Learning At Home with the "Playing Preschool" Book

When Covid quarantine started, this was one of the very first educational purchases I made. I was desperate to find ways to teach Aiden, but had no idea where to start. I could go on and on about how much I love this book, but I’ll just say that it’s worth every single penny and by far, one of the best purchases I’ve made. 

With that being said, I wanted to share a few important things to note based on my experience with the book in hopes that it will help you if you decide if you want to purchase it. 

Overview:

There are 19 units total and you can plan on spending 2 weeks (or more) focusing on each unit. The book includes specific literature suggestions, a song + poem, science, math, games and more for each individual lesson. Each unit includes a lesson plan, list of questions/conversation starters and simple instructions for various activities. It’s basically a preschool curriculum wrapped up into one little book. It’s fabulous.

Things to Note

Set a Budget

It’s important to know that you can adapt each lesson/unit to fit what you have at home or your budget. When I first started doing the Playing Preschool Book, I was afraid to do anything different than what was perfectly mapped out for me. 

However, I quickly realized that with all of the craziness caused by Covid, I wasn’t going to be able to rent books from the library and purchasing every single book in the lesson was not in our budget.

Instead, try to find books that you already have that are related to the lesson you’re focusing on or print images + tell the story to your kids. As I started to adapt the lessons to what we had at home or could afford, the entire experience was so much easier.

Being Prepared + Planing

This has been one of the biggest struggles for me. Each lesson needs a decent amount of planning and thought from the parent to organize the activities. I definitely felt like I couldn’t jump right into a lesson while the kids were awake and try to wing it. It seems to only work if you sit down and plan out each daily schedule/tasks - which shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes, but I understand how valuable that time is when you’re engulfed in the craziness of life. 

Overall, this Play Preschool book has been such an amazing tool during our at home learning experience. I would highly recommend it to any mom with a child who is at the preschool level.