A component of my Gentle Homeschool Preschool

I’ve shared on my blog, Instagram, and in a Wild + Free bundle about my gentle homeschool preschool and wanted to expand some more on what gentle exposure to letters and numbers might look like. 

I spoke in the previous post about the some ideas, which I included again here below, and I added some more. I’m also going into my original list and adding some more details and examples. 

Letters:

• I made our own alphabet sheets in Canva so each letter has images he knows and is interested in to color and have as exposure. I think it’s important to make these yourself because YOU know best what images will resonate with your kid(s). 
• Hanging alphabet letters on the wall. I got mine here.
• Learning the alphabet song and variations. We like Sara Ernst’s version! It’s called If the Alphabet Came From a Farm and it’s on her Farm to Forest album.
• Lots of practicing spelling his name and writing it for him with his guidance. We got this drawing pad which is so helpful!
• Lots of drawing letters in chalk and guiding him to recreate them using sticks, or hop on a letter as I call it out. I got a lot of these ideas from following Wild Learning!
• Looking for letters on signs and buildings when we’re out and about.
• Wooden letter cutouts pressed into play dough while reading books with letters in them like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. and John Archambault. 
• Purchasing nature-based letter flash cards (I like these from Treehouse Schoolhouse) and keeping track of which items you’ve seen or found together in nature.
• When we read together (which is often, see here!) occasionally and casually mentioning the way I know what the words are is because I know the letters.

Numbers: 

•  Writing numbers on paper plates and taping them to the floor and asking him to step onto specific numbers 
• Montessori manipulatives like a peg board counting game and sand paper numbers. We just play with them and count as it feels authentic but I never push. 
• Counting anytime we have more than one item. He got really into collecting acorns, so we counted a lot of those. We’ve also been counting flowers as we pick them, chicken eggs as we collect them, and always use baking and cooking as counting opportunities.
• Intentionally choosing books with numbers or counting in them, like the Poke-a-Dot books.

• These manipulative blocks, which are categorized as too old, but again this is about exposure. He likes to build “pig pens” with them, which is great! But he’s still seeing the numbers and how they fit together. 
• We have this carrot game for matching and counting. We use it to pretend we’re farming but we count along the way!

What to keep in mind when trying to gently expose:

I think it’s important to note, this exposure is always playful. If at any point it starts to become frustrating or uninteresting, I will either re-direct or, more likely, follow his lead away from whatever we were doing. This is about putting letters and numbers in his path. It’s about me being intentional and aware. This is not about perfection or performance. Just enjoying that letters and numbers exist! Having this mindset, that their existence is worthy of joy, for myself, changes how I approach showing them to my son. There’s no pressure. Just exploration and excitement. It’s a method I hope we can carry forward with us as we learn together. 

Monitoring my expectations:

One of the things I’ve observed is we go in ebbs and flows of grasping these. Sometimes I’ll notice he spells his name right every time, or counts perfectly to ten as I push him on the swing. I feel all proud and excited. Then a week or two later, it’s like it all fell out of his head! My internal reaction, based on pressure from society, is to jump back in and push hard to get back to where we were. I worry his grandparents will think I’m failing or his friends’ moms will judge me, and I have to re-center and remember: this isn’t about me. Those thoughts are all about a continuing anxiety issue I have concerning what others may or may not think about me and what I’m choosing to do. When I re-focus on my son, and remember he’s four years old, I can see clearly he’s doing great. And he doesn’t feel any kind of pressure from us about what he can or can’t do; instead he knows he’s loved for who he is and that’s a foundation more vital in this season than mastery of counting or alphabets. 

Following his curiosity:

I try to remain aware and present and when his interest tells me to jump, I go all in. If he says, “Mommy, I want to learn how to read,” I respond by telling him letters are the basis of reading and let’s get out the letters and play dough or look at flash cards. If he tells me, “Mommy, I want to bake on my own self,” I tell him numbers are the basis of baking and let’s get out some numbers and do some counting. Which also means, when he says, “Mommy, I want to look at roley polies,” I put aside all the manipulatives and books on letters and numbers and turn off the alphabet song and say, “let’s go outside!” while grabbing the magnifying glass and turning on a song about bugs. 

The ultimate goal:

We are designed to learn. I love learning and so does my husband but only because we’ve taken learning into our own hands. I want my son to love learning too. If I want him to love it, then it can’t be riddled with pressure and performance mandates and my criticism at this age. 

I hope this helps inspire you to expose little ones, gently and without pressure, to letters and numbers. I hope you’ll join me in shifting the mindset so we can see the excitement in the existence of these basic foundational building blocks of further learning. What a gift to be able to learn so much from these foundations and what a joy it is to celebrate this gift with our littlest learners. And how cool is it to be given the chance to see letters and numbers this way anew!?

Originally posted 4/2/24 on old website