Pre-K Curriculum Picks (2024-2025)

This is my third round of teaching pre-K at home. I taught pre-K in a classroom setting for 2 years, and I’ve also taught pre-K at home to my two sons. My daughter’s pre-K at home plan has some similarities to her brothers’, but there are also some differences, which led me to write up a pre-K curriculum picks post.

My daughter will be a younger 4 year old when she starts pre-K, due to having a late spring birthday. She has been interested in coloring since she was about 18 months old and is proficient at it now. She also decided she wanted to learn how to write her name when she was 3, which is not something I pushed or required. However, I am trying to roll with her interest.

I’m also working with the dynamic of a youngest child who wants to be involved in what her brothers are doing.

Pre-K Curriculum Picks:

General Preschool Knowledge –

Gentle + Classical Preschool – I used this a couple years ago with my middle guy and we loved it! It was just the right amount of gentle structure. Clocking in at 26 units, it is easy to finish in a year. Each unit focuses on a letter of the alphabet and a corresponding picture book. We will also learn about nursery rhymes, manners and hygiene, math, art and music, motor skills, all about me, catechism, character, a Bible story, and a handicraft or activity.

I did upgrade this time around and purchase the print version of the Gentle + Classical Preschool Handicraft + Activity Guide. The paper and binding is sturdy and should hold up in a house with littles. It’s also just a beautiful book.

I did not do handicrafts with my middle guy at all because I was juggling so many other things at the time. However, I think my daughter will enjoy them, and my life is less chaotic now.

The handicraft guide provides a grid with a suggested weekly schedule. You can, of course, alter this as desired to fit your family. I think the grid is especially helpful for new homeschoolers.

See my full review of Gentle + Classical Preschool here.

Math –

Saxon K Math – I have used Saxon K math with all of my kids at age 4. Saxon K is very play based, with heavy use of manipulatives and no writing at all. My boys loved it, but my daughter has complained that she wants to “write math.” I will keep you updated on that situation as it unfolds.

Alphabet/Letter Sounds –

She is solid on letter recognition. She is close to knowing all of her letter sounds, but we will watch Letter Factory to help her cement the last few in her mind. I don’t plan to start phonics instruction until kindergarten.

Handwriting –

She is ready to write, so she will use Channie’s My First Letters. I also have Channie’s Neat Numbers for her. But again…she is more interested in writing math problems than in writing individual numbers, so we will see how that goes.

As a side note…we have used several Channie’s products and the glue binding the pages together has disintegrated quickly. We have had this issue with about 4 different Channie’s books. If you are tearing out each page for your child to use, this is less of a problem.

Entertainment During Her Older Brothers’ School Time –

Christian Light Kindergarten Workbooks – Ideologically, I am not a big fan of preschool workbooks. However, two of my children have had other ideas about that topic. Consequently, I have used the Rod and Staff ABC Series of preschool workbooks. After going through two kids, they have been mostly completed, so I decided to purchase the Christian Light Kindergarten workbooks.

Here is a sample page:

I intend for this to be my daughter’s pre-K year, not her kindergarten year. Despite this, I feel that the Christian Light Kindergarten will be appropriate for her. They split the course into “Kindergarten 1” and “Kindergarten 2.” Kindergarten 1 is a lot of identifying shapes and colors, tracing, and counting. She finds that type of thing highly entertaining.

To read about what I did with my other children for pre-K, see the following posts:

My oldest’s Pre-K picks

My middle guy’s Pre-K picks