Curriculum and Activities for Homeschooling Preschool - 3-year-olds

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.