Blogging from A to Z - Essentials for Preschool

This is my sixth time going through preschool with my kiddos! It's so hard to believe Zeke will be 4 late this fall. We are doing a very gentle preschool with him this year using The Gentle + Classical Preschool curriculum. I've been going through all of our preschool books, resources, and supplies trying to pare down to what we will use and need the next two years. (I plan to do another preschool year next year, as his birthday is the end of November.)

One thing I know for certain - you don't have to have a preschool curriculum to homeschool preschool. I have done it several times without any written curriculum! However, the season of life I'm in now (homeschooling a 7th and 5th grader and having a newborn in September/October) calls for something already planned out for me. I chose The Gentle + Classical Preschool for many reasons - wonderful book lists, handicraft and activity guide, art and music scheduled in, memorization work, and short lessons are just a few. If you're looking for a preschool curriculum, a few that I've tried or read many good things about are:

• Before Five in a Row and More Before Five in a Row - both of these programs are amazing! You will read so many good books. The guides provide plenty of discussion and jumping off points, and I always added extra worksheets and activities.
• ABC Jesus Loves Me - this is a free curriculum for ages 2, 3, 4, and 5 year olds, but you can also purchase a printed version for pretty cheap! I used this with Silas (my now 12 year old) when he was 3 and 4 years old. 
• My Father's World Voyage of Discovery - we have never used this program, but it looks fantastic. It's a bit more expensive, but you do receive lots of educational toys! We use My Father's World for Kindergarten and it's just terrific. I have no doubt this would be great!
• The Peaceful Preschool - I didn't finish using this, but it's a wonderful and gentle preschool program for moms who don't want a lot of worksheets. There are plenty of book suggestions, life skills, and fine motor work scheduled it.
• Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven - this is a really gentle Bible based curriculum for ages 2-5; tons of games and hands on activities; few worksheets

There are so many more options to choose from! I don't consider a curriculum essential, so I'm going to move on with my list of Essentials for Preschool.

Well-Stocked Art Cabinet

This probably tops my list for any elementary grade level! Having a well-stocked art cabinet will be so handy for homeschooling preschoolers. It's so easy to complete fun projects and hands-on activities when you already have everything you need right there. I keep two tall plastic drawer systems and one smaller one in our laundry room stocked full of supplies. It's not beautiful in the least, but it's tucked out of the way (nobody ever goes in my laundry room you know!) and easily accessible by me and the children. Here are some of the things I keep a supply of year-round:

• paper plates
• paper bags
• stickers of all kids
• dot stickers in all colors
• ribbon, yarn, and string
• craft sticks in all sizes and colors
• pom poms in multiple sizes and colors
• clothespins
• pipe cleaners in all colors
• wooden dowels and skewers
• construction paper, cardstock, and printer paper
• foam and felt sheets
• googly eyes
• beads and buttons in many colors and sizes
• paper brads
• masking tape and scotch tape
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• dot markers
• markers, crayons, colored pencils
• modeling clay and playdough
• paint and paintbrushes
• 
  
  
• It looks a little messy, but I promise everything is organized!

Puzzles

Puzzles are so fun and versatile - here is a post I wrote recently on the types of puzzles Zeke has worked from ages 1 to 3. Puzzles are great for critical thinking skills, problem solving, fine motor, and focus. We have puzzles that help Zeke learn his shapes, colors, numbers and counting, upper and lowercase numbers, animal names, and more. I like to keep a nice supply of puzzles that we can pull out when Zeke is bored or needs a little bit of quiet time. He works them on his own and sometimes I will sit with him, naming letters or counting objects. 

Zeke loves these 24 piece wooden puzzles from Melissa and Doug.

These two piece puzzles are great for teaching how to do jigsaw puzzles.

Lots of Books

We have so many bookshelves in our homeschool/playroom! Zeke has one shelf just dedicated to his special books, but we also have many other picture books on another shelf. Books are such a great way to teach preschoolers! Zeke has lots of favorites that we read and reread. He has already learned beginning narration skills just from being read aloud to daily. He has learned animal names, letters, numbers, and so many vocabulary words from books. I like to keep plenty of classic books and high quality picture books, but we also have our share of 'twaddle' books - silly books, cheap books, and character books. If you're not sure about which books to stock your library with, there are lots of great lists online! Check your library, too. We have checked out many books that I purchased afterwards because they were so great.

This shelf is dedicated to board books, Before Five in a Row, More Before Five in a Row, and Five in a Row picture books, and some of our other favorite picture books.

Pattern Blocks and Cards

Pattern blocks are a great math tool for elementary children. They are so much fun to play with - I remember being a kid in public school when the teacher pulled out the pattern blocks for us to use! It was so exciting and I always wanted a set at home. Pattern blocks were one of the first homeschool resources I ever purchased! You can do so many things with them - colors, shapes, patterns, building pictures, counting... I printed off and laminated these free alphabet pattern block cards. I had a copy with my older kids but misplaced them over the years. You can also purchase pattern block cards with pictures, numbers, and more!

We love using these cards from Tara West on TPT.

Blocks

We have wooden blocks, Legos, Duplos, Magnatiles, and linking cubes. All of these blocks are great and can be used for so many things. Wooden blocks are perfect for imaginative play and fine motor skills (building tall towers). Legos and Duplos are also great for fine motor skills (snapping those little blocks together and pulling them apart!). Following directions to build is also a critical thinking skill. Zeke can put his sets together, take them apart, and put them back together again without even thinking about it! And linking cubes are great for counting, patterns, color matching, fine motor skills, and other math skills. Keeping a wide variety of blocks is a great idea, but even if you only have one type you'll be able to do many different activities!

We use linking cubes for many things, even building letters!

We stamped wooden blocks into playdough to see the shapes!

Counters

We have lots of counting bears, bugs, and vehicles that work great for so many different activities - sorting by color, sorting by type, patterns, and counting. We also have quite the collection of small plastic animals and dinosaurs that we use for the same activities. It's not necessary to have so many different kinds of counters, but it does keep the activities fresher and newer when you're counting dinosaurs one day, bugs the next, and cars another. It also makes it easy to coordinate with themes if you're doing that. You could always just use dry beans!

These insect counters have been used for so many activities!

We have lots of different small plastic animals, like these dogs.

Flashcards

I don't use flashcards for drill-and-kill activities, but they are really nice to have for hands-on activities. You can lay out alphabet flashcards and have your child put them in alphabetical order, match uppercase to lowercase, or build the letters with blocks or craft sticks or playdough. You can lay out number flashcards and ask your child to place the correct number of counters on each card or put the numbers in order. There are so many games you can play with a really durable set of alphabet and number flashcards!

We use buttons or counting bears for each of the numbers on these simple flashcards from The Peaceful Press.

We use these alphabet matching cards for lots of games!

Fine Motor Tools

Working on fine motor skills is so important, and if you've been reading my blog for long you know that I'm always trying to find new and interesting ways for Zeke to work on these skills. Lacing beads and other items for threading, tweezers and tongs to transferring, and syringes for squeezing are just a few of the items I keep on hand for setting up these activities. You can also use many of the things from your well-stocked art supply for these - pom poms, beads, craft sticks, buttons, and cotton balls are just a few.

These wooden lacing beads are a favorite around here!

Toothpicks and styrofoam blocks make a simple fine motor activity.

Transferring pink water with a syringe!

Of course there are tons of other resources that I don't think are essential for preschool, but are really nice to have on hand. I do think you can homeschool preschool with just this list of essential items, and even less than I've listed! What are your preschool essentials? Is there anything I left off that you would add to this list?

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