Preschool and Pre-K Year in Review

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through my link but does not change your price.

I cannot believe it is the end of another school year! This year seemed to fly by. For the first time, I really was teaching two kids (more than I expected, but more on that coming up!). My son just turned 5, and my daughter is 3. I also have a one-year-old who does a great job making school time interesting! My son was officially identified as highly gifted this year, something we have suspected for a while. I mention that because the curricula I am sharing do not necessarily align with my children’s chronological ages. I will share what I did this year with both my children, starting with my younger daughter.

Preschool Year in Review for my 3-Year-Old

My daughter turned 3 in January of this year. That means she just barely missed the 3K cutoff age here in New York (the end of December). Since I am not sending her to school, that’s not really relevant. It just means she will have two more years after this one before she is in Kindergarten. This year, I wanted to do a bit more intentional work with her, largely so she could have the special time her big brother gets. I had a feeling she would love having her own lessons, and she really, really does.

We started the year with Playing Preschool by Busy Toddler. It is a gentle, very playful preschool curriculum. I was looking for something at least mostly secular, low-prep, and fun. I had wanted to try Playing Preschool with my son previously, but by the time I was looking at it, he was already reading and well beyond that point. We started the year with the apples unit, perfect for fall! I found the units easy to follow and adjust as necessary. The curriculum is very flexible, allowing you to substitute books or activities as you wish. I love how it covers the basic preschool topics—letters, numbers, colors, shapes—again and again. It includes so many activities I would have done anyway, but I liked having them all laid out. I feel like, especially with a second child, it was nice having something give you a sequence of activities. This saves a lot of time on Pinterest and Instagram activities!

That said, Playing Preschool dropped off after a couple of months for us. Our main holidays are in the fall, and I find it becomes somewhat of an early year check on what we will keep doing all year and what will drop. Though we were enjoying Playing Preschool, after the holidays, I found it hard to get back into it again. We had missed so many days because of shorter weeks and holiday-related activities.

The other aspect was that I realized my daughter’s letter knowledge was much more robust than I had thought. Going in, I knew she knew all her lowercase letter sounds. Though I have exposed her to both, many of our materials are lowercase. However, while doing Playing Preschool, I found she had already picked up on the uppercase letters as well and most of the letter names. In the early fall, she also started blending 2 and some 3-letter words. The letter a week (or every 2 weeks) format didn’t make a ton of sense for her. That isn’t a dealbreaker, as you can absolutely skip those aspects, but combined with the challenges I was already having restarting the curriculum after the holidays, I decided to shift.

We worked with the movable alphabet, used the first Lovevery reading kit, did art, and worked on reading short words. I still tried to set aside some time for intentional lessons for her since she loved that, while including her in family lessons with my son as well. We also utilized Hands-on Kids Activities for Montessori-inspired materials. I have been using them since my son was around 3, and I really love them.

Then, in January, right after she turned 3, I decided she was ready to start All About Reading. She kept telling us that she would read books when she was 3. Since she had been blending words for a few months, I believed that, but I didn’t know she meant right when she turned 3! Right when she turned 3, she told me she wanted to read books now. I pulled out the first Bob Books, and she rocked them. She was so joyful and so proud. At this point, I decided to start All About Reading. It took us about 3 months to get through the first level of All About Reading, finishing in early April. She absolutely loved it! Then, we were on to level 2.

For math, I keep things very focused on everyday life. We do math in the kitchen, talking about quantities, fractions, etc. I use the book Preschool Math at Home for some guidance, but much of it comes naturally to me at this point. We also use traditional Montessori materials. She uses the colored beads and sandpaper numbers. We will soon move towards bigger numbers with the golden beads. We also practice subitizing and numbers on the ten-frame.

We read a lot of books, and she plays a ton! We visit museums and go on lots of field trips around the city.

Pre-K Year in Review for My 5-Year-Old

My son turned 5 in late March, putting him in Pre-K this year. He was officially identified as highly gifted this year, something we have long suspected. My son thrives on structure and having some academic challenges. I mention that because what I am doing with him may look very different than most Pre-K. He would not thrive in an environment focused only on play. I understand many, maybe most, children do at this age, and there is a deep belief that that is what this age should look like. Every child is different, though. While play is a huge aspect of our learning, and we do play-based learning, a preschool program that did not include academics would not be a good fit for him. He also, of course, has most of the day to choose what to do. Rest assured, the vast majority of his day is still spent in free play. For him, that is very often reading. What he is doing at home with me is not at a Pre-K level. I want to make sure I make that clear before we go through what he has been working on this year.

Our main overarching curriculum this year was an exploration of New York City. As a little New Yorker, my son loves the city. He has questions all the time and wants to know the history of everything. He is a little tour guide walking down the street! Following this interest, I designed my own curriculum for us to explore the history of New York City. I hope to write a post going into more detail on this study. Each week, we explored a different place in the city. We read a book for that week, rereading it each day. We then visited the place. I went somewhat in chronological order, beginning with the Lenape people and then going in order of when the place was built or created. Doing this, we have explored the Met, the Hudson River, Central Park, the Brooklyn Bridge, and more! We are still going, exploring different parts of the city. We read amazing picture books and learned so much about our amazing city. In addition to the picture books, we did some activities for each place. Sometimes this was a science project, such as learning about caissons when covering the Brooklyn Bridge. Other times, it was learning about maps, doing art, or trying a recipe. All in all, this was a wonderful overarching curriculum that fit our family well. We are not done with it yet, either, and will continue it through the summer! I will admit, I am a little bummed it didn’t fit nicely into ending at the end of our school year, but that’s okay!

My son finished All About Reading a year and a half ago. He is a fluent reader who loves a variety of books. He still loves some early readers like Henry and Mudge, some early chapter books like Mercy Watson, and some higher-level beginner chapter books, such as Magic Treehouse and Zoey and Sassafraas. This year, he also moved into some other higher-level chapter books, such as Heartwood Hotel. I have naturally noticed this year he has shifted away from the early readers and early chapter books towards the higher-level chapter books. Because of his reading level, finding a language arts fit has been a bit more challenging.

At the beginning of the year, we started All About Spelling to work on spelling. However, I found his spelling in isolation is excellent. But that doesn’t always translate to his writing (as the year has progressed, it has more and more transferred to writing, too). He is still so young, and his hand is still developing. While he enjoys expressing himself through writing and is very capable of writing sentences, he is still at the beginning of writing more. The physical mechanics of writing are still hard and slow! All About Spelling is also somewhat intensive as an instructor. While I loved All About Reading and all the little pieces, it felt somewhat onerous for us for spelling. I think that is because it felt like more than he necessarily needed. I think this is excellent for a child who is struggling with spelling, but he has naturally picked up so much spelling from reading. I considered trying Logic of English as another spelling option. I tested him for Essentials, their upper-level program for children already reading, and he tested in the top level. I figured I would have him do the middle level, though, given his age. I planned to do the online program since it is incredibly affordable and seemed the most manageable. However, we have never done any online learning (other than some art videos we do together), and I started to feel that it did not align with my philosophy. In the end, I decided to hold off on a spelling curriculum. He has access to some higher-level words to practice spelling through the Montessori spelling curriculum. I figured, what’s the rush? He is picking up spelling naturally so well. If he were a few years older, perhaps I would prioritize it more, but I don’t think it is necessary for him now. Of course, as spelling questions come up, we do work through them together. I have also noticed he picks up a lot of the rules again through listening to his sister’s reading curriculum. It is almost like All About Spelling Lite for him.

For other language arts, much of this was simply reading good books. I purchased a few language arts companions for books throughout the year. We did a companion for Heartwood Hotel. He is also doing a challenge to read and write a report on all the Magic Treehouse books. I got him a comprehension companion from Teachers Pay Teachers for this. We also did a lot of language arts in my overarching New York City curriculum. We’ve done grammar through the Montessori scope. However, near the end of the year, I discovered First Language Lessons. I decided to add this to our home, and I am so glad I did! It is incredibly gentle, and I do it during tea time with both my older kids. It takes 5-10 minutes a day. My 3-year-old enjoys it as well, though I focus on my 5-year-old with it. First Language Lessons includes poetry memorization, grammar, and narration, following a Classical approach.

I have a separate review of our math journey this year. I am going to direct you there for more details of each of these programs. However, we began the year with All About Math and Singapore, but later pivoted to Beast Academy (the workbooks, not the online program). We loved Singapore math at the Kindergarten level (which he did last summer), but after a bit of time in the first grade level, he was bored and not enjoying it. While we do sometimes pull these worksheets, it is no longer something we do consistently. I pull ones now that have good challenge problems for him to work through. My son loves Beast Academy, and I wish I had switched to it earlier. Since Beast Academy is known for being higher-level and more focused on problem-solving, I brought him back to level 1A when he started, even though it was review. He is now nearly done with 1D (which is the end of the 1st-grade curriculum). While he already knew most of what was taught in these levels of Beast Academy, they go much deeper than any of the other curricula in problem-solving.

For handwriting, we started this year with Kick Start Kindergarten from Handwriting Without Tears. Handwriting is definitely my least consistent subject. He actually does enjoy it, though! We did the Kick Start Kindergarten level alongside Doodles Help Handwriting. As we finished that, I had a bit of a dilemma. I really wanted my son to learn D’Nealian, not traditional print. However, I really like Handwriting Without Tears and Doodles Help Handwriting. I wish they did D’Nealian so badly! We gave Dash into Handwriting a try, but I just didn’t love it as much. I ended up, with a bit of regret, dropping my goal of teaching him D’Nealian. I felt the resources just were not robust enough, with so much focused on traditional print. Near the end of the year, we added in Building Writers from Handwriting Without Tears. It is a bit of a writing and handwriting hybrid, and we love it. I wish I had tried it a few months earlier in the year!

This Summer: What’s Next

We have never fully taken a summer “off” but I do find our days naturally shift a little. My first son in particular (but this is true of most young children!) thrives on routine. That doesn’t change because it is summer, and one of the benefits of having him home has been being able to keep up a routine. In the past, we have continued our math and/or reading curriculum in the summer, adding in some fun unit studies. For example, last summer we did a berry unit, went berry picking, and did a unit on extreme weather at my son's request.

This summer, my son is attending camp for several weeks. During those weeks, we won’t be doing school time. We will, of course, play math games and read books, but that’s all. During the other weeks, we will probably keep up with a little math each day and work on our NYC study. We still have several more places to visit for that! We are finishing up Beast Academy right as our year ends. I assume he will want to go straight into level 2, so we will! Last summer, my son loved the BrainQuest summer workbook, so I may buy that again.

I plan to take advantage of the time my son is in camp to really work on All About Reading with my daughter! She is so motivated and doing so well. Though I am perfectly happy with our pacing, I know she will benefit from having some more of my time during those weeks.

I also hope to have a bit more time with my youngest. I would like to spend some more time with him on some of the Montessori materials.