How to Make a Portable Preschool Learning Center
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Way back, many ancient moons ago (which explains the poor quality photos), when my niece who is now 12 was only 4, she homeschooled with us for preschool the year before she entered Kindergarten.
Because we had moved upstairs from our basement schoolroom by then, our space was more limited than when Josh and Megan were in preschool. Back in their day, we had an adorable kid-drawn calendar for marking the days and learning the months of the year and days of the week. We had the alphabet on the wall and cute little bears that helped them practice the concept of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
We had a bulletin board where I displayed the letter, color, shape, and number of the week and cute little things related to the week’s theme. I had fun with preschool, y’all!
When my niece joined us, we simply didn’t have room for all that, but I didn’t want her to miss out on the fun we had learning those things. I needed something portable that I could pull out while she was here and put away at the end of each day.
Making a portable preschool learning center
I decided to combine the idea behind our writing center and the math mini-offices that I used with Josh and Megan. I thought it turned out really well and I must have been right because Josh and Megan were both upset that I didn’t make anything like that for them. The fact that we put the same stuff up on a bulletin board didn’t matter to them at all.
Our portable preschool learning center featured a spot for shapes, letters, numbers, and colors. Typically, I changed the letter weekly, the number every other week, and the shape and color once a month.
I included photos of items whose name started with our letter of the week. Until we got to higher numbers (and ran out of room), I used the number of photos of each item that corresponded with the number we were working on. So, for letter C/number two, there would be two cats, two cars, and two cookies, for example.
I used removable glue dots so that I could easily change the letters, numbers, and other features as needed, and I made it look pretty with border I found at the Dollar Store. I cut the letters out of the border with my handy-dandy Sizzix die cutter.
Online resources for preschool
I used printables from a variety of sources, but following are the primary sites that I used. I’ve also added a couple of new sites that weren’t available back then, but which I absolutely love for preschool printables, activities, and ideas.
Letter of the Week – This is the site that I used for the majority of Josh and Megan’s preschool education. The Preparatory Curriculum for ages 2-4 is what we used.
Letter of the Week from Confessions of Homeschooler – I also really love this Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler. It makes me wish her kids had been older than mine.
Mama’s Learning Corner – Lauren has tons of fabulous printables for preschool and early elementary. This link goes to the preschool materials, but if you have older kids, be sure to look around.
ABC Snacks – I always loved pairing a themed snack with our letter of the week. These ideas from All About Learning Press make it easy. Easy is good!
DLTK-Kids – This is the site where I got many of my printables along with ideas on activities to go with different letters and numbers.
Kidzone – This site offers lots of great printables for preschool through early elementary.
What are some of your favorite preschool resources?
This post is linked to the Hip Homeschool Hop.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
I loved DLTK when my twins were little. Now that I’m starting all over with a toddler I’ve been looking for some new resources. This will be great!
I absolutely love this! My 3-yr-old would love this because she always wants to “do school” like the big kids. I would have to make something that could be mounted on the wall, but this is definitley doable. Since I’m notorious for being out of printer ink 🙂 I’ll probably look around to see what the dollar store has. The one near us always has lots of neat resources. Thanks for the idea. If there’s anything that will make my daughter feel included, it’s something like this!
This is a really cute design! It seems like it would be convenient and easy to transport if necessary. It’s so important to make sure your kids are exercising all regions of their brains around this age, and you seem to have some great methods to help see this through! Great article! Thanks so much for posting!