I am working on some resource materials to help you with homeschooling your preschooler if you aren’t able to find a suitable preschool in your area, or one is unaffordable.

The biggest thing that gets in the way is time. You have to be intentional, and you must dedicate between 3 and 4 hours, 2 to 3 times a week to running a quality preschool in your home.

You will need a basic daily schedule. Activity times will vary depending on how engaged the child is in the activity. For example, if they are working diligently at their lesson pages, or seat time, and you figured 15 min., but they aren’t done and they want to continue, let them keep going for 5 or 10 min. and adjust the next activity. You can usually decrease the next 2 play sessions by 5 min. to make up for it.

Select learning toys from among the thousands of toys the child has and set them aside for preschool days. Offer these during class, explaining that these are special toys for preschool. They should have an area where these toys are played with that is different than the regular daily mass of toys. Too many toys offers too much stimulation and children often don’t engage because they don’t know what to select. Reducing the number of things to choose from helps them actually find something they wouldn’t normally play with. Remember, to a child, work is play. We may see it as unproductive, but they are learning all the time.

Other learning toys that they love are wood blocks, large legos, magnetic structure blocks, puzzles, and matching type manipulatives.

It is also helpful, if you can, to organize the regular toys in their room and put some away where they can’t play with them. This way you can rotate them every couple weeks or so. You will know when it’s time to switch things up because they will be bored and not engaged in the play. As a rule of thumb, I try to provide one kind of truck and car or train toy at a time. One kind of doll house or doll set, and reduce the amount of play dishes and food so they can be put away easily by the children. This is a big part of their math skills is to sort, organize and place things back where they came from.

Find some really good picture books. Board picture books are great for little ones because you don’t have to worry as much about them tearing the pages. Have a selection, perhaps 20, available that they can look at on their own and select 3 each day for you to read to them at story time. Allow them to pick which one of the 3 to read first. If time permits, read all three as the child picks them in order. You may find that during free time, they will choose a book to read over dolls or trucks.

Set a side time for a simple snack. My rule of thum is one veggie, one fruit and one type of grain and either juice or milk, or just water. I like to put the drink in a small (cup size) plastic pitcher and let them pour 1/2 cup into their cup. They like this activity, so it encourages them to drink. They may spill at first, just whipe it up and let them try again. Pretty soon they will have mastered this art. They also may find this so much fun they won’t eat much. This is when you can offer a pouring activity later during free play. (outside might be good for this.). The snack doesn’t have to be much. It’s not a meal, it’s a snack. Be prepared to throw it away or put it way for later. Most kids this age are fussy and they won’t eat much at snack time, especially at first. Don’t force them to eat, rather encourage them to eat with “bribes” – “When you finish all your fruit, you can have more crackers.” or whatever it is they like. If they choose not to eat it, they choose not to have the second helping of cracker of whatever it is. I also try to stay away from sweet foods that contain high fructose corn syrup, cookies, candy and such at snack time.

Another way to help with getting them to eat nutritious food is to have an activity where they help make it. Measure the stuff out ahead of time and let them dump it into the pot or the bowl and stir. That alone will go along way. They can also help put the plates on the table or put the food on the table.

Out door playtime is a must. Even in winter and rainy days. They love the outdoors. During not so great weather, 10 or 15 min. is enough. When it’s nice, you can push this to 20 or 30 min. Early childhood “best practices” suggests an hour a day of non interrupted free play, and the same for outside. But, that’s a lot of time for a child to play during a homeschool setting, unless you have a child that is self motivated. If you choose to implement this, I would suggest the first hour of the day be free play indoors, and the hour just before lunch be outside. Beginning the day at 8, for the free play so you have time for the rest of the activities would work well. Extending the day another hour might not work if your child is still a nap taker. I like to do story time after lunch so they have an activity that will settle them down.

Circle Time is when you begin the actual lessons of the day and introduce what letter, number of other activity you will be doing. Children love circle time. Some preschools do a calendar, and the weather. These are not necessary, but the kids love them. I use a white board calendar that I can erase the numbers on and write new number for the next month. You can actually use permanent markers on these and wipe them off with “magic eraser” sponges, or you can buy specially designed crayons for white boards. That’s what I use. I say, “Today is… Tuesday, September 24.” Then I let the child move a magnet to the day (I use a smiley face). I have the child repeat the day. Then they get to put an X on the day before because that day is over, or in the past. Then we move onto the weather. Is if Sunny, Rainy, Cloudy, Snowing, Windy? They can look outside and come with a weather report. I have some simple symbols of these they can tape on the wall or window or anywhere that indicates that’s the weather for the day. (As I update this page I may put links to these products.) But you can always make your own, or find something at the Dollar Store.

Lesson Plans/Curriculum Choices. This will vary with each home and each child. I use a number of different curriculums that require lesson planning. Not so practical for home school. So I am researching some options that I will share when I find something I feel meets “best practices” for Early Childhood Education. In the meantime, just pick something up from the Dollar Store or Wal-Mart that is for preschool. Pick a letter for the week and introduce it to them. Say the short sound of the letter and have the repeat it. Say simple words that start with that letter (short sound). A – Alligator, Adam, Aardvark, Ant, etc. Some letters are hard to find a short sound for, such as X – Xavier, Xray… but don’t use the words that don’t follow the rule, such as, Giraffe, for the letter G. Gorilla, Gate, Goat, etc., are better choices. Introduction of long vowel sound come much later. And we usually start with just the upper case letter for identification. But if you choose to teach them both at the same time, I like to say there’s a Mommy or Daddy letter and it’s big. We call it an upper case letter, and a baby letter, we call it a lower case letter. Then say, “Let’s all say that.. Upper case… (pointing to the big one) Lower case… (pointing to the little one). Of course if it’s just you and one child you would say, “Let’s say that…).