Preschool at Home
Want to homeschool your toddler but don't know where to start? I was a preschool teacher for 7 years and have some great suggestions for you. Trust me, this is going to be fun!
Literacy
Focus on teaching through the letters in your child's name first. At this stage, we want to expose our students to phonics and letters constantly.
Building letters is not only essential for identifying them, but it also helps with pre writing skills.
Love love love these audible flash cards. Such a good reinforcement for students learning letters and phonics.
We're not trying to get our preschoolers to spell with this tool, but building words with them and helping them connect letters to meaning.
How should you introduce letters to your child? You should start with their name. Names are the best tools when beginning to teach letters and phonics.
The illustrations on these cards are fabulous. Not to mention the larger size of the flash card itself.
Mathematics
At this stage, we want to teach our students what numbers 1-100 are, but only manipulate numbers 1-10. The main takeaway is that students acknowledge that numerals have meaning and we use them to count.
Great visual for preschoolers to connect numerals to their meaning.
Useful for identifying shapes and colors, but also developing those fine motor skills.
LOVE these beanbag tools. I would use these all the time in my classroom and come up with all sorts of games and songs.
Classic manipulatives for a reason. Students love the bears and they stay engaged during the activity.
Great for identifying a wide variety of shapes and developing spatial awareness skills.
Science
Science for this age is really just introducing topics of curiosity to your child. It should mainly focus on their very familiar environment (human body, nature, observable forces, etc.)
Busy books are fantastic for kinesthetic learners. Age-appropriate and durable, I really like this tool for teaching preschoolers human anatomy.
I would have loved a science set like this as a teacher. Life cycle kits were coveted among the teachers, specifically in our nature unit.
Great earth science kit for a great price! It's hard to find such affordable science kits.
Students really engage with this tool and you can buy/collect more samples for them to look at depending on what you're studying at the time.
Great introductory kit to force and motion that gets students curious about friction and ramps.
Art
Let art be creative and child-led. No product art here, please!
Love brushes like this for process art!
These cups are LIFESAVERS. Do yourself a favor now and get them before you have paint everywhere.
Activity pages to develop those fine motor skills.
Love giving students different texture mediums to work and be creative with.
Reinforce shapes knowledge, develop fine motor skills, and let students create process art. Win-Win-Win.
Materials
Teaching materials you will want to include in your learning space not only for the educational purposes, but also for your sanity.
Visuals, even in the homeschool setting, are vital for reinforcing knowledge.
Very important to have an alphabet chart somewhere visible for your student.
Trust me, you will want to laminate everything not only for the durability during the activities, but also to save your materials for future use.
Everything should be labeled in your child's learning environment with words and pictures. This keeps the learning space organized, but also develops your child's understanding of letter/word meanings.
You'll use these way more than you think and it will preserve activity sheets for future use.