Preschool at Home: An overview
It is now widely accepted that the work of the early years is PLAY (thank goodness!). However, there is still an overwhelming amount of advice out there, often conflicting, about what you should focus on at this age, whether you should use a curriculum or not, as well as social pressure and traditional expectations to deal with.
Play should be the vehicle for all learning. It is now understood that if a child is given certain opportunities through high-quality, imaginative and enriching play, we can ensure the long-term growth of their academic abilities and motivation for learning.
From 50+ years of research into brain development, high learning capabilities and giftedness, we can tell you with 100% certainty that there are 3 critical areas to focus on before the age of 5/6 (through play), to ensure your child’s success in education and life. 30+ years following the progress of children exposed to this approach confirms and proves this.
And the rest of what you should do with your 3-year-old preschooler depends on you and your chosen style of parenting/teaching/learning, what is developmentally-appropriate for your unique child and what their interests are. Click here to see our top tips for homeschooling preschool!
The 3 pre-requisites for general success with learning and for creative and intellectual achievement are:

COGNITIVE
ABILITIES
The abilities to build effective mental models of how the world works, in order to give context and relevance for all learning

COMMUNICATIVE ABILITIES
The abilities to understand others and be able to make themselves understood

SELF-REGULATION
The ability to plan and manage their own attention and behaviour
Starting with developing these 3 ‘learning abilities’ with your 3-year-old or in the preschool years means that your child will develop and then continually strengthen the neural pathways needed to ensure success in the 3 areas above.
These are the general learning and mental abilities needed for all future learning, and the sooner your child begins to maximise on the brain’s potential for these 3, the better.
Because of the way our brains develop, there is a window of opportunity up to the age of 5/6 to give children this gift for life as a person’s learning abilities are 90% determined during those early years.
Let us repeat that: A person’s learning abilities are 90% determined during the early years!
A play-based curriculum of activities for your 3-year-old
In spite of increasingly good curricula for teaching knowledge and skills in the preschool years, many children still struggle with the acquisition and application of necessary knowledge and skills later on in their education, and this can easily affect their love of learning.
So why do preschools/parents and educational curricula not specifically teach ‘learning abilities’ in addition to knowledge and skills?
Because until recently, it wasn’t clear how to. No systematic and complete approach existed that teachers and parents of children as young as 3-years-old could use easily. If you’re lucky, the learning materials your child is exposed to may accidentally teach them some of those learning abilities, but in most cases they won’t.
Developing your child’s general learning abilities before the age of 5/6 is an invaluable hack that will make everything they learn and do later on easier for them (and for you, your time, your patience and your wallet).
And Key to Learning at Home makes this as easy as possible for you, the parent. It is a unique and proven curriculum of activities and games for homeschoolers and other parents, that does exactly that starting from approximately 3 years old and up – they lead to the exceptional development of children’s learning abilities.
And as you can imagine, achieving the maximum development of a child’s ‘learning abilities’ through imaginative play is the crème-de-la-crème of a preschool education, the gold standard of curricula – whether you are homeschooling or you work on these with your child in their free time.
An overview of what is included for this age in our curriculum
The Key to Learning at Home approach provides kids with these learning abilities via engaging play, game and story-based activities that also cover typical, more traditional learning topics for 3-year-olds.
For example, the activities are full of stories and games involving animals, jobs, art, movement, colors, shapes, role-play, sorting, sequencing, and so on, and in particular, all pre-reading, pre-writing and pre-math skills are thoroughly covered. There’s something for every type of learner.
Our pre-school curriculum is divided into two levels, Caterpillars and Butterflies. 3-year-olds start with the Caterpillars level.
The following 8 modules from Key to Learning at Home are covered in the Caterpillars level:
SENSORY MATHEMATICS
Develops the ability to analyse the external, visual qualities of objects using sensory standards such as colour, shape and size. It also builds the foundation for the development of mental abilities.
ARTOGRAPHICS
Cultivates the essential skills required both for writing and creative artistic expression. Develops 'art vision' and introduces different symbolic tools, composition, rhythm and colour.
DEVELOPMENTAL GAMES
Develops productive imagination, symbolic literacy, language and communication skills, flexible thinking, creative problem solving, self-regulation and self-esteem.
STORY GRAMMAR
Develops a love of story, ownership of story language and a profound understanding of story structure by following a specific set of procedures known as 'visual modelling'.
CREATIVE MODELLING
Through shared activity, children discover symmetry and pattern by manipulating geometric shapes to create artistic compositions of the world around them. Develops co-operative and social skills.
CONSTRUCTION
Develops mathematical and goal-directed behaviour. Children analyse the structure of objects, plan, explain their plans and execute them using wooden modular building blocks.
EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENT
Develops emotional intelligence, non-verbal communication skills, creativity and productive imagination through body movement, gestures, facial expressions and music.
YOU – ME – WORLD
Using symbols and visual models, children learn about themselves as physical, emotional and social beings, and about the natural and material world – about living things and inanimate objects.
There are 286 short and focused sessions of activities within these 8 modules in the Caterpillars level, which are ideal done at an average pace of 5 a week when starting with a 3-year-old.
This is a steady approach that takes about 14 months and so covers some or all of the preschool and pre-K years.
After that, children go on to the Butterflies level which takes approximately 16 months at the same pace, in order to complete the program.
This covers them for some or all of the pre-K and Kindergarten years.
The following 10 modules from Key to Learning at Home are covered in the Butterflies level (the first 4 are new in the Butterflies level):
LOGIC
Develops the ability to analyse objects and events, see their invisible sides, identify their most essential characteristics, think sequentially, draw conclusions, and classify and systematise information.
MATHEMATICS
Using visual models, children discover the language of mathematics and the concept of measurement, compare different quantities and qualities of objects, and explore the relationships more, less, equal.
VISUAL – SPATIAL
Develops spatial awareness and the ability to 'read' maps. Children look at objects in space and use symbols to represent what they and others see through visual models – maps, schemes and plans.
EXPLORATION
Through games, stories and simple yet powerful experiments, children discover important scientific concepts – states of matter, different qualities of substances and transformations.
ARTOGRAPHICS
Cultivates the essential skills required both for writing and creative artistic expression. Develops 'art vision' and introduces different symbolic tools, composition, rhythm and colour.
DEVELOPMENTAL GAMES
Develops productive imagination, symbolic literacy, language and communication skills, flexible thinking, creative problem solving, self-regulation and self-esteem.
STORY GRAMMAR
Develops a love of story, ownership of story language and a profound understanding of story structure by following a specific set of procedures known as 'visual modelling'.
CREATIVE MODELLING
Through shared activity, children discover symmetry and pattern by manipulating geometric shapes to create artistic compositions of the world around them. Develops co-operative and social skills.
CONSTRUCTION
Develops mathematical and goal-directed behaviour. Children analyse the structure of objects, plan, explain their plans and execute them using wooden modular building blocks.
EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENT
Develops emotional intelligence, non-verbal communication skills, creativity and productive imagination through body movement, gestures, facial expressions and music.
The more of these transformational learning experiences you do with your child, the better thinker, learner and communicator they will become!
From the activities in these modules, children specifically develop the skills shown below (and more).
If you look through this list and ask yourself if these are important to you for your preschool-age child to develop for the future, you will no doubt answer, “Yes, of course!”.
These are universally accepted as skills/traits/abilities that will empower a human no matter what age they are or what subject they are learning about or job they are doing.
And yet the focus of typical activities for 3-year-olds is NOT specifically designed to develop these skills, even though it is widely recognised now that developing these in the preschool years will give your child the best possible chance of educational success:
Critical thinking
Communication skills
Self-regulation
Deliberate memory
Symbolic thought
Imagination
Creativity
Perception
Processing
Reasoning
Logic
Problem-solving
Growth mindset
Language
Confidence
Win-win mindset
Collaboration
Focused attention
Resilience
Perseverance
Resourcefulness
Self-awareness
Empathy
Self-discipline
Concentration
Planning
To prepare children to become brilliant, global citizens of our rapidly-changing world, developing these skills are essential, to enable them to learn and master, quickly and easily, whatever they will have a need for in their future lives.
A preschool education based on the 3 learning abilities – cognitive, communicative and self-regulative abilities – will ensure your child’s development of the above skills.
This is what makes our curriculum the gold standard in education and why it has repeatedly been named as the best curriculum for 3-year-olds.
Your child can play and you can (secretly) ensure they develop the above skills and the general learning abilities they will need later on in their life, whether you later choose to homeschool them or put them into an actual school, and whether you believe in an unschooling/child-led approach or believe in academics.
Starting now will ensure that they have the maximum opportunity to develop these tools of the mind for life.
Please note that the Caterpillars level of our preschool curriculum does not teach early number work (this comes in the Butterflies level in our Math module) or formal teaching of phonics (this is not included at all as our curriculum is designed to give children the skills needed in preparation for formal literacy skills at a later stage when it is more age-appropriate or when your child is developmentally ready).
Why the Key to Learning at Home preschool curriculum for your 3-year-old?
- Imaginative play and developmental psychology combined
- Created by 12 leading developmental psychologists and educationalists
- Research-based and proven
- Short and focused 20-minute activities (see examples from all levels of the curriculum here)
- Online for parents, hands-on for children
- Can be customised to each family’s needs – just send us an email with a description of your situation
- Flexible and affordable – pay as you go, and stop and resume whenever you need to
Our program is ideal for a preschool homeschool curriculum, but all of our activities can also be used to supplement your child’s education at home, starting at 3-years-old.
Click here to take a free trial of the activities provided in the Caterpillars level of our curriculum, to discover our program for yourself and start to see the benefits first-hand!
If you prefer, you can build yourself a ‘kit’ with the specific modules from our program that you want or your child needs most, and we offer a personalised service to do this, to help you make the right choices for your family. You can email us here.