Earlier this year, in the blog post "Homeschooling in My Own Hard Season," I expressed my struggles working with our preschooler. Our tot school plans didn't work well because she wasn't genuinely interested, and I was also dealing with pregnancy issues. So, I tabled "formal' work with her until now. So here we are with Bird at 3 ½ years old, and I think we are both ready for something a bit more. I didn't find an all-in-one program that fit what we needed. I wasn't ready to piece things together and buy more useless supplies. So Momma Bear Preschool was born.

I am still in the planning stages and planning as we go now. But, I have recently shared a few Facebook/Instagram posts highlighting some games/activities I have been doing with our 3- 3-year-old for preschool. We are a few weeks in, and I am ready to share my outlined plan. I also hope to do a monthly highlight post (on IG or Facebook) or blog post about what we have been doing for the month. Once we are in an even better groove, I plan on writing up our games and activities, making those available as a download on the printables section of my webpage.

I am still in the planning stages and planning a lot as we go right now. But, I have recently shared a few Facebook/Instagram posts highlighting some games/activities I have been doing with our 3- 3-year-old for preschool. We are a few weeks in, and I am ready to share my outlined plan. I also hope to do a monthly highlight post (on IG or Facebook) or blog post about what we have been doing for the month. Once we are in an even better groove, I plan on writing up our games and activities, making those available as a download on the printables section of my webpage.

I am going back to the simplicity of preschool at home. Playful learning is my goal. Time for preschool should be just that: play. Two--, Three, and four-year-olds are often not academically ready for such formal education as society has been pushing them to get them ready for rigorous kindergarten. Please don't get me wrong; some kiddos are definitely ready to learn these skills at earlier ages, but their minds are still growing, and they are learning right along with their little bodies.

First, I want to share what her morning looks like during school time and offer her a general morning routine to understand when she does things and how we fit things in. We (her big sisters, who are 13 and 10) typically start school around 8/8:30 am and work until noon.

- Draw/Color in a notebook or sheet of paper.

- Listens to sisters read alouds while playing with school toys /free play in her room.

- One sister reads to her, and the other has iPad time with her (typically while I'm working on teaching the other sibling).

- After I work with big sisters, we play 1-2 letter/math games or activities together.

- I read her a book or two (depending on little brother and time).

- She listens/dances/sings to about 5-6 songs I've chosen for her for the week.

I will add that she doesn't do all these things daily. Some days, it is chaos, and she wants nothing to do with it. Getting school done with her older sisters is a struggle, but she does at least half of these tasks most days. Each of these "tasks" in her schedule looks like this:

Draw/Color in a notebook or sheet of paper: This is very simple. While I am gathering supplies for the day, she is busy drawing in a spiral notebook that is hers, or she asks for a sheet of paper. I will give you a plain piece of loose-leaf notebook or computer paper. She also likes discarded math pages or papers with writing on them that I would typically throw away.

She listens to her sisters read alouds while playing with school toys /free play in her room: I try to rotate through a few "learning" type toys for her that she only gets to play with during school time. They include Little People, various building blocks, puzzles, little animals, lacing activities, etc. She will play with these while I am reading to one of her sisters, and her brother usually joins in, too, if he isn't nursing or taking his morning nap. Or she has the option to play in her room with her toys. She typically alternates between these several times throughout the morning.

One sister reads to her, and the other has iPad time with her (typically while I'm working on teaching the other sibling). We started this while we were in the camper earlier this year because she was disruptive during school. I needed a way to distract her from working with the older girls. She loves this one-on-one time with her sisters, which has worked well. They alternate with Bible, PBS Kids, and Vooks on the iPad. I will be adding ABCMouse to the rotation soon. The sister who reads to her

After I worked with big sisters, we played 1-2 letter/math games or activities together. I scoured the Internet through Pinterest and search engines to find letter and number activities that weren't worksheets. It was challenging, but I created a list of about 30 games/activities to help teach letters. I also purchased the book "Preschool Math at Home" by Kat Snow to help teach about numbers and counting and introduce math skills. We do at least one or two letter activities a week, and I am just progressing through the math book as she develops the skills in the order of the book.

I read her a book or two (depending on little brother and time). This is pretty self-explanatory. I have a good dozen alphabet books I alternate between with her during this time. I also read to her from some storybook collections we have.

She listens/dances/sings with about 5-6 songs I've chosen for the week: She has to wait until Baby Bee is up from his morning nap, and songs usually take us until big sisters are done with school and we are getting ready for lunch. I pick songs related to letters, colors, numbers, asl bible songs, and songs that get her up and moving.

I have written down some goals that I may share in more detail later. Still, I want to expose her to letters and counting as much as possible, but with a more gentle approach. In January, when our school year re-starts and Bird is four, I plan to add in Before Five in a Row. Depending on how that progresses, and how she progresses with letter recognition and her math skills, we will add a few other curriculum with her. This is just the start of our home school journey with Bird, and I hope it goes well. If not, I'll take myself back to the planning stage to help her as best I can.

As always, keep following our journey on our Facebook Page or Instagram. If you want more in-depth conversations, check out our Facebook Parent Group.