Homeschool Preschool Routine

Hello beautiful people!

I hope you are all doing well despite the craziness that is 2020. 

I wanted to pass a little motivation, fun, and structure to your homeschool preschool routine if you have decided to homeschool your children! 

I know there are many preschools closed at the moment which is frustrating, especially when you’re working from home and you just want a little peace and quiet while you work.

Unfortunately, this post isn’t going to make working easier... but it will help your children feel like they are doing something fun, and you will get the satisfaction of knowing they are still learning, not just sitting in front of the TV!

Background 

Rafael is 3, and while the 2-year-old and Pre-K classes were my favorites when I taught, I also had the most experience in them. So it has been a bit of a learning curve for me to figure out how to teach the transitional class—the 3-year-olds. 

Rafael is very smart; he knows the letters, letter sounds, numbers, and all the animals and their sounds. I could go on bragging, but you get the point. Here’s the thing with Rafael—it’s extremely hard for him to sit still for longer than 15 minutes. 

In creating a homeschool schedule or routine for him, I had to keep in mind the fact that he cannot sit more than 15 minutes at a time. Add to that, he’s barely learning how to use scissors, and he needs to learn how to make lines...he still has a lot to learn. 

When I taught Pre-K, I was teaching my students how to write letters and numbers, their full names, and they were cutting and gluing their own art pieces by themselves. So 3 is foreign to me. However, I still have my education. 

All children, even older children (elementary) have a hard time sitting for a long period of time. I will never forget the first preschool I did my student teaching at. The children were not sitting at desks and learning to write or sight read. They were having hands on experiences with opportunities to write, read, play and play music all around them. That’s where I get my ideas from. Of course, typical preschools now are not like that. But that’s the beauty of homeschooling—you can teach what you want, when you want, and for however long you want. 

I also believe in student-led teaching. Each child has a different learning style and a different pace at which they learn. Learn the interests of your children before even lesson planning so they can enjoy their school. To them, it won’t be school anymore—just fun learning experiences! And that’s the goal.

Lesson Planning

Lesson Planning is pretty important. For one, it gets you prepared for the week ahead, you can prep whatever activities, buy the materials you need, and print out anything you need. Secondly, it will be was less stressful than trying to get things last minute and your kids being antsy waiting for the activity (trust me, I know!).

I love this lesson plan book, but I got it a few years ago and unfortunately can't find it anywhere else. So here is another lesson plan book that is similar, maybe even better than mine. It has timed slots!

As you can see, I group it into what I'm going to do daily in each aspect.

Our Schedule/Routine

10:00-“Free” play (I choose what toy they play with. Does not have to be a “learning toy,” just anything they enjoy and have some time to play with)

10:30-Clean up and circle time

10:45-Manipulative play (while I set up the activity)

11:15-Learning activity 

11:30-Outside time and snack

12:00-“Free” play again (different or same toy—your choice)

12:30-Lunch OR gross motor/fine motor activity

Subjects

The aspects you want to include in your day are these things:

Music 

Bible 

The Pledge of Allegiance

Circle Time (I’ll give more detail on that below)

Fine Motor Skills

Gross Motor skills

Manipulative Play

Sensory Play (with any texture: sand, dirt, shaving cream, jello, mud, water, etc)

I know it sounds like a lot. But these are very important developmental factors in early childhood. The actual subjects—literacy, math, science, art, and PE—can be done once a week during the learning activity part of the day. 

The key to this is lesson planning. You can do your whole lesson based off of a theme, holiday, season, or even a concept. 

For example, you could do apples, the lifecycle of a butterfly, fall, or Christmas. 

Circle Time

The key to circle time is having the children sit or stand in a certain spot every time. They know it’s their spot. I use throw pillows on the carpet and my kids know it’s time to sit down on the pillows and listen (not for long, but they do get the concept! That’s what you want—for them to learn structure.)

We do all these aspects in circle time, in this order:

-The pledge of allegiance to the flag

-The pledge of allegiance to the Bible 

-We read a bible story and do our monthly bible verse

-Calendar & Weather (I found these great weather cards here-->Preschool Weather Cards. I have a calendar that I used when I taught. I tried it with my kiddos and they didn't understand it, and they tried to take it off the board so I decided to wait a year to introduce it again, when they are 2 and 4.)

-We talk about the theme or concept that we’re learning about (I usually have a sign or paper that has graphics and words; ie. the 5 senses, parts of an apple, etc).

-Music time (each day is different: guitar, just singing, singing and dancing, playing with instruments)

That’s it! I do that all in 15 minutes. If the kids seem to not be interested I move onto the next thing. You have to be engaging and act very excited to learn about everything so that they will also.

Tips

We have a schedule that does not always stay on track, but the routine is what counts. Not only that, but there are some days when I’m not feeling it, Rafael’s not feeling it, or we’re just too busy to do school. That’s okay! You can have a day where you go on a field trip, or just a reading books day. Or an all day outside play day!

Another great thing is if you are home all day, you don’t have to do all those aspects from 9am-12pm. You can break it up so that all day your child is doing something. 

You can use baking or cooking for math and science, you can use your backyard for sensory play (gardening, sand, dirt, water). There are so many activities and opportunities for your children to learn through their environment, you just have to facilitate it and show them what’s around them so they can learn! 

Pinterest is a great resource for activities. Teacherspayteachers.com, and a few other websites are great as well. 

I hope that this gives you guys a bit of hope, fun and something to do during this quarantine. I know that life is hard right now but we can get through it. Our children are the most important right now. They need to know that they are still loved and that everything will get better. As parents, that is our main job, our top priority. Life lessons > academics.

Until next time!

-Audriana

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Sources:

https://www.amazon.com/Daily-Plan-Book-Preschool-2nd/dp/1338064584/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=preschool+lesson+plan+book&qid=1599002423&sr=8-3

https://www.staples.com/Carson-Dellosa-Morning-Meeting-Solution-Bulletin-Board-Set-Grade-K/product_817144

https://easypeasylearners.com/weather-flash-cards/

https://www.primarythemepark.com/