Posted in My Homeschool FAQs

These are my notes from a talk I did at a Homeschool Convention on teaching preschoolers:

Preschoolers a Unit Study Approach with the Alphabet

How to use the Internet and Community Resources to put
together a low-cost preschool curriculum based on the ABC’s


What is the Purpose of  “doing”  preschool?

I define my purpose as follows:

1.  Providing a happy learning experience.  (Laying the
groundwork for the joy of learning.)  This means I must not over
do it.  If my child isn’t interested in something I am teaching I
need to move on.  Also limit the time I teach.  (I do approx. 1
hour per day with my preschoolers.)  A Montessori Preschool
teacher told me once you should always stop teaching while
your student is still interested.  It makes them look forward to
tomorrow.

2.  Provide an opportunity to be exposed to a wide variety of
learning experiences.    This will allow me to see where my
preschoolers interests lie. It will also begin to expose my
preschooler to the world of learning that surrounds them.  

3.  Provide an introduction to letters, numbers, cooking,
crafts, reading together and most of all FUN!  My children
will have many years to gain book knowledge.  The most
important thing for my kids to learn in the preschooler years is
to LOVE LEARNING!

4.  Provide opportunities to socialize with other
preschoolers.    This can be accomplished through weekly 1
hour preschool Co-op Class, Ballet, YMCA or Park Department
Sports, Awana, Sunday School,  Swim Lessons,  Play dates,
Park Days & Homeschool Field Trips.  The opportunities are
endless!

5. To establish myself as the teacher and build a good
teacher/child relationship.    Up until now I have been “just
Mom”, now I m going to be “teacher/mom”.  As opposed to
children who will travel through tradition school and have many
teachers, my kids will be with me for all there grades.
Preschool is a good opportunity to help my children see  me as
their teacher and establish a routine we will be following for
years.  It is also a great opportunity for me to begin to learn
about my child’s unique learning style and start directing their
learning in a way they can learn most effectively.

So, now that we have an idea of what we want to do, how do we
do it.

A Unit Study Approach

By definition a Unit Study approach is using a single theme or
topic to teach all subjects.  The Alphabet is very easy to do this
with since you are basically just taking anything and everything
you want you preschooler to learn and organize it by teaching it
alphabetically.  

Example -  Letter A

1.  Teach the Letter Sound of A  (The Letter A Make the short
Vowel sound /a/ as in Apple.)
2.  Make the letter A on Card stock with Aluminum Foil, Apple
Seed or Allspice.
3.  Cooking - Make an Apple Pie, Apple Sauce or Alphabet
Soup.
4.  Music - The Ants Go Marching In, Animals Crackers In My
Soup
5.  Bible Story -  Adam & Eve
6.  Math - Introduce Addition or the Abacus
7.  Science - Birds - Albatross, Flower- Aster, Mammal -
Antelope
8.  Social Studies - Johnny Apple Seed, Africa, or the job of an
Astronaut.
9.  Art - Apple Stamping, Animal Paper Bag Puppets
10.  Game - Act out animals, or be Acrobats!
11.  Field Trip -  Visit in an Aquarium or an Apple Orchard.

Keep a Letter Notebook.  Write each letter of the alphabet on a
page an keep the notebook handy for organizing your ideas as
you prepare for the weeks to come.

There are many ways to get together your ideas easily.

The number one place to get ideas is the Internet.  You can
find tons of ideas by searching Google.  Just type in what you
want to know.  “Where can I find preschool crafts for the letter
A?” 

The Library  is a in inexhaustible resource for books and ideas.
Go to the Library with your child and pick out books for the
next 3 letters you will be studying.  (This will reduce trips to the
Library since you get books for 3 weeks at a time.)  You can
also search for  books online and reserve them in advance.  

A Children’s Encyclopedia set is great for having a wide
variety of topics on each letter.  You can easily pull the letter
you are working on each week off the shelf and have all kinds
of information to share with your child that it written on their
level.

Felt Board Stories  are an inexpensive way to build your
preschool library.  Felt is very inexpensive and a wide variety of
free graphics, stories & ideas are available on the internet. 
Not only  an you cut things out of felt for the stories, you can also
print picture on card stock and glue the felt on the back of the card
stock.  If your children are going to be handling the cardstock
pieces a lot you may want to cover them in clear
contact paper to protect them.

Arts & Crafts  Let’s face it preschoolers LOVE to cut, glue and
create.  A HUGE part of our school week is doing crafts.  So get
use to having paper scraps all over your floor and get creative!
My 2 favorite craft books for Preschoolers are “Preschool Art”
& “365 Things to Make & Do”   Both of these
are excellent resources for creative ideas.  Don’t forget the
Internet too.  You can easily go into Google and search for
preschool crafts for each letter.   My daughter and I made a
Alphabet Craft Scrapbook this year.  We made a craft for every
letter of the alphabet and then made them into a scrapbook.

Cooking.  Okay, I admit, this is the one I do the least with my
kids.  I really don’t like to cook much, so adding kids to cooking
is really no fun for me!  I do however have a daughter who loves
to cook, so this year for preschool we made Chocolate Chip
Cookies, Banana Bread, Gingerbread Cookies (& a Gingerbread
House), Pizza, Sandwiches, Quiche,  Smores, Upside Down
Cake & Zuchini Bread.  

Math  Beside the suggestions from the letter of the week there
are all kinds of Math Activities you can do with you
preschooler.  Board games are great.  Sorry, Jr. Monopoly, Uno,
Trouble,  Math Mat Challenge.  If you like a workbook
approach they are readily available at Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc. 
Numzels are also fun.  Ues fun foan to cut out big numbers. 
Then cut each number into that many peices.  1=1piece, 2=2pieces, etc. 
You can use these to learn the numbers and basic addition. 
Give them the 2 and the 3 and have them figure out by counting
the pieces that 2+3=5.  Math Mat Challenge is also fun. 
Make a circle of felt big enough for them to stand in the middle. 
Around the outside edge write the numbers 0-10.  Have the child
stand in the middle and call out math problems.  2 + 1= and they
step on the number.  You can also count 4, 3,2, and have
them find the next number. 

Letter Sounds  We also do  lot of letter sounds games and
activities.  I have accumulated a few audio tapes with letter
sounds song (Sounds Like Fun - Discovery Toys,  Sing Spell
Read & Write Letter Sounds Tape.)  which we listen to together
everyday.  My new favorite way of teaching the letter sounds is
The Leap Frog Letter Factory Video.  These videos are an
excellent way to “teach” the letter sounds to you children with
little or no effort from you!   If your child like to use the internet I
recomend http://www.starfall.com  Our favorite letter sound games are
ABC Stomp & Clever Catch.  For ABC Stomp  I took  Fun Foam
and outlined one of the kids shoes on it.  I then cut out 26 shoe
sized footprints.  On each footprint I wrote a lowercase and
uppercase letter.  One for each letter of the alphabet. 
(write on both sides with a Sharpie marker since the frequently flip
over while playing the game.)  Now, lay all the footprints on the floor. 
Start with teaching the letters.  Step on the letter A, step on the letter B, etc. 
When they know all the letters you can start the letter sounds. 
Step on the letter that shounds like "ku", step on the letter that sounds like "buh". 
From there you can continue sometimes I have them spell out words,
sometimes I have them find the last letters of a word.
Clever catch is a inflatable beach ball with the alphabet on it. 
I bought mine through Scholastics years ago.  However, you
could just buy a beach ball and use a Sharpie
(My favorite writing implement!) to write all the letters on it. 
Then you toss the ball back and forth.  When the child catchs the
ball they say the letter, letter sound and a word for the letter they
find under their left hand.

Science  Since I have an older child I do school with
also  I use some of that time for my preschooler to watch
educational videos or television shows.  My preschool daughter
LOVES Magic School Bus & Stanley.  She has learned an
amazing about of things from those 2 shows.  She is always
telling me about some animal she knows about or talking about
gravity!  DK also has a great line of Science videos. 
Don’t forget to check the Library, they have tons of
great videos.

Bible - Learn bible verses for each letter of the alphabet. A is
for According to the scriptures,  B - Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ and you will be Saved,  C - Children obey your parents
for this is right.  


Basic Supplies  you may want to have on hand: (To keep you
from running to the store!)

white glue
glue sticks
cardstock
Felt
Scissors
paint
crayons
washable markers

Places to shop:  (for ideas and supplies)

Dollar Tree
99 cent store
Sam’s Club
Michael’s / JoAnn’s  (Scrapbook paper comes in tons of themes
can be great for making letter of the week.)
Big Lots
Ebay - (cheap place for pre-made felt board stories)

Things to Make:  ABC Letter Stomp,  Clever Catch,
Numbzels,  Felt Stories & board,  ABSeas Go Fish Letter Game,
ABC Wall poster,  Letters of the week notebook (or wall art),
Letter Art Scrapbook , Math Mat Challenge

Things to Purchase:  Leap Frog DVDs,  Preschool Workbooks,
ABC Art Book,  Preschool Art Idea Book

Co-op:  I  encourage familiesl to get together with other
preschool families and have a co-op class.  I did this last year.
We met once a week for 1 hour and did crafts, stories, show &
tell, snack games, etc. with other families.  The kids LOVE it!
This is a great socialization experience.

Any Questions?