Preschool Homeschooling Made Easy: A Guide For Parents

Homeschooling a preschooler offers a wonderful chance to start their educational journey with flexibility, creativity, and a focus on nurturing their natural curiosity. Even if homeschooling is not a permanent choice for your family, giving your child a solid foundation and love for learning while they are young is invaluable. Here is everything you need to know to get started with homeschooling your preschooler, including ideas for routines, learning activities, and a gentle approach to education. (If your child is older, check out this post for an intro to homeschooling!)

1. Set Realistic Goals

• Social and Emotional Growth: Practicing sharing, kindness, and setting boundaries.
• Motor Skills: Fine motor activities like drawing and cutting, along with physical play for coordination.
• Early Literacy and Numeracy: Introducing letters, sounds, and basic counting through fun activities.

Keeping things flexible and giving your child freedom to explore what interests them is a recipe for success!

2. Establish a Daily Routine

Young children thrive with a predictable routine. Our family keeps things very casual! We wake up, get dressed and eat breakfast. After breakfast we do our “morning basket”, which is simply a basket of educational resources I keep at the table so that I have everything in one place. We go over things that my preschooler is learning/memorizing, such as the days of the week, months of the year, and what they weather is like. We read our Bible, do a simple science lesson (I highly recommend this book that has simple readings and accompanying tactile learning activities!), sing songs, and “work out” (jumping jacks, stretching, etc.).

There are only two other things that we do every day: activity time and outdoor time. The timeline for these depends on the time of year. If it is summer and hot outside, we do our outdoor time in the morning when the sun isn’t as harsh. Sometimes we walk to the park, sometimes we play in the backyard, and sometimes we do a nature walk around our neighborhood. Occasionally, we may go to a splash pad or on a short “hike” in the mountains. If it is winter, we tend to do our outdoor time after nap/quiet time, when it is slightly warmer outside.

Our activity time varies day to day, depending on my preschooler’s attention span and attitude that day. Sometimes we do “math”—simple counting, shape recognition, and memorizing mommy’s phone number. We may do worksheets with number or pattern recognition, and sometimes I use household objects to introduce basic adding and subtracting skills (for example, “Right now, you have two goldfish. If mommy gives you two more, how many do you have now?”). Or, we may work on basic language arts, practicing writing letters, working on recognizing them and learning the sounds each letter makes. Language arts is a great place to incorporate arts and crafts: they can paint their letters, form them with playdough, or write them in a sensory sand box.

This may sound like a lot, but remember, we rarely do all of this in one day. We pick and choose day to day and just have fun with it! While a routine is helpful, flexibility is key. Don’t stress yourself out: remember, there is no list of things they HAVE to learn, and they will pick a lot more up just from conversations with you than you could ever imagine!

3. Use Play-Based Learning

Children learn best through play. In fact, Maria Montessori went so far as to say “play is the work of the child”. Focus on activities that encourage discovery and creativity.

Pretend play is wonderful for developing language, social skills, and imagination. It also can teach your children what to expect in certain situations, and life skills for handling them as they grow! Set up a “grocery store”, “doctor’s office”, or “bakery”, and enter a whole new world with your child.

Arts and crafts is another engaging activity for preschoolers, and is wonderful for developing fine motor skills! My child loves to make bracelets with beads and pipe cleaner. As we learn about different letters, my toddler loves to paint a large outline of each of them (or maybe like 5 outlines!). We love this washable paint and one time we cleaned an entire bottle of it out of our carpet (I wonder whose fault that was…) and it came out great. Playdough, modeling clay, sensory boxes filled with oatmeal, and kinetic sand are all great for play-based learning.

I mentioned nature walks above, and this has to be my favorite form of play-based learning. There is so much to talk about as you spend time outside with your preschooler! You can observe trees go from dead to buds to blossoms to fruit and back again. You can discuss simple machines like wedges and inclined planes at the playground. You can talk about the water cycle when you get caught in a thunderstorm. You can talk about the food chain at the wetlands. You don’t need anything to teach all of this, and this type of learning tends to be what preschoolers learn the best as they personally experience it!

4. Read Aloud Every Day for Preschool Homeschooling

Reading together builds language, listening skills, and a love for stories. Include a mix of books, poems, and rhymes, and encourage your preschooler to interact by asking questions about the story. Growing up from the time I was a toddler to when I left for college, our family read aloud together before bed every night. And we all loved it! Exploring new worlds through books together was a such a gift for our imagination and our family relationships. My husband and I plan to do the same with our children, and we have already started! Every night before bed, we spend time reading 4-5 books that our preschoolers choose.

Although your preschooler won’t realize it, this is another way to incorporate all types of learning into their day. Our son’s favorite book, Little Blue Truck, teaches about helping others and being kind. Tree, another favorite, teaches all about the seasons and how trees and animals change throughout the year. 10 Apples Up on Top, a Dr. Seuss Classic, is a fantastic introduction to math.

As parents, we tend to overcomplicate everything. If you think critically, almost every aspect of daily life is a learning activity for our preschoolers.

5. Everyday Activities

Homeschooling at all ages extends beyond “classroom” activities to include daily life. Cooking, gardening, grocery shopping, or even cleaning can be educational.

Cooking/Baking: The kitchen provides incredible hands-on learning. Counting ingredients, measuring, and following steps help develop early math and sequencing skills. Stirring, kneading, and pouring build fine motor skills. You can introduce basic science concepts too—like how heat changes ingredients or how yeast makes bread rise. Let your child make simple decisions, like choosing toppings for a pizza, which fosters independence and decision-making.

Shopping and Errands: A trip to the grocery store or farmers’ market offers a chance to practice recognizing colors, shapes, and sizes. Counting items, discussing prices, and talking about the different food groups also provides early math and nutrition knowledge. You can ask questions like, “Can you help me find something green?” or “How many apples do we need?” to engage them in interactive learning.

Gardening: If you have a garden or even a few potted plants, let your child help water, plant seeds, and observe growth. Gardening is a sensory-rich activity that teaches patience, responsibility, and an understanding of nature. Watching plants grow and change can spark discussions about seasons, life cycles, and weather.

Cleaning and Household Chores: Even simple chores, like dusting, organizing toys, or sorting laundry, provide practical life skills. Sorting laundry by color, size, or type introduces basic sorting and categorizing, foundational skills for math and logic. Tidying up after an activity also teaches responsibility and ownership, making children feel they’re part of caring for their home.

Everyday experiences make learning natural and fun, creating meaningful homeschool moments.

6. Social Interaction

Sample Preschool Schedule

Here’s a sample daily schedule your preschooler that balances structured activities with play and exploration. Remember that this is just an example, and flexibility is key. Even with a set routine, no two days look the same for us. Use this as a guide but don’t feel stuck to any set schedule. And, if something isn’t working, then change it! That is the beauty of homeschooling.

Focus on fostering curiosity, encouraging play, and integrating learning into daily life. With a flexible schedule and a playful approach, you’re laying the groundwork for a lifetime of discovery and a love of learning.