Homeschooling Preschool without a curriculum

homeschoooling preschool without a curriculum

I’m sure anyone reading this is wondering: “Why is that picture the first picture?” “Why did she call this tot school?” I mean it’s just a picture of spilled yogurt and a cheeto. It’s really kind of gross. Not the stuff of great preschool lessons. It led me to realize something though.

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Spilled yogurt showed me homeschooling preschool without curriculum is possible

We made these two spills into a great lesson. We went to our local park to have lunch and play. Within 30 seconds of sitting down and getting out our food, we’d had our first spill. This was followed very soon after by our next few spills and a cheeto falling on the ground. My kids looked at this and commented “Now the birds can drink it.” I asked them why, and they explained the whole thing to me.

“The Mommy birds will bring the baby birds here so they can drink the yogurt and eat the cheeto.”

“We can’t eat the cheeto because it fell on the floor, but the Mommy and Daddy birds can give it to the baby birds.”

So, as a result of what was admittedly a rather annoying spill because he’d spilled most of his yogurt before he’d drank any of it, we got a great discussion about birds and what they can and can’t eat. We also talked about where baby birds come from and what they might do.

All without opening a single book or using a single lesson plan.

We had a lot of fun at the park, and I’m quite glad we went. They have really expanded their play, and now have whole discussions about what they’re doing and why, and there are plotlines. It’s quite fascinating to see. I look forward to seeing where they go from here.

Without a curriculum or a book, I knew my preschool needed:

doing preschool without a curriculum and counting

more pattern work and practicing counting. This is a flannel set for counting it comes with several sets of pictures. It’s great for working on patterns and having your kids add or subtract concrete numbers. I remember loving flannel boards as a kid, and my preschoolers seem to like them too.

putting together a floor puzzle, I inherited several when my niece and nephew got too big for them, then I picked up more at thrift stores.

teaching preschool without a curriculum using nursery rhyme book — sorry, terrible old picture without a bigger size, sadness

Reading and acting out our Nursery Rhyme book (read more about that in our Nursery Rhyme section)

You know what I did do when my kids were in preschool?

We went to the library a lot. We checked out books by the dozens, and went to reading hours.

We made crafts and strengthened that hand grip that is so important in later life.

We snuggled and read books.

I read other blogs to get great ideas for fun activities.

We played outside.

We played outside some more and walked to the park.

You know what I did that I regret?

I bought a preschool curriculum. I very quickly figured out I didn’t need a preschool curriculum to homeschool. I think I used the ideas in it for about a week.

One caveat: If it helps you, get one

There are some homeschool Moms who need/crave/want a curriculum. It helps them, and gives them the structure they want. If that is you, buy the curriculum. Own that curriculum and love it.

You know why I bought that preschool curriculum? A mom I admired used it with her daughter. She was the mom who taught the parenting classes I took that helped me survived three toddlers at once. She had a lot of wisdom, and for her family that curriculum was amazing.

For me it was stifling and not a help.

If you’re doubting buying that preschool curriculum, don’t buy it

Your child will be fine.

They will learn to read.

They will learn to count.

They will get into college or whatever career choice they have.

You are still a good Mom.

Some more preschool fun to keep you going:

I first published this post way back on March 2, 2009, you know when I had preschoolers. I’ve updated it a bit from that (I mean this was back in the dark ages of blogging), and of course since then I’ve had a few more ideas on the matter:

Darius builds roads across Babylon will they hold up to the elephants

I may have updated a lot of my preschool history posts so far, here’s a few literature based ones (be warned the pictures are super bad, but all are homeschooling preschool without a curriculum):

Nature Study for Preschoolers (okay this isn’t literature, but it amused me)
Clifford’s Halloween (process versus product in art)
Chores your preschooler can do (yeah, I’m just gonna say I lied on that literature, they’re all buried)

Yeah, most of my preschool posts are back when I had my pictures on photobucket and now all the pictures are gone (kind of like this post before I fixed it)

How about you? Are you homeschooling preschool without a curriculum?

Comments

TheRockerMom says

March 6, 2009 at 4:19 am

I love the story about the spill! Kids are awesome, aren’t they??

Natalie PlanetSmarty says

February 17, 2018 at 7:45 pm

Wow, this brings back memories! I miss those days <3

- Ticia says
  
  February 25, 2018 at 9:43 pm
  
  Me too! It’s so weird to think my boys will be 13 in a week!
maryanne says

March 8, 2018 at 5:32 pm

It’s amazing what our kids can learn if we only let them.

- Ticia says
  
  March 10, 2018 at 6:01 pm
  
  It really is. They are crazy good at learning once they put their minds to it.