Teaching Preschool Without a Curriculum

Preschool is so much fun. At the heart of a great preschool program is play and exploration. Movement, unstructured time, and socialization are so important for the health and development of your preschooler! Reading great books together and spending time in nature are also a vital component at this age. Homeschooling your preschooler is a great way to accomplish all of this and more. And the best part is you don't even need a curriculum to do any of this. I will show you how you can utilize items that are already in your home and community that can provide a free or cheap enriching preschool experience for your child. If you don't have time to read the whole article the components of this hands on preschool approach are:

1.Sensory bins

2.Techniques for learning letters and learning to write

3. Preschool Math

4. Arts and crafts

5. Science and Social studies

6. Socialization

7. The Importance of nature

8. The importance of games

9. Field Trip ideas

Using Sensory Bins to teach letters and Numbers

We set up the school year to be 26 weeks long. Each week we learned a letter. I had bins for each day of the week (we did a co-op one day of the week so we only do 4 days at home). i bought small wooden letters from the dollar store. I would hide his wooden letter every day in a sensory bin. I would also fill the sensory bins with a variety of items. I got lots of little toys from the dollar store for counting. Then I will fill the bin with things like rainbow rice, orbies, sand, snow, water, corn, or beans. Westin would have to find his letter and tell me how many items were in his bin. We would also talk about what color they were. After he was done counting and finding his letter he could play with his bin. Sensory bins are a great way to learn with movement. My son was often in his pajamas in his sensory bin pictures because he would ask to do them as soon as he got up.

Finding his letter of the week in his sensory bin

He would pull out the animals from the sensory bin and match them with the correct number

Counting how many trucks are in the bin

Finding his letter in the bin.

Freezing his counting dinosaurs

Learning letters and writing

After the sensory bin activity we would talk about the letter of the week I hung on the counter. Along with the letter I would lay out books I had checked out from the library that started with the letter of the week and I would also have with items we already had in the house that matched the letter. The letter was a road and he would trace the letter with his cars. I also bought 2 letter books for the dollar store. He would work in them 2 days of the week and the other 2 days he would do prewriting activities that I printed off from teachers pay teachers or Pinterest. We would read the letter of the week books and he would work on his writing. Sometimes we would also do themed activities like eating ice cream on I week. We also had a great book that we read a lot to review the letters. The letters were indented and were meant for him trace with his fingers. In addition he worked on puzzles almost every day. Puzzles are great pre reading activity.

Letter of the week

Puzzle time

Tracing his letter for the week

Letter book from the dollar store

Daily puzzle time

E themed activity

His letter book was meant to be traced with his fingers

Learning numbers and shapes

Preschool math involves counting, shapes, comparing numbers, and colors. Westin worked on counting with his sensory bins everyday but he also had other math activities. We worked on naming shapes and colors with different toys and through reading books. Another great preschool activity is learning bigger and smaller we practiced that a lot too. We had several number identification games and activities. We used Skip-Bo cards and he had to clip clothes pins on the card to match the number. We also pretended pom poms were ice cream and he had to match the right number of pom poms on the ice cream cone. We also had number puzzles that he enjoyed working with.

Working on shapes

Number identification activity

Number puzzle activity

Ice cream cone counting activity

Clip the right amount of clothes pin on the card

Learning to draw shapes

Shapes and colors

Which train is bigger activity

Arts and Crafts

Important skills that preschoolers need to learn are cutting and pasting. Coloring and painting. The dollar store is a wonderful help for this. They sell premade items for painting and we also did some themed crafts during the holidays. Playdough is a great easy activity that can keep your preschooler engaged while you work on other things. Keep the crafts simple. The time you spend playing and preparing is time away from your kids and they don't need perfect activities they need you. Often story time at the library will have crafts too. We try to attend as many musicals and plays as we can each year. We often attend a showing of the nutcracker at Christmas and have also enjoyed our civic theater and orchestra performances geared for kids.

Fall craft

Painting project

Book themed craft

working on cutting

The Nutcracker

Science and Social Studies

Since Westin is my youngest he just learns what my older kids are learning because I teach these subjects to everyone. But I do tailor science activities to Westin. We keep it easy. The science activities revolve around the seasons. In the fall we visit an apple orchard and talk about the seeds and how fruit grows. We visit farms and talk about animals. We talk about animals hibernating and migrating in the fall and winter. We talk about growing plants in the spring. I had Westin make a poster for each season doing activities from the season.

Visiting a farm

Making his seasons poster

Learning about seeds, roots, and stems

Visiting a pumpkin patch

Apple orchard

This kids LOVES the titanic

Learning about world war 1 along with his siblings

Socialization

I am 100% not worried about this at all. My kids see so many friends through out the week. They have plenty of time to be with people outside our house. As a preschooler Westin did soccer in the fall along with an AWANA group. We were regulars at our library's story time and we did once a month free play and learn groups. In the winter he did a sports class at the YMCA and the spring all the kids did a homeschool track and field day. Play dates are a commonly found in our weekly schedule. We also took part in several field trips through and Facebook homeschoolers field trip group. All 3 of my kids take a Spanish emersion class once a week for 3 hours. This gives me time to myself each week and they get to learn a new skill. Not all of these things will work for you but there are plenty of opportunities out there to make friends.

AWANA friends

Homeschool track and field day

Sports sampler class at the YMCA

Playdates

We love to throw parties

Soccer

Story time at the library

Field Trip Facebook group

Play and learn group

Once a week Spanish class

Spend time outside everyday

Healthy people spend time outside everyday. The learning opportunities are endless when it comes to spending time in nature. Make it part of your todo list. Get good gear. Let this be apart of what you make a priority.

It's always good to have a friend with an outside pool

Snowshoeing at a nature center

Free play in the woods with friends

Invest in good winter gear

Teach them when they are young to enjoy hikes.

learn new skills outside

nature's playground

Let them get muddy

Play games together

Games are such a wonderful teaching tool. Kids learn how to take turns and share and wait. Games can also help with reading, math, geography, and logic. There is even a philosophy on teaching called gameschooling. You can find cheap games at garage sales and thrift stores.

Go on Field Trips

Take your preschool out as often as possible. Take them to museums and to meet all different kinds or people and activities. Let them see what kind of jobs people can have. Take them to see community helpers. Kids can learn so much from being out in the real world. If money is tight there it doesn't have to restrict you. Nature centers are another great place for field trips. There are still so many things you can do for free in your community.