The Truth About Preschool ~
Written by Carletta Sanders of Successful Homeschooling.
I absolutely love reading blogs written by well-organized, energetic moms who are creative enough to dream up fun activities for their preschoolers, and disciplined enough to follow through with their plans.
However, for all my reading… and dreaming… and planning… I’ve learned that I’m just not one of those moms. In the haze of multiple pregnancies, post-partum fogginess, regular household duties, and everyday life caring for four children ages 18 months to 10 years old, I’ve never consistently taught preschool at home.
The good news for those of you who are like me is – you can set your guilt and fear aside. My older children are excelling academically despite their mama’s shortcomings.
I’ve finally relaxed and embraced the truth about preschool – preschoolers can learn everything they need to know in the school of life.
Preschool in Our Home
If you peek into our home on an average day, you won’t find my preschooler doing circle time, reciting the days of the week and months of the year, charting the weather, exploring sensory bins, or playing with carefully crafted learning trays.
You’ll probably see him running around in a super hero cape or jumping from the couch to a beanbag to avoid the hot lava floor. You’ll see him helping mom with chores and making hot dogs in his toy kitchen. You’ll see him comforting his baby brother, pestering his sister and complaining that his big brother is cheating at Candy Land.
And, somehow, after a couple of years, he’ll just know all of the letters, numbers, shapes and colors. He’ll know how to write his name and count past 10. He’ll know that dark clouds mean rain is coming and tadpoles turn into frogs. He’ll know how to stand in line and take turns, and he’ll know it all without having been in preschool at home or otherwise.
Once again, I’ll be amazed that in the joyful mess of our lives together, my child managed to learn everything he needed to know.
How Children Learn
In a society that emphasizes early childhood education, it can be easy to forget that children are curious, inquisitive and wired to learn.
If you feel stressed, overwhelmed, guilty or afraid your preschooler will be behind, consider the following ways children learn naturally in everyday life:
Math
You don’t have to use worksheets to teach shapes, colors, comparisons, counting, addition and subtraction. Even the youngest preschoolers know how to figure out who got the most M&Ms or the biggest piece of cake. They scramble to be first in the line for ice cream. They only eat sandwiches that are cut into triangles. And they wear the same red shirt 5 days in a row. Math is, quite simply, everywhere.
Calendar
Words like yesterday, today and tomorrow are a natural part of everyday conversation.
“Mom, what are we doing today?”
“Honey, tell grandma what you did yesterday.”
“Time for bed, kiddo, we’ll read the rest of the story tomorrow.”
Weather
You don’t have to use elaborate charts and graphs to teach your children about the weather. Just open up the blinds and take a look outside.
Weather is another topic that’s easily addressed in daily conversation. “We better take the umbrella with us. It looks like rain.”
Community Helpers
Children see firefighters, policemen, postal workers, and medical professionals as a part of everyday life in a thriving community. They have moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles and cousins. Why rely on worksheets and projects when you have access to the real thing?
Art
Do the crafts we plan for our preschoolers really encourage creativity? Or are our kids just cutting what we tell them to cut and gluing where we tell them to glue?
Don’t succumb to the pressure to micromanage every activity. Make paper, crayons, scissors, glue and other craft materials available, and see what your children can do on their own.
Reading
If you live in a literate household where books are available and children see others reading, your children will WANT to learn to read. Read to your children because reading is useful and pleasurable – not because you’re afraid they’ll be behind.
And remember, you don’t have to run to the library for stacks of books about every topic you discuss with your children. Out of all the books I’ve brought into my home, my preschoolers have always tended to gravitate toward a few favorites.
Learn from My Mistakes
I spent way too much time hovering over my oldest child, pushing him to do more, to know more, to be more.
And when my second child was a preschooler, I was too busy teaching my oldest and nursing a baby to do much of anything other than feel guilty about what we weren’t doing for preschool.
However, by the time my third child became a preschooler, I think I mostly figured out the winning formula – love, laugh, encourage, and get out of the way.
What does preschool look like in your home?
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I love love love love LOVE this! My little guy isn’t even 2 so I don’t even HAVE a preschooler yet — although I did teach preschool once upon a time! But every single thing you say resonates with my sense of what feels right in building a home for our family.
Great article! I tried to do preschool at home with my (now 7 yr old) son. It was hit or miss as I just couldn’t get it together. He still picked up a ton of stuff from every day life.
And from hearing about other friend’s families, preschoolers with older homeschooled siblings pick up even more, because they are listening (and sometimes participating) in big sister/brother’s stuff – even though they are still ‘too little’!
I loved your article Carletta…so many families feel pressured to send their kids to preschool. I’m sure your article will encourage many families.
xo Jana
I am so in tune with what you, Carlotta, said in your article!
As an author of two devotionals I would love to be a guest blogger on your site, highlighting the power of biblical metaphors through the eyes and (BIG) ears of Victor the Donkey. Victor and I unpack these metaphors in a way children can understand!
A-MEN!
What a wonderful article!! It confirms what I see in our home in our almost 4-year-old and we now have a 2-month baby. He definitely learns “on the run”… without my trying too hard. Thank you!!
Standing up and cheering! Well-written and so spot on, Carletta.
This is so true! My oldest went to preschool for 3 years and then to K and 1st in public school. We homeschooled after that, but his little sister has been tagging along. I didn’t send her to preschool at all. She naturally wants to be included in the arts and crafts her brother does, and gets plenty of socialization with friends and family. She has tagged along in some of her older brother’s classes, learning as much as she could. We read together every day, and she is beginning to ask me to teach her to read (she will be officially starting homeschool kindergarten this fall). Both my kids have had such different beginnings, yet both are curious and eager to learn. I don’t feel my daughter missed out on very much not going to preschool or doing formal preschool at home. And it sure made our lives easier (and cheaper!)
This is great. I am newly homeschooling my 8 and 6 year olds and I have a 4 1/2, 2 1/2 yr and 15 mnth old as well. I have moments where I feel I should be “doing” preschool with my littlies, but it just so hard to find the time. WE are far from where I would like to be in our homeschool -lots of wrinkles to iron out – but I think we are getting there. AS for preschooling I think what we are doing or not doing is pretty successful. I sometimes feel guilty about the lack of fingerpainting and playdough, and “sensory tables” (lol) but my 4 yr old is pretty much teaching herself to read, she listens in when I am teaching the “big” kids and sometimes corrects them. My 2 1/2 year old somehow learned to write her own name, Draws really awesome little people, she knows all her colours and shapes, can count ( 1-1 not just reciting a string of numbers). I have not ever “taught” these things. And they are all learning lots about life just by living it and being a part of it. Kids are curious and clever little people and they will learn, because that is how they are made!!! 🙂
Not only did preschool look like that at my house (like Carletta describes, just life) but I did it that way up to age 7…. then gave my oldest some placement “tests” that came with various curric. and he tested right into 3rd grade…. SOOOOOoo… I kept school pretty loose after that. Now I am pretty loose to about age 12, and they can take a standardized test and get nearly perfect scores.
My 12yo picked out her own curric. from books I had made available and keeps her own schedule in a Planner.
My oldest just made a 1930 on the SATs, a 32 on ACTs. He was a delegate to Boys State and was inducted into the National Honor Society. He’ll be a senior this year.
My kids so far have jumped the hurdle from “loose” unschooling at home to attending brick schools and they all have 3.5+ GPAs….
Very impressive – your kids are doing great! We are pretty relaxed even after preschool at our house, too. My oldest is only 10 so it is nice hearing that a relaxed approach has worked out well for you guys. I figure we’ll get more serious during middle school.
Carletta, What a fabulous post!!! It rings so true… My first child I spent hours doing stuff and outings and what not for pre-school… my second child hung on for dear life… my third child clung like a limpet to my side for the ride… ANd now folks ask all the time what my little ones do for preschool while my older kids do school… They live alongside me, they play in their world, the learn whatever is going and then some. Their days are filled with forts and mud, books and mud, arty stuff and mud, bikes and mud… and their “education” is miles ahead of anything I could ever have offered them!!!
Mud is a favorite here, too!
I love this! Preschool in my home looks a lot like it does in your home 😀
My oldest two children are preschool graduates, but it looks like my youngest two won’t ever go, for a variety of reason.
The preschool my kids went to was excellent, and they enjoyed it a lot. But really, I think it was mostly for me. As a busy young mom, I used the preschooling time to maintain friendships, run all my errands, and get to the gym.
But feel confident that my younger two will learn everything they need to learn in the hubbub of family homeschooling life. (I do feel sorry sometimes for the fun they might be missing–which is why I was glad to see this post.)
Oh, and at the wonderful preschool–they have a staunch anti-worksheet philosophy. That’s not how kids learn!
When my two oldest were preschool-age, I thought I was destined to be a homeschool failure because I just couldn’t get it together to regularly do crafts and activities or to follow any sort of curriculum with them (we tried both BFIAR and Sonlight). It was really discouraging until an older mom said exactly what you’ve said here and added that it would come together when it needed to. And sure enough, we don’t struggle nearly as much to get our school time or stick on task now that the oldest is 7 rather than 4!
I think I just breathed a huge sigh of relief after reading this blog!! Thanks for sharing!
Absolutely spot on! This is great and perfect for me right now. I do worry that I am really not a ‘preschool’ type, I just can’t seem to get it together to do toddler stuff, my youngest just does what I set out for my eldest but in his own way. So he is using water colours rather than tempra and listening to audio books about the pioneers in the car rather than singing nursery rhymes. I worry I am not doing circle or doing the Mary Poppins thing but I hope that he is being exposed to other, equally worthwhile things by learning alongside his brother.
Great article!
AMEN!! I love all those sites, too. But I tell you what, for the amount of work that goes into making and doing all of those activities, my children learn the concepts waaay to fast to invest that much time in it.
I could spend hours making a lap book and my child will learn and know the information (whether shapes, colors, numbers, etc) within a week. Then what? I spend hours making another one? No way! Open a book and read about shapes! Post an alphabet and number chart on the wall and watch your preschooler become glued to it, asking what this letter is and what that number is.
All we need to do is create the opportunities and watch them come to life. 🙂
Excellent post and I couldn’t agree more!
“All we need to do is create the opportunities and watch them come to life.”
I love this quote. So true!
This post was such a blessing to me. I have a 4, 3, and 2 year old, plus a newborn. When my first was born, I started buying preschool curriculum. After wasting lots of money and never getting organized enough to actually use the curriculum I have settled into a routine of having about 15-30 minutes of organized school, which consists of bible time. We memorize verses, read bible verses and sing bible songs. If I haven’t lost their attention, we work on letter sounds and recognition. Plus I read to my kids at least twice a day at nap and bed time. They love books and beg us to read to them. We even started reading the Little House series which holds their attention. I have come to the conclusion with the encouragement of my husband not to push them and just let them be kids. School will come and they will learn. Above all, hiding God’s Word in their heart is my number one priority.
You definitely have your priorities in the right place!
Great article! The greatest teaching moments we have flow out of interacting in normal, everyday life.
I’ve always found it strange when homeschoolers would say they were “homeschooling” their 3 & 4 year olds. Maybe it’s because we’re unschoolers, but little children especially don’t need a curriculum or anything structured out for them. I just had a lot of fun with my kids, took out tons of books, when to a lot of different places, and pulled out a lot of resources for them to choose from.
Thanks for stepping out and assuring parents that kids do learn best just by being included in the family and by exploring new things on their own.
this was so good. I see SO many young mothers overdoing it when it comes to young children. Just let the little ones be little ones. learning will and does come
G-R-E-A-T article!!!!! So, so, so true!!!!!!!!!
Preschool in my home looks just like yours! With 6 children now all 2 years or less apart life is learning. And now that the littlest is almost 3yo I know this is just fine.
This is exactly what I needed to hear. My oldest will be 4 in the fall and I’ve been desperately and frantically trying to come up with a preschool plan (even if the plan is just in my head). I know what I want my child to learn, but to see other homeschool preschools teach worksheets and sensory bins, it all seems so overwhelming and I can’t get my head around how to accomplish that with regular chores and another 2 year old who wants to do whatever her big brother is doing.
I really like Amy A.’s perspective – 15-30 minutes of bible time with memorizing verses and songs and if their minds are still with me, we’ll do more. I forget that all the fun stuff kids do actually TEACH them the same things I want them to learn anyway!
I think I’m going to hang Christin’s quote on the wall as well!
Absolutly Brilliant!
ITA! I joke that we unschool preschool. When my youngest was getting ready to go to Kindergarten, the school gave a booklet with activities we could do to help prepare him. Well, the list of “things he needed to know” were things that he already knew just by living life day to day.
A to the Men.