I recently shared a picture on Instagram of my kiddos sitting at our kitchen table working on their summer preschool activities. I did this with Caden last year and used the Big Preschool Workbook. I have also used the Kumon books with the kids too and really liked those as well.
We send the kids to an amazing preschool and each summer the teachers send the kids home with a packet to work on over break. We usually finish these activities fairly quickly and I decided to search the internet to see if I could find more of these already created packets. Now that the kids are getting older I wanted to be able to focus more on certain topics that I wasn’t able to find as many worksheets for in a store bought workbook.
Thanks to google I discovered the website Teachers Pay Teachers. It has soon became my favorite go to website for finding no prep or low prep learning activities for Caden and Maisie.
There are so many amazing resources available on this website. I am linking to a few of my favorites below. This resources are worth the money in my opinion. For reference my children have recently turned 5 and 3.
My Favorites from Teachers Pay Teachers for Summer Preschool at Home
ABC Cut and Paste Fonts Maisie really likes these pages. Your little one will color a capital and lowercase letter, write it, and work on cutting and gluing.
Preschool Summer Packet (Pre K Summer Review Homework) This is a great packet that reviews skill during summer vacation between Pre K and kindergarten! This is a NO PREP packet and includes TEN WEEKS of fun printable and there are TEN WEEKEND printable activities, motivational certificate, reading log, student checklist and cover page!
Preschool (PreK, Pre-K) Summer Review – Summer Homework This pre-kindergartenl summer review packet is packed full of engaging homework review activities that will bring a smile to their sweet faces as they work on math, fine motor, language arts!
Summer Review Preschool No Prep Worksheets & Activities This book contains a collection of summer themed worksheets, suitable for use with children in Preschool, Pre-Kindergarten, Transitional Kindergarten and Kindergarten (Prep).
Summer Review NO PREP Packet (Preschool) This Summer Review NO PREP Packet is filled with hands-on, engaging and FUN resources that get kids excited about learning!
Summer Review This book contains a collection of Summer-themed worksheets intended for use with children in Kindergarten (Prep) at the end of the school year for revision purposes.
FREE Resources on the Internet
There are so many great resources also available for FREE! Here are a few that we use for our home preschool during the summer.
Spot and Dot Alphabet Pages These are excellent for helping your preschooler work on their hand-eye coordination, their fine motor skills, and so much more! We use the Do-A-Dot Markers for this activity.
Number Playdough Mats Maisie really enjoys this activity.
Create Your Own Handwriting Sheets I use this to generate sheets for the kids names. I finally got smart and instead of printing one out for each kid everyday I put the paper in a clear sheet protector. The kids now use a dry erase marker and once a week get to practice with a pencil.
Additional Supplies
- Scissors (Dollar Store)
- Clipboard (Dollar Store)
- Pencils
- Crayons
- Do-A-Dot Markers
- Binder
- Clear Sheet Protectors
- Dry Erase Markers
- Dice (Dollar Store)
- American Flag (Lakeshore Learning)
- ABC Poster, Number Poster, Color Poster
- Baking Tray (Dollar Store)
- ABC and 123 Magnets
- ABC Stamps
- Playdough
Books
The Preschool Binders
Caden and Maisie each have their own binder with separate activities in them. A few of the worksheets overlap but for the most part they are working on different skills. The binder is filled with worksheets in sheet protectors that can be reused and also holds their other worksheets that they will write on, cut up, color, or glue.
I found it easier to make the binders up before the summer because everything is now in one easy to find place for each kid. This makes it perfect and less time consuming for me in the morning because I am not rushing to print worksheets off or figure out what we are going to do.
Our Summer Preschool Routine
Now that you know a few of the resources we use here is what a typical morning of summer preschool looks like in our home. I like to do the bulk of activities in the morning because the kids are more rested and more likely to be excited to participate.
Preschool happens 4 days a week in our house on Monday – Thursday morning. After breakfast we pack up and head out to the pool for swim lessons at 8am. By 9am we are back home and ready to start. I put Jesse down for his nap and we have a little over an hour before he wakes up.
Here is what a typical morning looks like for us.
Names
The very first thing we do is practice writing names. I use the worksheet generator I mentioned above that is FREE. We sit at the kitchen table for this.
Calendar, Bible Verse, Pledge
After they finish their names they sit on the floor and wait for the other to finish. Caden usually finishes first so he sits and looks at a book.
We talk about the days of the week, what day it is, recite the bible verse they are working on for Sunday school, and say the pledge of allegiance. I made a calendar buying a poster board from the dollar store. It took about an hour to type, cut, and either tape or glue everything to the board.
Centers
We don’t actually move around for these in our home but we do rotate out activities at the kitchen table.
For our centers I try to change up what the kids do each day. One day we may focus on Math. For Maisie this will be using her numbers play dough charts and for Caden he works on basic addition and subtraction.
Caden really enjoys “Write the Room” and I try to do this at least once a week for him and change out the words. If you are unfamiliar with this activity you can google how to it works. It is more time consuming on your end but if you need to work with another child individually it is a great way to have one occupied so you can focus on the other.
Gluing and cutting are popular with Maisie and I like to incorporate them into Literacy activities. The ABC Cut and Paste Fonts worksheets from Teachers Pay Teachers is great for this!
We use baking trays as magnet boards and find the letters in our names and work on spelling words or we sort the magnets into colors. The kids also like dice games. We will use the trays to contain the dice so they don’t run away off the table.
I could probably write an entire post on centers. The most important thing is to find ways to engage your children while they are learning. Each child is different so what works for one might not work for the other. Celebrate their strengths and praise them often but be sure to correct. Praise for the sake of praise does not translate well later when bad habits have been formed that could have been corrected with just a little extra time.
Recess
It is really hot here in Arizona in the summer so we don’t go outside but we do a family style type workout indoors.
I have set up everything from an obstacle course for them to do or we literally do a workout together. It is not anything crazy but they like running around the house with me and using the home workout equipment we own.
If you have trouble coming up with your own “workouts” check out these options below.
Snack & Story
Lastly, we finish up with a snack and our bible story for the week. I read one story a week out of The Gospel Story Bible. I read the stories in order and we stick with one story a week to talk more in-depth about what we are reading.
Each day I read one of the lessons of TheOlogy and we review the main topics we have already covered from this book. These are short lessons that teach children truths about God and shapes a biblical worldview.
If we don’t teach our children to follow Christ, the world will teach them not to. This is why it is vitally important in our home that Jesus and the Gospel remain at the center of everything. Even in our home summer preschool.
And that was a super long post. Hopefully that answered a few of your questions! I really love all the extra time I have with my kids in the summer and love teaching them. I hope your summer is going well and that you are cherishing your kids if they are at home and creating fun memories with your family :).
