The Preschool Homeschool

If you’ve been homeschooling a while, you’re probably already familiar with the Starfall website. If not, here are some tips for integrating the Starfall site into your curriculum.

First, you need to visit Starfall and browse around and see all the fun stuff available. We use Starfall whenever we start a new letter. We work on the letter and then go online and she does the letter on the Starfall program. She loves all the music and interaction that Starfall provides. The best part is that it’s all free. If you have a printer, and if you’re a homeschooler you need a printer, there are plenty of free homeschool printable activities that correspond with the site.

Just visit the download center for alphabet pages, printable books, make a word papers and bunches more. If you plan a weekly curriculum, jump on starfall the night you plan and just print out your activities for the week. It’s also great to use Starfall as a filler activity. For example, if you feel like you’ve achieved nothing one day because the fridge busted, toilet overflowed, your cell phone fell in the dog’s water bowl, etc…let your kid spend some time playing on Starfall. No matter what they do, they are learning something, and the site is easily navigated by little hands. My daughter needs no help whatsoever navigating to different activities. Enjoy!

We have a work-in-progress going on in our dining room. One of our projects is creating a fun alphabet wall. Right now we have the letters A-F up on the wall. Each time we start a new letter, I print out a copy of it from Here, color it in and tape it up on the wall. It looks like this:

The next couple of weeks we are going to be adding to the alphabet wall to make it more interactive and fun. For each letter we are going to add a coloring sheet or craft that corresponds with each letter. For example, A will have an apple, B will have a ball, C will have cookies and so forth. Since she is 3, my focus right now is learning the names and sounds of each letter. I meet a lot of parents who tell me their child knows the alphabet. Many times these kids know the ABC song and letter recognition but don’t know the sounds of the letters. To me, knowing the alphabet means knowing the name and the sound. We do practice writing, but it’s not a main focus right now. We’ll focus more on writing next year. I’ll post an updated picture of our alphabet wall when it’s complete.

The reason I don’t create the coloring sheet/craft when we are learning the letter is because I use the alphabet wall decorations as a letter review. I don’t rush any lessons. I like to know that when we’re done she really knows it and doesn’t just have a picture or the placement on the wall memorized. If your preschooler is struggling with learning the letters and letter sounds, try creating an alphabet wall somewhere in your house. Like I said, ours is in our dining room. Another idea is to use sticky velcro pieces to stick the decorations on the wall, and create the decorations from felt. This way you have an interactive alphabet with moveable pieces.