Pre-K Curriculum Picks for My 3-Year-Old
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If you have a 3-year-old at home rest assured, you do not need a curriculum. A few months ago I would have been rolling my eyes hearing I was sharing curriculum picks for my 3-year-old. Heck, I have a blog post draft on here (that I’m glad I never posted!) talking about our plan not to use a formal curriculum. I don’t really even think of 3 as Pre-K considering there is in fact a whole other year PRE-Kindergarten. But it turns out that around 3, my son became very interested in a bit more formal academics. Go figure. We’re not talking sit down and do worksheets academics (though, not going to lie, as much as I don’t, he does enjoy worksheets sometimes) but we are talking about some academics that give us some structure to our day and teach some of those foundational concepts.
This blog post will cover what we are using this year for a curriculum. This is, of course, subject to change. At this age needs change so rapidly and I want to be ready for that! We will likely start our “school year” in October. I am due in mid-September with our third so I don’t want to start anything new before then. That said, we are already doing our phonics and math materials. For us, especially at this age, learning is really year-round. Since to me “school” always starts the day after Labor Day I am going to kick off then with a space unit from Hands on Kids Activities.
Also, it is important to note we are not doing everything on here every single day. I am not yet sure what our unit studies type time will look like but I envision probably a short activity in the afternoon that includes both older children (art, cooking something, a science project, listening to music, etc). I will probably read them a story fitting with the unit during afternoon snack time. In terms of math, we will not do any formal activities daily unless my son gets into it but I just try to incorporate math into everyday life with the curriculum as a guide. Reading/phonics is the one thing we have done daily for a while now and likely will continue. My son loves it.
Math
I recently discovered the book Preschool Math at Home and it was exactly what I was looking for for a math curriculum. It is hands-on and fun and does not involve writing (this is a big issue with many pre-K math curriculums). My son tends to develop interests quickly, so if he suddenly becomes deeply interested in math like he did with reading last year, I will likely introduce Singapore math as well. But for now, Preschool Math at Home is a perfect resource for us. It is a lot that he is already pretty solid on (the first couple chapters are counting with one-to-one correspondence to ten for example, which he can do well) but also some work for him to grow with (such as subitizing). The person who makes this curriculum also makes elementary curricula. She says a child finishing this is ready for her Kindergarten curriculum (which I’ve heard great things about!). Since my son is only 3 I feel very good about that!
This book focuses only on numbers: counting, subitizing, written numbers, and addition/subtraction. I also want to make sure we are doing a bit of geometry so I will keep that in mind as well. This isn’t something we do formally but I informally introduce shapes, including 3D shapes, in play. My son can tell you what isosceles and equilateral triangles are, for example, because of magnetic tiles.
I also got some skip-counting songs. I am adding them to a creative Tonie for our Toniebox and we will play them occasionally. I am not pushing anything there but just figure why not! He learned the names of the letters of the alphabet from a song on his Toniebox despite me not even realizing that was one of the tracks. I remember learning skip counting songs and still use them as an adult.
We also have some of the Montessori math materials such as the bead stair, but my son has not shown particular interest in that. We will continue to play around with these things and follow his interests though. We also play plenty of board games that reinforce math concepts and talk about math all the time in the kitchen.
Phonics
My son is not in the expected place for phonics at this age. We use All About Reading, which I love. For many Pre-K children, the prereading level is probably the perfect All About Reading level. We are going into the final level this year though. We just started level 4. I am not exactly sure how we will handle level 4. I will likely take it slowly with him and maybe mix in All About Spelling level 1. We have not introduced All About Spelling yet since he does not write. We may do level 1 though with the moveable alphabet since he has a great interest in spelling and has reached the point in reading that he doesn’t need as formal of reading instruction. Other than that we will continue to reinforce concepts through games—we love the Lovevery reading set—and he is an avid reader so I expect he will continue to grow there. My bigger focus is giving him background knowledge and vocabulary- both of which are important for comprehension.
Geography/History/Unit Studies
This past year I did a few unit studies. These included books about the topic, a few crafts, and some activities on the shelf about the topic. We did this for birds, gardening/flowers, and bugs, for example. Though my son enjoyed this, I am following his interests a bit more this year and we are heading on an around-the-world “trip.” I discovered Build Your Library which is a secular, Charlotte Mason-style curriculum. We will use their level 0 as a base and add from there. I was excited to find this as many secular curriculums are quite pricey and not knowing how my children will take to something I don’t want to spend a lot. My son is very interested in different countries so I think this will be perfect. I will say that looking at the curriculum I am a tad overwhelmed. I prefer a slightly more open-and-go style when purchasing curriculums. I tend to DIY a lot of this stuff on my own and as a result when buying I prefer it very clear, but I still think this will be a good base and we will get the hang of it. I am hoping it is easier to keep up with than open-ended units.
Since it is Charlotte Mason it includes lots of books which I love! I will probably add some themed books as well, making sure I have books he can read independently on our shelf.
We have used HOKA (Hands-On Kids Activities) for quite a while now and they have continent units as well we will add to our learning. I think this will make the Build Your Library curriculum feel more doable for me since it has more activities that I just have to print. They offer Montessori printables which will be perfect as activities or shelfwork. We will actually start our “school year” with a space unit from HOKA since I am not ready to start our new curriculum until after the baby is born and we settle.
My plan is to incorporate a lot of cooking into our around-the-world unit. In particular, at least once a month I want to do a full meal inspired by the culture we are learning about. Cooking is a big part of our learning so I think this will be perfect.
Religion
We are Jewish and the resources for religious homeschool studies in the Jewish world are nowhere near as robust as in the Christian world. Homeschooling is not very popular in the Jewish world and by 3 most people I know send their children to preschool. This past year I had lots of goals for incorporating Jewish learning into our homeschool and, to be honest, it didn’t really happen. We learned about a few holidays but it was not to the level I am hoping to have in our homeschool.
I am planning on trying Ani VeAmi this year. It is, I believe, the only Jewish homeschool curriculum. It is Charlotte Mason style which should allow us to do some whole family learning. I am a bit nervous about it being too much to use it alongside our geography learning as I assume we will only have one short period (probably afternoon snack time) to gather the children together for some more family-style learning. I don’t want to feel like we have a huge daily checklist of things to do. We will see though and I know with both curricula I can take what I want and leave what I don’t. At the very least it should have some books for me to read, a few art projects, music for us to listen to, and some discussion topics. I like that it has a character trait of the week as well.
For those who are looking for a Jewish curriculum, I will share some of my thoughts about this curriculum. I have not used it yet, so keep that in mind. That said, I do wish it was not parsha-based. While, yes, I do want to discuss the weekly parsha with my children the reality is a lot of the parshas are not the stories I particularly want to focus on with my preschooler. I wish it was more focused on the big stories (from the whole Tanach, not just Torah) and holidays. We will see how it goes this year, though. I am keeping an open mind and the reality is I need a Jewish curriculum because it just isn’t happening right now for me to create my own. I am super excited though that Koren released a new children’s Parsha reader. We got that one and it is by far my favorite I have seen!
My husband is handling Hebrew instruction for the children. We are also hoping to find some outside help with this at some point as this has been our biggest educational struggle.
