When my kids are 2 and 3 years old, I use Catholic ABC’s as it’s written. I do it all in one day, straight from the book (usually in a co-op setting). This is always in combination with the letter factory video, and our hands-on activities we have at our house. By the time my preschoolers are in Pre-K, I consider the Catholic ABC’s their religion curriculum rather than a full curriculum, and I add some other stuff in. Today, I wanted to share with you what letter-of-the-week Pre-K preschool looks like in our home! 
First, a little intro to All About Reading Pre-Reading…
This year, I added the All About Reading Pre-reading program to what we’ve been doing. I purchased their basic package for $80, which is $40 cheaper than their deluxe package. Then I realized that the puppet is actually is used in the curriculum, so I ordered this zebra puppet to go with it for $18. Overall, I still saved $22 by ordering the puppet separate, and you could actually use any puppet in his place.
I’m so glad we have the puppet! The girls love him! You can see him in the picture below with our index card box full of the cards that come with the program. We are ready to go!
I have been using All About Spelling and All About Reading for several years now, so I don’t know why it took me so long to get their preschool program- we love it! It’s a little pricey, but it allows me to teach preschool in really fun and hands-on ways with no prep work, and everything is re-usable except for the workbook, which means for Anabelle I will only need to purchase another workbook.
The All About Pre-Reading lessons are set up to go through the entire alphabet in capital letters, then the whole alphabet in lowercase letters, then again with the letter sounds. However, we decided to do it in a letter a week format. The index in the All About Pre-Reading book makes it easy to skip ahead to the letter you want. I really prefer this method for multiple reasons, including that it mixes up the different types of activities they have in the different sections of the book. Here’s how that looks in our house:
Although we have been using this program for several months now, I’m going to use the letter “A” week as my example in this post.
Sample Pre-K Lesson Plan: “A” Week
Monday- Capital letter A lesson
Tuesday- Lowercase letter A lesson
Wednesday- Charlotte Mason Co-op Day
Thursday- Sound of /ă/ lesson
Friday- Catholic ABC’s letter A lesson
Sometime During The Week- Preparing Alphabet Snack
Every Day- Handwriting practice, Hand-on activities are open, Read Alouds, and Life as learning
So that’s the overview. If you would like to see example pictures for each day, read on.
Monday- Capital Letter Lesson
On Monday, I introduce my preschoolers to the letter of the week. I do this exactly as it is written into Catholic ABC’s under circle time. First we sing the alphabet song, then introduce the capital and lowercase letter, along with the most common sound that letter makes. Then we sing the alphabet song again, this time, stopping on our current letter of the week. Then I take our bag of alphabet magnets, dump them on the table, and let Violet look for our letter of the week. (more details about all of this in Catholic ABC’s)
Then we do the “grab bag” (again, details in Catholic ABC’s), and when we’re finished, we put the letter of the week objects into our letter sensory bin. This way, they can play with the letter objects all week!
Next, we do the lesson for the capital letter from All About Pre-Reading. Each capital letter lesson comes with a coloring page that includes a crafty element. I always save the crafty page for the end of the lesson, even though it says to do it earlier in the lesson.
So first, we do activities involving the puppet, and sometimes rhyming cards and games. These are all included in the program, so there’s no prep work to this at all! Again, All About Reading makes it so easy to be a super fun teaching mom. I keep the whole program on one shelf in our school room so it’s super easy to grab whatever I need.
Each uppercase letter lesson includes a story to read from one of the books provided. They are always very short, and they rhyme, and they’re funny.
Most of the letter lessons include an animal that starts with that letter. While Violet colors the page, I read to her about that animal from our First Animal Encyclopedia.
This is a great book with lots of fun facts and pictures! The animal we’re covering is always in there, so it works out nicely that I don’t have to go looking for a different book each week. I love how this easily works Science right into our preschool lesson! She is fascinated by the animal facts. She especially loved learning how alligators can lay up to 80 eggs at a time, and that they carry baby alligators in their mouths.
For A week, we read about alligators being reptiles and having scales, so I pulled our snake skin and turtle shell out of our nature box. I love being organized enough to put my hands on this stuff exactly when I want to with no prep ahead of time! (Being that organized is new for me, btw.) The directions for the crafty alligator page said to color the alligator, then it says optionally, you can add googily eyes. We also decided to add green sequins for “scales,” and Violet loved this!
If the older kids are finished with their math, I let them sit in while I read from the fun animal encyclopedia. Often, they end up doing a notebooking page about the animal or something I can easily print online since only Violet has one of the workbooks. For A week, they drew their own alligators (which was technically the crocodile from this Draw Write Now book) and wrote a few sentences about what they learned.
Then we sang the Alligator Pie song from our Pizza Boogie CD, and pretended we were alligators.
Violet loved gluing on the sequins to her alligator so much that she didn’t want to be finished when the alligator was done, so I drew a big capital “A” on a piece of printer paper, and told her she could glue sequins on it also. This is why I always wait until the end of the lesson to let them do anything crafty! That way, when I’m finished with whatever canned craft or lesson we are doing, I will continue to let them work with whatever craft supplies we were using for as long as they like. So I left and did other school with the bigger kids while Violet played with sequins.
As Lydia has also been on a perler bead kick, they made perler bead alligators later that afternoon from this kit we already had.
That looks a lot for one day with all the pictures here, but I didn’t prep at all, and it involved all the kids, which is always a plus for me. Also, from beginning to end this took about an hour (it usually takes about 30 minutes to do preschool each morning, depending on how much we embellish).
Tuesday- Lowercase Letter Lesson
The lowercase letter day goes a little faster because we’ve already introduced the letter. Again, I save the crafty page to do very last. The beginning of the lesson might include rhyming cards provided by All About Reading, games, pointing out things that start with the letter, etc.
Each lowercase letter lesson has you read several letter themed poems from another included book. I love these poems! My older kids love to join us for the poetry readings. The teacher book coaches you through pointing out the things in the poem that start with that letter.
The crafty letter page from the workbook for little a said to color the apple tree with crayons, then dot apples onto the tree using a pencil eraser and red paint.
I let Anabelle (age 2) make paint dots on a regular piece of paper while Violet did this because she doesn’t have the workbook.
Violet had such a good time painting the apples on the tree that she didn’t want to be finished. So I drew a lowercase “a” on a piece of printer paper, and let her continue to dot.
Again, this is the part where I go do school with my older kids, and Violet may continue to use whatever craft supplies we already have out. Everybody wins.
Wednesday- Homeschool Co-op Day
We have a small Charlotte Mason style fine arts co-op that we do each Wednesday with just one other family, and it is such a blessing! This was designed for my older kids, but the preschoolers tag along, and Violet gets a lot out of it. Our kids range from ages 1-8. I’m not going to get into details right now, but this is what one of our days looks like:
A hymn Study (we are currently learning “We Gather Together”)
Presentations (which at this age is a glorified show and tell)
A Picture Study (we are currently studying Albrecht Durer)
Either Art Production Lesson
Or Composer/Classical music study (we are currently on Vivaldi)
Poetry Tea for lunch
Optional: Nature study and/or handicraft in the afternoon
Some of our co-op days will be used as joint field trip days. Here’s a picture of one of our poetry teas.
Thursday- Sound Of /ă/ Lesson
We do whatever the All About Reading lesson says to do that day, saving the workbook pages for last. Sometimes the lessons include little letter riddles for your kids, more games with rhyming cards, or silly games with the puppets. It’s all very well written, easy to follow, and tons of fun for preschoolers! The workbook pages for these are less crafty, and all very similar. I like that we’re doing the program letter of the week style because I think it would be really depressing to get to the last 1/3 of the program and be all out of fun crafts to do.
The letter sounds lessons also come with fun snack ideas that start with your letter sound. We do alphabet snacks separately (see below).
It also says to have read-aloud time with your child each day. We do most of our reading at bedtime, but I try to scan our personal children’s library, and pull books that are related to our letter. For A, we read Angelina and Alice (we love the original Angelina Ballerina books), A Is For Annabelle (another favorite here!), and the Berenstain Bear A Book. We also read the Treasure Box Book number 18 about angels, and The Guardian Angel Prayer Book on Catholic ABC’s day (see below). The books you choose don’t have to be letter themed, but my brain likes it when they are.
Friday- Catholic ABC’s Letter A Lesson
By the time my kids are Pre-K, they’ve already done Catholic ABC’s once, and in some cases twice, so I don’t do it exactly as written. I start our Catholic ABC’s day by doing whatever our current religious unit study is, which right now is the days of creation. Then I introduce the letter of the week Bible verse like it says in the book under circle time. We sing our “Bible” song, and read the verse. Then the Bible verse card gets added to our scripture box for regular review. (More details of all of this can be found in my book.)
Then we read the letter of the week lesson, and do the craft. For A, we made this angel handprint craft.
When we’re finished, we do our Catholic ABC’s prayer table, where we make sure that our Liturgical Wheel is turned to the right season.
I leave the girls with their Alphabet Saint to color, and go do school with the older kids. They love to color these little Saints!
After they’re colored, you just either glue them around a toilet paper tube, or turn them into a tube and staple them in the back. These alphabet Saints are a fun craft for every age! Here they are in order, colored by a 2, 4, 6, and 8 year old.
Sometimes the older ones tag along with our Catholic ABC’s, and sometimes they do their independent work while I’m with the little ones, such as handwriting, workbooks, or reading to themselves. If the preschoolers want to keep coloring when they’re finished with their Saints, I print the alphabet virtue coloring pages from Pondered In My Heart. These are adorable, and perfect for preschoolers! Sometimes my older kids do these as well.
Sometime During The Week- Alphabet Snack
I am taking one on one time with Violet each week to make a snack that goes with our letter of the week. I put together a pinterest board with alphabet snack ideas to help myself out, but so far we’ve done mostly simple baking. A was for angel cookies, B was for brownies, C was for cake… and there’s no reason for it to be more complicated than a boxed brownie mix because Violet absolutely loves it!
Normally, I really don’t have the
time
patience to let my preschoolers “help” me cook, so it’s great to have intentional time set aside for this. I’m considering food prep to be one of Violet’s handicrafts/life skills for this year (It’s another Charlotte Mason thing). I just fit this in where I can, usually in the afternoon or on the weekend.
Our School Days- An Overview
We start each school day in prayer. At breakfast, I read from the Bible while the kids eat. Sometimes we also read a short Saint story. Then we review our Scripture from our Scripture memory box. The kids get dressed, do some simple morning chores, and I start math with the older ones. When math is finished (or almost finished) I start preschool with the girls. This is the time I posted about above. It generally takes about 30 hands-on minutes from me. When they’re finished, the preschoolers play or do independent hands-on activities while I do school with the bigger kids.
Then we all have lunch, and my preschoolers nap. This gives me time to finish up school with the bigger kids, and work on Catholic Icing stuff. Weather permitting, they all play outside in the afternoon. When the weather is bad, they play board games and do independent activities.
Our evenings look different depending on what we have going on that day. After dinner, the kids have some more chores, and pick up their bedrooms. When I tuck them into bed, I read a few chapters from whatever book we’re currently on. Right now we’re reading The Wizard of Oz, and Violet is loving it! It’s amazing how early they are big enough to sit through a chapter book.
Wow, it might have taken longer to write this post than it did to do preschool with my girls for an entire week! I’m glad I did though, because one of my most common questions is “what does preschool really look like in your house?” Now you know.
Be sure to check out my Catholic ABC’s Resource Page to see all of my preschool posts!
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Curriculum Written by Me - Catholic ABC's!
Catholic Preschool Curriculum
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