I have just started homeschooling Pre-K, or what we call Reception here in the UK. You can read about what we did for Pre-School in this post, but here’s what we are doing for my four-year-old …

Math

We sit at the table and do ten minutes of math. We are using Math-U-See Primer with manipulatives and he always asks to do a second page! I’ve been using Math-U-See for the last five years with my daughter so this was a straight-forward pick for me. However my son is always asking to do more math, and I don’t necessarily want him to move onto harder concepts. So I have also printed off Math K from The Good and The Beautiful because the digital download was completely free. We do a few lessons of these each week too. So far, I have found that this combination has worked well. My son personally prefers the predictability of Math-U-See, but TGATB very helpfully covers more topics, such as tracing numbers.

Phonics

We do our phonics for about fifteen minutes each day. We used Jolly Stories, a story book from Jolly Phonics which teaches the 42 letter sounds through cute animal adventure stories! I picked this because I noticed that Jolly Phonics have been experts in the field for more than thirty years. I also know that my little one would sit and listen to stories for hours so this would engage him, and I have a good friend who used this with her children and loaned me her copy.

This book has been super effective for my son. It took less than four weeks for him to master the 42 letter sounds. He enjoyed it and always asked to read more! We also used the Finger Phonics Set from Jolly Phonics. These seven board books correlate with the seven short stories found in Jolly Stories. Children can spot all the objects that begin with that letter sound. They can also trace the letter formation for that sound.

The Jolly Phonics program was so effective that I have now moved onto All About Reading Level 1. I love the structure of this program and the scripted teacher’s manual. I have found it to be very effective in teaching my son how to to blend letter sounds. He is now reading CVC words such as jam, cat, tap and dog.

Learning Through Play

After math and phonics, we move to a different kind of learning, like art and crafts or imaginary play. I really like this book I Am Not an Egg Carton: 10 Amazing Things to Make with Egg Cartons because it gives lots of great ideas for junk modelling. He’ll also play build things with Lego and Magna-Tiles, play football or ride his bike. This allows me to work through some lessons with my fifth grader.

Read Alouds

At some point in the day, we will read something from our bible book, our poetry book and our non-fiction book. This takes about fifteen minutes. The bible book we are using is The Kingdom of God Bible Storybook. I share more about this book here. The poetry book we are using is something I used with my oldest; I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree. It is a collection of nature poems from various poets. The non-fiction book we are reading from at the moment is An Anthology of Intriguing Animals. My son is interested in non-fiction and asks to see the animal in action, so we also watch a five minute YouTube clip about that animal.

Some time in the afternoon we’ll read from our chapter book, which is Heartwood Hotel by Kallie George at the moment. This takes about ten minutes and I then ask him a few questions about what we’ve read.

Family Style Learning

Each day my littlest also has the opportunity to join his sister for something like art, music, nature journaling, baking or a science experiment. He often chooses to join in but sometimes he is too busy playing! Something he always joined in with was our John Williams Composer Study which you can find in my shop here.

Of course we also see friends, eat snacks, read picture books, play games and visit places that interest him. But these are the learning opportunities that I am intentional about offering him each day. I would say, that this won’t suit everyone but it works for us at the moment. My son has been asking to do school like his sister and always tells me he wants to do “everything that is available, all of it!”

I hope seeing how we are homeschooling Pre-K has been helpful to you!