Your little one may seem small now, but trust us—they’ll grow faster than you know it! It’s part of the reason why early education among little ones from ages two to five is so crucial. Early education has so many proven benefits on the development of little ones, so including it in your child’s life is a big deal! However, it can be really daunting to attempt to find the perfect environment for your little one to learn in, especially when there are so many options now to do homeschool online . If you’ve been leaning towards a homeschool environment for your little one, the pressure can feel even greater! Luckily, there are plenty of things that you can look into when attempting to choose the curriculum for your little one as offered by preschool online programs.
Before you can even look into the curriculum, though, it’s important to understand how little ones tend to learn in the first place! While it’s true that not every single little one learns in exactly the same way, it has been shown that there are certain things that are generally considered universally helpful in a child’s development. For preschool-aged children, one of these things is play, whether you choose an in person program or preschool online. Play offers your little one so many different opportunities to develop a wide variety of skills. To begin with, play is an excellent way for your little one to explore real-life problem solving. Think of when your little one plays pretend, even-they have to think a lot and make decisions that will impact their play. Children also learn a number of social skills when they play, especially with lots and lots of other little ones! They have the chance to expand their vocabularies and become physically more agile, too. It’s also frequently demonstrated that children of a preschool age learn by exploring their environments, hands-on. Sensory play, which includes your little one using a number of tools or materials to explore the places they play or live, will not only help them improve their gross and fine motor skills, but will help them think critically as well. So, the first step when considering homeschool online curriculum is to look into how much playtime your little one will be afforded!
After looking into play allowed by the homeschool online curriculum, what comes next? Well, it’s a great time to see what curriculum is being offered by the preschool online programs you consider, and how your little one will be able to explore those subjects in a hands-on fashion. There are a number of subjects to look for when explore the homeschool online options, including:
Your little one definitely needs to learn how to communicate, so this one is a biggie! How it’s taught is important to look at, though. Looking into homeschool online programs that will allow your little one to be read to or will let you and your little one have time to do this is huge. Because little ones love to watch you read, they begin to learn that the letters they see make words, and that those words have meanings. Reading aloud so your little one learns letter sounds, rhyming and phonetics. It’s also a good idea to look into the types of stories being shared with your little one! Make sure your preschool online curriculum allows for this learning to occur.
Because arithmetic skills are very foundational, and simply continue to be built upon, it’s crucial that your homeschool online program offers lots of chances to explore math in a hands-on way! Fortunately, there’s lots of ways this can occur. Preschool online programs should offer lots of ideas for helping your little one learn how to sort and categorize as well as compare and contrast (like sorting buttons by size, then by amount of holes, etc). There should also be lots of options for shape and pattern learning as well as how to recognize numbers. Even though color recognition may not seem like a math skill, it’ll help your little one to learn sorting and categorizing. Finally, homeschool online curriculum should offer options for learning the differences between days and nights, weeks and months and more!
Your little one’s fine motor skills are also so important to be developed as you look into homeschool online programs! There are lots of crafts and things your little one can do to develop them as well, such as beading, cutting and pasting, coloring and more!
There are so many factors to consider when looking into homeschool online programs, and it can be tough making the big decision. However, by reviewing all the things you should look for from your little one’s preschool online curricula, you can make the decision that will work best for you and your little one! Try Our Online Preschool for FREE! Playgarden Prep offers numerous educational videos from real teachers, and numerous DIY projects that support early learning and development.
Miss Charlotte is an Education Director by trade, and a mom by heart. All 200+ of our DIY projects were created by Miss Charlotte, with the help of her expert DIY assistant—Her 4 year old daughter! With a MST degree in Early Childhood Education and 15 years of teaching experience, her blogs and DIY projects have been an incredible resource for our Playgarden Prep schools. We hope that your family loves them as much as we do!
