How to Set Up An Interest-Led Home Preschool

Preschool is a time of delight in homeschooling. While there are definitely benefits to sending a child to preschool, teaching a preschooler at home can be a lot of fun for both the parent and child. At this age, learning doesn't have to be complicated or require hours of planned lessons. Preschoolers are naturally curious and eager to explore the world around them. With just a little intentionality at home, learning happens in abundance through play, books, conversations, everyday activities, and following your child's interests.

Interest-led learning means following a child's lead. It means paying attention to what a child is naturally curious about and using those interests as a starting point for learning rather than constantly directing the child toward activities we have chosen. When a child chooses an activity, he or she is more likely to be engaged in the learning. A child who loves bugs may spend hours looking for insects, asking questions, drawing pictures, and noticing differences between them. Even without a formal lesson, that child is practicing observation, building vocabulary, and beginning to think like a scientist.

As children grow, it becomes more necessary to direct some of their learning. There are skills and subjects children need to learn even when they aren't naturally interested in them. But during the preschool years, a child's interests are enough to nurture a tremendous amount of learning. Blocks can teach math and problem-solving, pretend play develops language and imagination, and helping in the kitchen can teach counting and measuring. We don't have to turn every interest into a lesson. We can simply follow a child's lead, provide opportunities to explore, and allow learning to grow naturally from curiosity.

Although interest-led learning should rely first and foremost on what a child is interested in, it is possible for parents help guide children to additional learning opportunities. For example, if a child is interested in bugs, as mentioned above, give the child chances to observe bugs (despite your own possible squeamish-ness!). If there are things you want to encourage, you can help them out.

One method to introduce learning is strewing. Strewing is leaving things around that could be engaging and educational.  One day, we got stickers in the mail as an advertisement for something. I knew my daughter loves stickers so I thought up an activity. When she saw the stickers and asked if she could have them, I suggested the activity. She was so excited she begged to do it right then!

Another way to encourage interest-led learning is to exemplify the activity. I had an idea to make play snow (since it has not really snowed) and write in it, just as the boy in the book we read wrote in the snow. I mentioned to my preschooler that I had an idea to go along with the book we had read. She immediately shot it down.

"No, I do not want to do an activity for that dumb book!" she said to me.

"OK, I'll do it myself with [the baby]," I responded.

But once the fake snow was made, she was all in and loved the project! (Watch the video on that blog post if you don't believe me!)

Interest-led learning is also possible simply when you are prepared with activities. Other times, my attempts to lead her learning do not go so well. Once I had a community helpers project finished done. She had no interest, and did not change her mind. I think we read some other stories that day. The good news is, that once the activity is set, we can do it when she is ready! (And she eventually did enjoy the community helpers project.)

Preschoolers learn from small, hand-held items, counters, and toys. A manipulative is something for a child to handle. It is a physical item that can can be used toward learning. As mentioned, blocks can be a learning tool. Common manipulatives for young children also could include linking toys or rings, mini-erasers, little people and animals, dice, spinners, and so forth. 

As children use manipulatives to learn concepts, the concrete nature of the items and the various senses they use help to solidify learning. For preschoolers, use manipulatives to practice introductory math concepts, such as counting and one-on-one correspondence, and introductory literacy subjects, such as word segmenting. Manipulatives are a wonderful resource! 

But stores want you to buy every kind of manipulative, and that is not necessary. The good news is that you can put together your own group of manipulatives without buying new items. Read one for information about making and collecting your own manipulatives!