Teaching preschool to my four year old has been such a rewarding experience. The amount of growth that happens between 4 years and 5 years is incredible, and to be able to witness that in our homeschool has been such a privilege and joy.
I’ll admit I was terrified at the beginning. This was my first year to homeschool preschool because my oldest daughter completed pre-k at a school while I was still teaching.
We were basically starting from scratch. When my second daughter was three, we briefly practiced letters, but they didn’t stick. She knew how to write her name and could recognize the letters in it, and that’s about it. I knew the alphabet would need to be a focus of ours, so that was my goal. I would teach her to recognize her letters, write them, and learn their sounds.
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My daughter’s personality is not the type to sit at the table for a long period of time to complete something.
As a result, I didn’t want to buy a ton of workbooks. I planned to encourage a lot of play – imaginative and learning based. I also wanted to go at her pace while still challenging her to put an effort into completing a little something on paper each day.
In this post, I’ll be explaining what we started with at the beginning of our preschool (4 years) and how it changed throughout our homeschool year.
We started with Learning Without Tears for writing.
I felt like this was a great choice for us because it starts off very easy with the first book. The workbook is called My First School Book.
There are no lines or boxes to stay in. It’s simple tracing of a shaded letter. The book begins with color review and then introduces one letter at a time. The letters are not introduced in ABC order. The book also introduces writing numbers. I did not purchase any teachers guide or any of the extra supplies, and we completed one page per day.
Since the lessons were so short, this was the perfect way to start challenging my daughter to complete something in a workbook. It took very little time and she felt successful and confident.
I wish I would’ve bought the set that comes with My First School Book plus My First Lowercase Book.
It’s only a couple dollars more, and you can not buy that specific lowercase book separately. So, when we finished My First School Book we had to move on to the workbook called Kick Start Kindergarten.
The Kick Start Kindergarten workbook begins with capital letters. This time the letters must be written inside of a shaded box. This made me nervous at first, because I thought it would be frustrating for my daughter. However, once we practiced a few times, she understood.
Once the capital letters are reviewed, the book moves into writing lowercase letters. These are learned on the two lines that the Learning Without Tears program is known for.
I enjoy that the lessons are short and so does my active daughter. I also like how the lessons in the workbook include pictures and words that start with the letter practiced. This allows me to introduce and practice letter sounds as we learn to write them.
I haven’t decided if I’ll continue with Learning Without Tears for Kindergarten next year. I love their program starting out, but I am definitely a fan of the old fashioned three lines. I’ll always do what’s best for my daughter, so I’ll need to test that style out with her first. I’m also not a fan of the Learning Without Tears cursive style, which I know is a few years from now, but I still like to think ahead as we start the handwriting process.
I purchased one other workbook from Singapore Math for our preschool year.
The book is actually called Essential Math Kindergarten and there are two books in the set. I was able to purchase Book A on its own from our local homeschool store. I’m glad I only bought the first one, because we did not make it very far into this book before stopping.
Although the book states “kindergarten”, it’s actually perfect for Pre-K4. It starts off very simple and moves slowly. I bought it because it came highly recommended by an experienced homeschool mom. She had used it for multiple children at age 4 and loved it. We did not feel the same in our house.
To be frank, the book is boring.
There is no color on the page. My daughter never wanted to sit and color the pictures. Some days it took us 4 seconds to complete a page, and I felt like saying…”That’s it?”
At the bottom of each workbook page, there are activities that you can do with your child to help practice the concept, but we never really looked at that.
I just felt like the book was a waste of time. The focus was on early math skills: shapes, counting, patterns…We can experience so much more learning with a bucket of play dough or a puzzle and have a lot more fun! We made it about half way through Book A and stopped. At this point, I knew I wanted a new plan for practicing math skills consistently.
My goal for the preschool year was to teach the alphabet and the letter sounds.
I’ll be honest, after a couple months into the year, it was not going well. The handwriting pages gave us some review, but I was having a hard time being consistent. My daughter needed repetition and I wasn’t finding it anywhere. Scratch that – I always got lost in the internet world trying to find the perfect solution.
At this point in our year, I knew what I needed: daily, consistent alphabet practice + preschool early math skills.
Enter the Alphabet Workbook…
This is the curriculum that changed our school days. The Alphabet Workbook allowed us to practice the math skills we needed (shapes, numbers, counting, etc…) while also learning the letters each day of the week.
It’s set up to be engaging, fun, and consistent. It’s the perfect resource for learning a letter per week. Every letter has four completely different pages of activities to practice recognizing, tracing, and writing. Coloring, dice games, graphing, cutting, ten frames, dot markers…this is just a glimpse into the variety!
The activities are fun for my daughter and flexible for her learning style.
It can all be completed at my daughter’s pace. If she seems really focused and eager to work, I can encourage her to complete the “challenge” listed at the bottom of many of the pages.
If she’s having a rough day and not willing to focus as much, we can take it slow and complete as much as we can on the page.
When we started using the Alphabet Workbook, my daughter was finally able to recognize and remember her letters.
When our year started, she only knew the letters of her name (most days). Once we had more consistency by using the Alphabet Workbook, my daughter was finally remembering her letters! It was such a relief! She was even recalling the letter sounds thanks to the pictures and words included in the workbook.
We are almost finished with the workbook at the time I write this. Now that it is in our routine, she is even starting to do many pages independently. She recognizes the patterns of the pages and completes some on her own. It’s been amazing and such a joy to watch her grow and mature like this during the year.
The confidence I gained from her success and the consistency of the workbook gave me so much peace in planning our homeschool.
Many people tell you that when you homeschool preschool all you need is PLAY. Ok…I support this thought. Play is so important for young children and we do a lot of it at our house, but hear me out…
As the mother (and teacher!) of my children, I do tend to question if I am doing enough. Maybe you’ve experienced those same feelings.
This is why I love the Alphabet Workbook so much. It is not rigorous. It is fun! It’s engaging and playful and colorful and easy to complete. It helps my brain and my sanity to know that she has completed something. I do a lot less questioning of myself knowing she has done this one small task.
The fact that it actually works helps too!
So, as a recap the only books I am using solely for my preschooler now are Learning Without Tears Kick Start to Kindergarten and the Alphabet Workbook.
Now that she knows her alphabet and sounds, she has shown an interest in reading!
We purchased ABC, See, Hear, Do and it’s absolutely wonderful! The book is set up to learn the sound of a letter along with a physical action. It’s colorful, adorable, and easy to follow!. The day we got it, she read her first word within minutes. I was shocked! Completing the book means reading 55 words – such a fun accomplishment for a little one!
Once she starting blending sounds together, I knew she was ready to start reading a little more. Honestly, I don’t think I was ready…. (ha!) So, we are going the slow route. I purchased the first set of the Bob Books to start reading with her. We do this VERY slowly. I help her get through a book and we read it over and over throughout the week. She is gaining confidence but also practicing reading skills.
I am not expecting her to learn to read this year, but she shows a ton of interest and is ready to start so we are having fun with it. I try to have her read with me a few times a week. Since she is still so young I do not push it. If she starts to complain, I simply say, “Let’s try this again a different day!”
Everything else that we complete in our school day involves all of my children.
I’ll explain these briefly if you are interested, but I won’t go into too much detail as I only expect my preschooler to really “tag along” for these things.
We are in a Classical Conversations Community.
We attend Community Day once a week for half a day. Each day of the week we spend about 20-30 minutes practicing memory work that covers Math, Science, History, Latin, English, Geography, and the Timeline. We do a lot of singing for this. At age 4, it’s laid back and fun.
You can read more about how we add it to our day HERE. If you are considering joining Classical Conversations and have some questions, check out THIS post.
We love reading novels together and enjoyed completing The Read Aloud Experience this year.
Sitting together with my children and reading a good book is my favorite thing to do. I love it even more when we can do simple activities that relate to that book, even if it’s a small discussion, simple craft, or a recipe to follow!
The Read Aloud Experience is a fully planned, FREE novel unit that provides all of the activities that go along with the story. We had so much fun doing these units and it gave us something to look forward to each day! We read The Secret Garden and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.
The Secret Garden is absolutely wonderful if you have older children as well. Mrs. Piggle Wiggle is hysterical and fun for all ages! Check out the FREE Read Aloud Experience for each book: The Secret Garden and Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.
Our family devotional allowed us to add a little extra science into our day.
I chose “Indescribable: 100 Devotions About God and Science” for our daily devotion. At the beginning of the year (before I had a baby and before Classical Conversations began) I used our library to gather books related to the science topic in the devotional. It was so fun and such an easy way to add science lessons in at this age.
This devotional is great! It is easy to read and interesting to both my children and me. Every devotion has a scripture verse, a biblical lesson, and a science lesson that relates. With a little planning ahead and a library card, I was easily able to add science into our week.
Some of the other devotionals we completed and enjoyed were seasonal. These included Truth in the Tinsel at Christmas and Resurrection Eggs for Easter.
The last thing I want to share is the digital resources that have been the most helpful for us this year.
These were specifically created for my four year old to help us practice what we are learning. You can see all of these preschool resources in my shop. Be sure to go ahead download the free ones: Early Addition Math Mat and Capital Letters: Trace and Find.
Our favorite resource that we use every week alongside the Alphabet Workbook is the Alphabet Play Dough Mats. It’s so much more than just making a letter out of play dough. These mats allow my daughter to write, trace, and find the letter in a group. Now, there’s even a set of Lowercase Play Dough Mats that we plan to use for Kindergarten!
Many of the things we complete in our homeschool day involve our whole family.
I love that so much about homeschool. We read together, play together, and learn together. Our big success this year was learning our letters and their sounds. We are excited to take these skills into our Kindergarten year! I can’t believe how fast the time is going with these little ones – cherish every moment!
Have you used any of the curricula mentioned above? Tell me about it in the comments. Or, share something you love for preschool!
