 101 for Parents
Parents should design the preschool homeschool curriculum with play-based lessons that will incite curiosity in them about learning. The curriculum should contain lessons that will help build up cognitive and sensory development among children. They should be able to learn problem-solving, vocabulary, and social skills through play-based lessons.
Finding the right curriculum for homeschooled preschoolers is quite a daunting task. Especially if it’s the first child you’re going to homeschool. It’s the perfect opportunity for the parents to enhance their relationship with the kids about homeschooling so that the parents don’t face difficulties teaching the children in the later years. Make sure you create a bond with your child during this time as these memories will be cherished forever.
How to homeschool a child? Explore details here.
Preschool Research Matters
One of the first steps homeschooling parents should take is to research their options. There are tons of curriculums out there so you should do proper and thorough research to figure out which one will work the best for you and your child.
Preschool is probably going to the most fun years to homeschool because it incorporates mostly games and introducing basic things to the children. Also, homeschooling a preschooler is a safer option to start with if you’re new to it as it doesn’t involve any vigorous routine or curriculum.
Homeschooling during preschool will help you build up a bond with your child which will make the later homeschooling journey smoother for you.
Is it Necessary to Have a Curriculum for Preschoolers?
You’re probably wondering that since the children are very young that is it really necessary to have a curriculum for pre-schooling? Well, some parents and children prefer having a more structured and planned program as that helps them more to their way towards formal education for their child.
On the other hand, some families prefer a more flexible routine and they like to let things flow in their own way. For families like this having a proper learning environment is sufficient enough to provide the everyday learning experience.
Having a curriculum will bring more structure to the process and often times it will also help the parents measure how much progress the child has made. There are countless curriculums available out there so the parents should choose wisely and pick the one that fits their child’s age and intelligence level.
Homeschooling has benefits, know them here.
Some Tips to Successfully Homeschool Preschoolers
Don’t Start Big
Well, let’s admit it, teaching preschoolers is not a piece of cake as the children are super active and hyper at this age. Getting them to sit down for the educational lessons will definitely take some work. So, make sure you start small as that will be easier for you to conduct.
Try to figure out the areas where your child has an interest and put more of those activities in the curriculum. Keep the curriculum simple and try to include colorful books, alphabet activity, poems, short stories, and math for basic numeric learnings. Don’t include boring and complicated lessons in the curriculum as that will eventually lead the child to lose interest.
Maintain a Routine
Maintaining a proper routine is one of the key success factors of successful homeschooling. The routine shouldn’t be rigid and forced upon rather it should be timely maintained so that the children get an understanding of time management.
Have a specific time slot in the day and allocate a specific time duration for every lesson. It’s not always necessary to start with the lessons early in the day. Parents can fix the timing based on the time the child responds the best and when it’s more convenient for them to provide the lessons. However, the bottom line is, all of these should be maintained in a routine manner.
Enhance their Motor Developments
Pre-schooling age is the perfect time to develop motor skills in children. Acquiring proper motor skills is a part of healthy development among them.
Gross motor skills are movements that are related to large body muscles such as arms, legs, etc. Whereas, fine motor skills are movements related to smaller muscles such as wrists, hands, etc. It’s important that the child masters both gross and fine motor skills as these are vital for the growth and movement.
You may include activities such as jumping, skipping, walking on a line to build up gross motor skills. To develop fine motor skills, you can encourage the children to cut with scissors, hold pencils, pick a light object, and other similar works that involve using hands or wrists.
Include Audios and Visuals in the Curriculum
Including audios in the curriculum will help the children distinguish between different sounds and tones. To enhance the auditory skills among the preschoolers, play games with rhymes, sound different notes and help them distinguish from one another, and clap with different patterns.
You can also read them poetry as that will help them figure out different emotions in the voice. As we said earlier, homeschooling doesn’t have to be limited to a specific timeline, you can read stories or poems to your children during bedtime or nap time to build up auditory skill in them.
Visual discrimination is as important as auditory discrimination. It’s important to grow a sense of differentiation between colors and sizes. Help them understand the differences between different shapes as these will eventually help out the child with the math curriculum of the homeschooling program.
Build Character and Behavior
Along with acing the academics, it’s equally important to be a good human being and to be empathetic to others. Preschool is the ideal time to teach the children the basic ideologies between good and bad along with some basic norms.
It’s the duty of the parents to plant the seed of gratitude and rationality among them so that they can become good human beings in humans. Children learn what they see therefore try to portray good behavior in front of them and encourage them to do the same.
Know the legal aspects of homeschooling.
Some Prominent Preschool Homeschool Curriculum
Horizon Preschool Curriculum
Horizon preschool homeschool curriculum is published by Alpha Omega Publications. It’s a Christian school curriculum that emphasizes math, phonics, language arts and a few other fun activities that will boost up the child’s interest in the program. These activities will also help to grow the bond between you and the child.
The set comes with two books which consist of a total of 180 lessons. You’ll also get a music CD that helps to enhance the auditory senses of the children, two teacher’s guide which is extremely helpful for the parents who are first-time homeschooling the preschoolers.
The guide helps the parents to provide the lessons step by step detailed lesson plans for daily activities. It comes with manipulatives that are very engaging and they help to generate easy lesson concepts among the preschoolers.
Ivy Kids Kits
Ivy Kids Kits is a great homeschool curriculum for parents who are looking forward to having a meaningful learning experience with their children. This is a monthly subscription-based homeschool program for children aged 3-8 years.
With Ivy Kids Kits, each month you’ll receive a kit based on classic children’s book with more than ten activities. These activities are carefully designed to incite children’s creativity, curiosity, and problem-solving skills.
The activities will help enhance the basic math and literacy skill among the children. It consists of interesting reading comprehension and lessons that motivate them towards scientific thinking. The kit also contains plenty of games and materials that will develop both fine and gross motor muscles of the preschoolers.
The Ivy Kids Kit has been tested on many children and they greatly enjoyed it. The best part of this kit is, it can be used for more than one child. So, this will be really handy if you’re homeschooling more than one child.
The Homegrown Preschooler
The Homegrown Preschooler provides books, curriculums, and educational activities for the preschool homeschoolers. Their curriculum ensures that the child has an enjoyable childhood while growing in character as well as knowledge.
The Homegrown Preschooler offers a book that will encourage and inspire the parents to utilize their home as the classroom. It will help the parents learn how to effectively create a learning environment for the preschoolers in regular household chores.
There are more than 200 activities that are super easy to pull which will not only help with the child’s educational and physical development but it’ll also grow the bond between the child and the parents.
They believe that early education builds the foundation for lifelong learning. Therefore, the curriculum of the Homegrown Preschool offers a complete guideline for the preschoolers to have proper pre-schooling education. The curriculum is precisely designed to provide the parents and children with a relaxed and enjoyable pre-schooling experience without compromising the quality of education.
Mommy, Teach Me!
Mommy, Teach Me is a creation of Barbara Curtis, who’s a homeschooling mom of twelve and a Montessori teacher. Along with general education, she encourages the parents to develop their relationship with the child and discusses the best ways to properly educate and nurture the child.
Here, the writer explains five key areas where the parents should focus to maximize the teaching relationship with the child and to help them develop a love for learning. The curriculum primarily focuses on language arts and reading.
Barbara suggests to start the pre-schooling process with language development and then gradually introducing phonetic sound with narrative-style instructions. She has explained how to easily teach the children the concept of letters and numbers by blending phonetic sounds into words and playing games using magnetic letters.
These methods are also equally helpful for children with learning difficulties. One of Barbara’s daughters has learning difficulties and these methods have proven to be effective for her as well.
Brain Quest
Brain Quest is one of the best preschool homeschool curriculums with tons of fun and enjoyable activities. They have sold around 45 million copies till now and both the parents and the children absolutely love them.
Brain quest contains a fast-paced question and answer games that will encourage the children towards problem-solving. The books are loaded with curriculum-based activities to jump-start the educational journey of the children.
The books include tons of exercises, games, and challenges that will make the learning experience very enjoyable for the preschoolers. All the books come in bright colors which will automatically make the children fall in love with the curriculum.
The contents included in the curriculums of the Brain Quest are equal to national standard and these are overseen by the Brain Quest Advisory Board who are all very professional and specialized educators.
Mother Goose Time
If you’re looking for a great curriculum with the right balance of extracurricular activities and educational material then the Mother Goose Time is the right curriculum for your preschooler. They offer a proper mixture of activities that will build up an educational background for the pre-schooling children.
With Mother Goose Time, every month you’ll receive an exclusive set loaded with learning materials that support hands-on learning. The curriculum includes literacy tools, math tools, music and movement, social tools, science tools, and art supplies.
Each of the materials is specifically designed by experienced teachers to flourish the mental and physical growth of the preschoolers. The literacy tools help to enhance eye-hand coordination along with fine motor skills on the children.
It includes vocabulary cards that help to develop the vocabulary of the kids through fun and games. Also, the colorful manipulatives make math lessons super fun and engaging.
My Father’s World
My Father’s World has an amazing preschool homeschool curriculum called all aboard the animal train. It’s a yearlong activity for your preschooler with very simple yet fun activities that will give a jump start to the learning process of your child.
This curriculum is very simple to learn and teach. It comes with a total of 36 weeks of lessons and activities and you can start around any time of year. The activities require almost no preparation and the preschoolers will learn about 12 animals through creative play, fingerplays, colorful animal cookie cutter, and songs.
The curriculum is full of colorful books about the animals and educational curriculum with biblical values and character development. The 36-weeks curriculums are divided into three parts of 12-weeks each. The units focus on character build-up, colors, and animals.
Children will be getting four different activities each day. Clean up and together time, storytime which will be covered by the books provided with the package, surprise time which is five semi-independent activities made using the resources from the package and outside time which is basically playing outside for better health and motor development.
Opening the World of Learning at Home
Opening the World of Learning at Home is a preschool learning program by Pearson. Instead of a yearlong program, if you’re looking for something with less duration then do give this one a try as the lessons in this curriculum are for 12-weeks and it’s more like a summer program.
It comes with 23 children’s books along with an audio CD of Sing along Songs and Poems. These songs and poems will enhance the auditory senses of the children and help to increase the vocabulary as well.
This curriculum introduces basic academic skills as well as interpersonal and social skills. There are many hands-on activities, books with poems, and rhymes that offer a multisensory learning program.
Learning Wrap-Ups for Pre-K
Learning Wrap-Ups was invented by Marion Stuart, a 4th-grade teacher who found an easy and convenient way to teach the children the basics of mathematics. The methods invented by her are super effective and these are widely used by hundreds and thousands of students all around the world.
This is basically a math curriculum that develops a sense of numbers and fact mystery among the preschoolers. This curriculum is super fun, hands-on, and self-correcting. Parents should heavily encourage children to solve their own math problem using a simple and fun method so that they grow a love for mathematics from a very early age. Along with math, they also offer grammar, vocabulary, and rhymes to prepare the children as much as possible for their future educational journey. The learning Wrap is a complete curriculum that will prepare the children for their future educational endeavors.
How to Conduct Successful and Stress-free Homeschooling?
It is very crucial to create an environment of pleasure, not pressure. To be successful in preschooling, you must keep things pleasant and stress-free. The following tips will guide you to success in preschooling and homeschooling.
One mistake homeschooling parents tend to make is to include every subject in the curriculum. Preschoolers are just at the beginning of an educational journey so including tons of materials in their curriculum will scare them off and make them demotivated about learning.
Parents should carefully include only basic things and make the curriculum fun enough. It will inspire the children to learn and know more. You may start the day by reading some religious stories to the kids and then move to the academics. Try to build up good character in your child from an early age so that they carry on.
Preschool is a very important time as the children are gradually getting to know about their surroundings. We should give them enough opportunities to grow with proper care. Parents should give time to play and explore the world around them and at this age. They’ll mostly learn better through games and fun rather than formal lessons.
As the children are very young during preschool, they should enjoy without much pressure to follow a rigorous routine. Parents should definitely follow a structured way to teach the kids. However, they shouldn’t pressurize at such a tender age.
Best Online Homeschooling Programs are here.
FAQs
What is the right age for the children to start preschool?
Ans: Children aged between 3 to 5 years are suitable enough to start their preschool education.
What subjects should I include in the preschool curriculum?
Ans: The preschool curriculum should be simple and most games. The curriculum should be designed in a way where children can learn basic numeric digits, alphabets, rhymes, etc. through play-based lessons. Along with educational values, parents should also focus on building their relationship with the children and develop their moral values. It helps them grow up to be good human beings.
Which lessons are helpful for the motor development of the children?
Ans: Parents should encourage children to hold pens, jump, run and other games. Such games require some muscle movement to generate healthy growth in them and enhance their motor developments.
Best coloring books for creative children are available here.
Wrapping Up
All parents want to find the best possible education for their children. Finding the right curriculum is quite daunting for new homeschooling parents. Homeschooling in preschool is an extremely great start for a preschooler as it prepares for future homeschool journeys.
This time is the perfect opportunity for the parents to build a rapport with their children. It will immensely help them with not only their education but also help to build good character in them. Children are very vulnerable so it’s the duty of the parents to introduce a great curriculum. This is to educate them and pave their path for being a better human being.
In this article, we have tried to provide you with as much information as possible about the preschool homeschool curriculums. We hope that you can find the best one for your little sunshine. It’s the duty of every parent to provide their children with quality education with proper upbringings.