Toddler Preschool Schedule at Home

Getting into daycares or preschools have become a near impossible experience for us, especially given that we live in a very small town where resources are incredibly limited. I had placed my son on multiple waitlists when he was 4 months old and here we are, he is nearly 3 and a half and we have yet to receive a call for an opportunity. After asking local moms around me, they have all told me they placed this kids on wait lists when they first found out they were pregnant. This is simply ridiculous.

My son has a speech delay which we addressed when he was only 20 months old by starting him in several speech therapies. He has since thrived, and while still not at his age level in speech and communication, he has come a very long way. Truth be told, I strongly believe if he were in a daily group setting of peers his own age, his speech would progress immensely. I take him to playgroups and story times at the library and many other activities to allow him the exposure to kids his own age and their speech. All of which have helped, but a preschool setting would allow so much more.

I was tired of waiting to be called for a preschool experience for my toddler, so I developed one of my own for him and my daughter who is a little younger. While it is not a full day scope of structured activities and I have yet to have opened up my home to other children from our community, we do daily lessons to give them daily knowledge and understanding.

After breakfast and cleanup, I call out “Preschool” and both my kids come running to our living room and we sit on the floor and start our lessons. First, we go over the day of the week, the month we are in and the actual date. We spell out both the day and month. We then go over what the weather is looking like for that day. I have charts we review that have several options to visually see and discuss what the weather could be and what it will be. I then ask “How are you feeling?” and bring out my emotions chart. This has many faces listed showing different emotions from happy and sad, to tired and scared, silly and frustrated, to excited and disappointed and many more in between.

Next up, we talk about the potty. Potty training has been quite the challenge for us so far, so we have a chart we review everyday to ensure we understand the process of going to the bathroom. We have memorized the steps at this point, just working on actually implementing them.

We then go into reading some books. While occasionally on themes decided by myself previously, we also throw in some fun ones and favourites along the way. I will read anywhere from 2 to 4 books each morning, maintaining their engagement and interest. I will source books from our local library as well as our own personal library quite often.

Finally, we tend to go over some flash cards. From shapes and colours, to numbers and letters and suggested first words, this expands our understanding and pronunciation of our daily words and more.

After all this has been done, my kids then love to read the books or look at the flashcards we have used in our preschool time on their own. We move on afterwards to other activities, in the home or out. We go to playgroups or the library, or we do crafts or structured activities from our play bins such as playdoh, kinetic sand or colouring. We do not often have screen time, but it does happen occasionally.

When life presents challenges or road blocks, we can either accept them for what they are or take it upon ourselves to improve our scenarios. I refused to back down and not give my children all the learning opportunities they could be gaining from a daycare setting. I have sourced preschool curriculum from our province to ensure we are on track and covering what is expected. I have looked up a variety of lessons and activities from Pinterest and other online sources. Just because we have had no luck getting into an actual preschool at this point, does not mean my kids will miss out. Homeschooling them at this age is what we have decided to do in the meantime. You can take hold of your own opportunities and set your kids up for success in your own way. And its amazing to see how they adapt and thrive and love learning.

Melanie xoxox