Play-Based Preschool

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I grew up in a homeschooling family.  So naturally, I am inclined to teach my son at home too.  We will see how this goes.  For now, the plan is to homeschooling.  Since he will be three next month I thought it was time to start planning what I want him to learn.  We already have a pretty solid base with all the letters, a bunch of numbers, shapes, and colors.  I truly believe that kids need to play to learn and develop.  So we are doing a play-based preschool.  

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Our Play-Based Preschool:

I decided that one subject a day is plenty for my very active child.  Learn a little then let him do it.  At least that’s the plan.  So far he usually wants help.  The focus this month (September) is being outside as much as possible before it gets too cold.  We usually go out to play and a lot of the time do the school work outside.  Lessons are between 15 and 30 minutes with lots and lots of play.

The schedule is pretty rigid on this one.  Our local library offers storytime for 1 to 3 years old on Mondays.  That means playing with kids his age and being “expected” to sit still for half an hour.  They have a ton of toys and even though the kids are supposed to sit and listen they are free to play quietly while the reading is going on.  That’s what Aiden usually does.  

While he plays he listens to the stories.  He also gets to play with other children.  I always encourage sitting with the other children and listening like the rest of the group but I don’t push it.  He usually sings with the rest of the kids and talks about the stories when there’s a break.  

This is either a craft, painting or making things with play dough.  He loves making pancakes with play dough.  We’ve also started to make wooden models we found at the dollar store.  Sometimes we follow the directions and other times just go crazy with the glue and see what we can make out of all those little pieces.  The important part is making something.

Helping me cook or making oobleck or checking out the bugs outside, it’s always a good time.  I haven’t looked around much for science stuff for his age range.  I feel like he’s got plenty to do with sticks and leaves and bugs to play with.  

Baking is also something we do on a weekly basis.  He doesn’t get to put anything in the oven or pull anything out.  But he does help me measure and mix and form whatever we wind up making.  He loves making cookies.

We have a ton of alphabet and colorful blocks that must be built into towers and immediately smashed.  One of the added benefits of alphabet blocks is that they are very familiar to him so he frequently tells me the words and letters and colors on those blocks.  

The blocks are all different shapes, sizes, and colors so there are lots of things he can learn from them.  Sometimes we built towers to smash of one color or shape.  Or we try to find the ideal pieces to built bridges for his matchbox cars and build roads to drive on.

He already knows his letters but he’s still learning sounds.  We used an awesome free app from really young ABC kids.  It’s absolutely my favorite app for learning letters and phonics.   Now we’re working on writing his letters with a pencil, crayon or chalk.  I have dry erase books from leapfrog for letters, numbers, math, and shapes.  I highly recommend it.  

My husband recently bought a bike with a seat on the back for our son.  The pair of them will go off on a long ride and explore.  He is also a huge fan of soccer and is teaching Aiden.  It’s great exercise and fantastic for coordination.

Parks are our standing Sunday fun.  However, we have also done a lot of nature walks with Grandma.  We sometimes need to have a little incentive keep moving so some of our walks include pine cone toss or walnut soccer.  

Remember Play-Based Preschool: It’s Supposed to be Fun

Everything we do is just a plan.  I’m sure you know how hard it is to keep a toddler’s interest for too long.  It’s what we try to do.  Sometimes that means not following what each day is supposed to do but we always do something in those categories.  Some days we do nothing but play completely without structure.  Or spend a bunch of time on PBS kids or his kindle playing education apps.  We definitely stray from the planned day depending on what we actually want to play with too.  

If you’re looking for some awesome stuff for your own play-based preschool.  Check out these Melissa & Doug products.  We own all of these and absolutely love them.

Are you teaching your toddler?  Are you a homeschooler?  Like, Share, and Comment.  I’d love to hear from you.

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