Okay, folks buckle up. The 2020/2021 school year is gonna be a wild ride. Our Homeschool Preschool routine have been laid out and I wanted to share with you all that I hope to get done in each of our lessons.
Another school year has started and I would wager that for most of you its an entirely different kind of year than you hoped it would be. Homeschooling may never have been on your radar before this year and now you find yourself at a loss as to where to even begin.
To Homeschool or not, that is the question on everyone’s mind
Homeschool has kinda always been on the back burner for us. Mr. Mama was homeschooled for most of his childhood and I love the idea and the flexibility that it offers to our family so as long as I can do it and my kids are willing to learn from me that is our plan. At least for preschool. From there I am flexible and waiting to see how things go.
Download my FREE editable homeschool schedule below!
Tot school Graduate
If you have been around my corner of the internet for a while you would know that I used to upload monthly tot school plans. Not quite homeschool so much as being intentional with our time while we were home. Bitty has graduated from that level and starting this September she will be doing some very simple homeschool.
Our preschool routine will be reminiscent of our tot school schedule. We will still be doing plenty of sensory play and arts and crafts just like before. Our learning will just shift from transferring and posting to letters and numbers. We will also be adding in a calender time as she has become more interested in what day it is.
Still Looking for Tot School Plans?!
If you are here for Totschooling plans you could easily take inspiration from us and just substitute activities from some of my previous plans. You can check out some examples HERE and HERE and HERE. Many of the crafts, sensory play, and books are just as good for tots as they are for preschoolers!
Let’s get down to the details why don’t we?
Here are my 2020/2021 Homeschool Preschool Routine
Early morning
7 – 8 – This is our wake up block. We are generally all physically awake but we are hardly going yet and I find this one of the perks of homeschooling, you can have a slow start if you want. We cuddle in bed for a bit, then Bitty goes to watch a show while I get dressed and do my morning routine. This is also when I make coffee, cause mama needs her coffee.
8 – We do breakfast and listen to an audiobook. If you have recommendations of some audiobooks that 3-year-olds would enjoy I would love some ideas. So far it’s been tricky. I would also be interested in a podcast if there are any that 3-year-olds actually like…If you know any PLEASE leave them down below!
8:30 We are all finally truly awake, time to get our bodies moving. If I worked out this would be a great time to do so…but I don’t. SO I use this time to at least get my heartrate up a little bit. We go for a good walk, we dance around the room, If I’m feeling it we will do some yoga or some kid-friendly exercises. I would love to instill in my kids more of a love of exercise but oh this is a hard one for me!
8:45 We will do calendar time. We will quickly cover the date, the weather, and our emotions that day. Then go over our weekly letter, number, shape color, and the opposite we are working on. Before we are done with calendar time Bitty will do one worksheet. Each day will be a different kind of worksheet.
Preschool Routine : WEEKLY FOCUSES
- Monday we will focus on Letters and she will do a letter tracing page
- Tuesday is for numbers and she will do a number sense page
- Wednesday is our lesson theme and this sheet will change depending on what we are learning about
- Thursday’s focus is Shape and Bitty’s page will be some shape work
- Friday is for colors and this is the one day she won’t have a page instead she will use our DIY color tablets. So Friday’s activity will vary a little more.
Midmorning
9:15 is practical life. I cannot say this enough. Get those little hands involved in the running of the house. A. you need help mama. B.they want to be involved. C it has to get done anyway D. They need to learn these skills to become valuable members of society. If there isn’t anything they can truly help you with; give them a damp rag and have them wipe the baseboards or a swiffer and get some dusting done. What can it hurt!?
Okay, I’m off my soapbox. We will spend just a few minutes doing a simple housework chore
Somewhere in this timeframe is when Bean goes down for her morning nap which is good because it offers me a chance to focus on our preschool plans
9:30 Bitty gets to watch a few minutes of some educational TV. I plan on rotating through a few different kinds of programs so share your favorites down below! This also allows me to finish up any housework that didn’t get done and get some lesson prep done
10 is snacktime
10:15 is when we start our preschool plans. This is our “lesson” time, where I will focus with her on a topic or skill that we are working on. Again each day sort of has its own theme
Simple Homeschool Preschool Lessons to cover all the basics
- Monday is letter work. Identifying letters or matching upper and lower case. Some prewriting and vocab words. These will be our main focuses in letter work
- Tuesday we will focus on numbers. Working with our DIY number rods, my tens frame, as well as some clip cards and the Tiny Polka Dot cards
- Wednesday is a more wild card day with some sensorial, some flashcards and some visual discrimination
- Thursday is sorting and matching and shapes
- Friday we will do fine motor work like sewing, beading and lacing, and scissor work
Bi-weekly Preschool Routine means less prep work in the long haul
You’ll notice each day as 4 activities. We will do two activities each day and then the alternating activities the next week. So one week will be identifying letters and letter matching and the next week will be prewriting and vocab. Then the week after that we will be back to matching and identifying letters. Make sense?
Late Morning
10:45 after our lessons are done she will get some free playtime. Mind you this isn’t her first chance at it all day. She will free play in between a lot of these times this is just the big dedicated time for it and if weather permits this is her outside time.
11:15 art is also on a preplanned rhythm, this makes it easier for me to make sure that we are doing a variety of things. Because if I let her have her way we would ALWAYS be painting.
Arts and Crafts might be my favorite part of our Preschool Routine
- Monday we will do Do a Dot sheets or handprint art
- Tuesday is a craft that goes with our lesson
- Wednesday is free create. Bitty is just getting to the point where she will draw specific things. Most of the time you honestly can’t tell what it is but she trying and I want to offer lots of opportunity for that. She is also really getting good at staying in the lines in her color books so again I want to offer her the chance to practice that as well.
- Thursday is a thematic craft again
- Friday is a rotating cast of ideas. Color mixed media, shape collage, stamping, stickers. Basically, anything that we haven’t done in a while.
11:30 Depending on how interested in art she is that day or how behind we are running overall this may be a catchup/free play time or a sensory play time.
Lunchtime
12:00 Lunchtime and cleanup
12:30 is for free play. I have noticed lately that this is the time of the day that I manage to get some independent play out of her and that is something that I find SO valuable for us both. So after lunch, she goes to play while I clean up and reset from the morning. If that isn’t working then we will use our sensory play from earlier in the day.
1:00 I want to instill a life long love of reading in my kids, so we read often throughout the day. This is just a set-aside time that I want to read some books that work well in our preschool plans.
They might be books we own personally or they might come from the library. It just depends. After I raid our personal library I will hit up Pinterest for some books lists that pertain to our lesson. From there I will go to my local library’s website and reserve as many of the titles as I think we can get through!
Afternoon
1:30 is nap time for both girls and when Bitty starts to transition to quiet time (which I hope is something we won’t have to deal with for a while) this is when she will do it. In her room on her own because mama needs the alone time! This is also when I get other household work done and of course when I work on MamaMegan projects!
I say Preschool Routine not Schedule for a reason…
There you have it. This is my 2020/2021 homeschool preschool routine. As you can see it really isn’t all that much school because, well to be honest 3-year-olds don’t need that much school and they learn better from life!
I also wanted to make note that you’ll see specific times on my preschool routine, these are very loose guidelines and are more for me to think about how long I want to try and do an activity not that we need to start a set activity at a specific time.
There’s a baby and a toddler and a dog and just life that gets in the way of plans, so I’m not going to hold us to it’s 10:00 It’s time to start school. It’s More like ‘okay we finished breakfast let’s go outside for a little walk and when we get back we’ll do calendar.’ The time blocks just make my brain happier, but I don’t hold us to them very strictly.
I’m SURE that over the next few months we will need to tweak this and change our activities as she masters one thing and moves on to new things, but the majority of the work is done and we are prepped and ready as we will ever be.
That’s a lie I am frantically trying to get just enough done for the first couple lessons and hopefully, keep chipping away at the rest of the year so it won’t be such a disaster come October and beyond!
Leave your suggestions for audiobooks, podcasts, and educational programs down below so we can try out some new stuff! If you want to keep up with us in real-time and see exactly how our preschool routine is working out make sure to follow me on Instagram!
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I love the idea of homeschooling. My kids (primary school age) are of the mindset that they are happy to basically educate themselves and do not lack any initiative in this. The formal school however provides one important thing that I cannot seem to get past – the need for a parent to be at home. The school provides supervision for the children (for better or worse…my jury is still out) which allows me to go to uni and work and my husband to work which neither of us can afford to drop to be physically there at home. If there is any advice or experience in managing homeschooling/unschooling when a family cannot afford for one parent to not work, and cannot easily make big changes such as moving houses, I would love to understand more about how this works.
I do not have any advice for you at this time. We are fortunate enough that I am able to be the at-home parent while my husband works. I have a few side hustles that bring in a little extra income but not much. There are a lot of different employment opportunities these days if its something you really want to do I am sure you could find a way! Good Luck!!!
Toddler tunes is a great podcast! And stories on Spotify