It’s no secret I was working on a home preschool program with my daughter. It was informal and was a way to help me teach her things I felt like she might have been missing out on by not being in daycare. Every year she was home, after she turned two, we’d work on another round. And, each year we’d deepen the educational value as I prepared her to read or do early math. Plus, we eventually got into some character education.
Now that my second baby is 3 years old (and finally ready to sit down and focus) we’re doing it again.
So, I wanted to share the online home preschool resources I’ve used.
Bear in mind, these are just a selection of resources I use and certainly doesn’t begin to account for the many resources out there.
Additionally, I find it useful to use many sources to tailor our program to our needs or moods.
Of course, because this is somewhat an informal way for us to educate ourselves, I find it most beneficial to use as many free online resources as I can find. This year, I have a very large binder I put together of print outs and the only thing it has cost me was printer paper and ink (not counting the preschool art and craft supplies). I do use several other paid-for educational resources to boost our program and change up our learning options. I have provided the paid-for resources at the bottom of the list in the form of affiliate links. If you click those links and make purchases, I will be paid a small commission, but it will not cost you any more than if you went to the site directly. I wouldn’t recommend those resources if I didn’t find them useful.
My Favorite Online Home Preschool Resources
Letter of the Week Preschool Curriculum
Letter of the Week was the basic program that I used last year. I found it helpful and am using the next stage as our base for this year. I’m expanding the program with other resources to customize for our needs.
Easy Peasy All-in-One Homeschool
I found that incorporating All-in-One Homeschool was easy to do as is goes through the alphabet by week as well. This site gave me other ideas, printables, etc and broke the activities down by day.
DLTK’s Crafts for Kids
This is my go-to source for printables, coloring pages, and craft ideas. I love that many of DLTK’s ideas include templates and instructions, which takes so much of the guess work out of crafting with little ones.
If you don’t mind spending a bit of money, these are the resources I’d recommend considering to enhance your preschool curriculum. Sometimes a small investment in education goes a long way.
Foreign Language- Dino Lingo
A while back, I was provided a Dino Lingo set in Spanish for review. I chose Spanish because of the big push for children to learn Spanish as a second language in schools. While the little ones are so young, they absorb so much information easily, so starting a foreign language this early just made sense. You can get Dino Lingo from their own website or off Amazon in various sets and prices.
Sign Language
I’ve been a big fan of Signing Time since my daughter was a baby. She was signing milk at about 9 months and her sign language vocabulary was amazing during the time she refused to speak with words. It was a lifesaver in many ways and she continues to use some of her vocabulary at 3 years of age. Having used sign language, I found it beneficial when we began to learn Spanish as well making it easier to connect the English to Spanish translation.
ABC Mouse
Full online toddler and preschool curriculum includes games, puzzles, coloring activities (like color by number or dot to dot that I don’t seem to find everywhere), etc. You could easily integrate the Letter of the Week curriculum to include a few minutes a day, or a week, of ABC mouse activities. The activities in the “whiteboard” go in alphabetical order so it’s easy to follow along with the Letter of the Week preschool curriculum mentioned above.
I’ve had a few chances to work with ABC Mouse over the years, and I’ve written about them here and here.
Agnitus
We use this as a fill-in type educational system. Since it plays like games, I have no problem letting my daughter play on occasion without her realizing that she’s learning at the same time. She’s getting great educational value out of Agnitus without the feeling of rigid structure.
Do you have any great online home preschool resources you believe should be added to this list? If so, please leave me a comment!
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