Planning our Preschool

'Tis the time of year for homeschool planning! Whether you follow the traditional school year or are just feeling the itch in your year round homeschool to take a slight break, it is common to read on homeschooling blogs across the web, “Taking a break to plan and relax. Will be back soon.” What about you? Have you been pouring over curriculum catalogs and websites lately? Maybe you are new to homeschooling and are wondering how to even begin the planning process. While I am far from being called an expert in this area, I thought it would be helpful to share how we plan for our preschool homeschool year.

Planning for our homeschool has got to be my favorite hobby! I love putting pen to paper and writing down our family’s educational goals and then finding great books, resources, unit studies, and lapbooks to meet those goals. There is so much available that it can be a challenge to not try to squeeze it all in during one school year. If you are teaching young ones like I am, you can relax in knowing that you have many years ahead of you in this journey, and plenty of time to cover material. Armed with that knowledge, you can begin to focus your attention on what is important to you just for the year ahead. What topics do you want to expose and cover with your children? What skills need work or tweaking? What core areas are of importance to your family?

I have been exchanging enthusiastic emails with several homeschooling moms through Yahoo groups and my personal blog, going over how we plan and organize our year and our own answers to the questions above. Although I do frequently change the organization of our lesson plans, I have found a system for planning our year that works really well for us. I start with writing down the goals that I want to focus on for the coming preschool year. If we can master those goals, everything else is just icing on the cake! I break those goals into the subject areas of Bible, Phonics, Language Arts, Fine Motor/Pre-Writing, Math, Science, Social Studies, Geography, the Arts (Composer Studies, Picture Studies and Dance), and Foreign Language. Under each subject area, I write very specific, realistic, and tangible goals. Then I write notes regarding resources, ideas and activities that can help me accomplish those goals.

Next comes the really fun part – creating my year plan and book list! Our family loves literature-based unit studies, so I get out my Five in a Row manuals and Sonlight catalog (for the wonderful suggested books for this age group) and pull up the Homeschool Share unit lists. I write down the book titles that I want to cover that year, trying to list no more than 45 books (leaving room for breaks, vacations, and current delights). This is not easy. There are so many wonderful books out there! What I do is focus on one great book to be the “main course” for the week and choose several books as supplemental reading or “tag-alongs.” At this point you can either use the list as is, or group the books into themes.

I decided to go with the theme week idea, so I generated a second list of themes based on holidays, seasonal events, and topics of interest to my girls. I then looked at my original list and pulled the books together that fit within those themes. This worked out very nicely! I also consulted the book list for the Prep Curriculum at Brightly Beaming Resources, since that curriculum is organized by themes as well. A theme will either run for a week or for several weeks, depending on the amount of books, resources, and interest.

After my list is put together, I take out the calendar to roughly plan it out, as there are certain holidays and events in the year that determine the type of units we do. For the themes we selected this year, the majority of them fit very easily within a given month, but I definitely like the idea of keeping it loose so we can choose depending on delight. The next step I did this year was one I got from Jocelyne, a mom on the Homeschool Share yahoo group, and I love it! I opened a Word document and wrote down on 12 separate sheets how many Mondays were in each month (thus giving me how many weeks I have in that month for a study). I also write down any holidays or events on our calendar for that month. Along with those on my personal calendar, I used the wonderful ideas at By Sun and Candlelight to incorporate even more holidays to celebrate every month. I really love this idea of finding reasons to celebrate every day life!

Next comes our monthly planning. I look at the month ahead and note any holidays and seasonal events, along with current children’s interest, and pull together the themes and books that fit best. For June, there are five Mondays, including the first week of July. Due to the hot weather, I know our glistening pool will call our names often, so I chose five weeks of themes that will be light and fun. I wrote those down, but did not assign them to a particular week. I also jotted down field trip ideas that coincided with the chosen themes and craft projects that fit with my themes and the time of year. Then I started gathering my resources.

Often times I create my own unit study based on my children’s delight, my own interests, and the wonderful resources at my disposal. Other times, I use the awesome complete studies other moms and educators have put together, ready for me to pick up and go! I again pull out the FIAR manuals and unit studies from HSS, look at the enormous amount of e-books, lapbooks, and unit studies downloaded on my computer, and any favorite websites that I have collected. I chose which lessons from those resources I wanted to cover, based on the educational goals that I had previously compiled, and looked for any holes that needed filling. I hopped onto my library’s website and requested all of the books, supplemental books, and videos that came up in my search that looked fun. At that point, I was done planning for the month!

Another great Jocelyne tip was to have file folders for each of the books or themes you have on your list so that you can print any resources or jot down ideas as you get them, instead of writing them down in a notebook never to be seen again (of course, not that I have ever done such a thing, ha!). She also suggested printing out an extra copy of your list to give to close relatives who might be inclined to find fun items in the $1 bin at their favorite stores while shopping!

If you are interested in seeing what themes I have chosen, I encourage you to visit me at my blog. I would love to hear how you plan, as well as any fun themes or books you have chosen to cover. My plan is always open for tweaking! Isn’t that the fun part about homeschooling?!?



Rachel is a wife and a preschool homeschooling mom of two little princesses, Jordan Faith (3) and Carolina "Cali" Grace (2). She has a passion for instilling a love of learning. She loves to create her own unit studies, as well encourage moms to experience Joy in the MINISTRY of Motherhood. Visit Rachel at Keep The Way.