God's Little Explorers | Preschool Curriculum Review

For my oldest son's preschool year, we followed the God's Little Explorers Preschool Curriculum by Stacie Ann Nelson at "Motherhood on a Dime". This is a 28-week lesson plan that travels the Bible from Genesis to Revelations and explores a new letter of the alphabet per week as well.

I decided to use God's Little Explorers as our preschool curriculum because, as a new homeschooling mom that wasn't homeschooled myself, I wanted a guide to follow throughout the year that would ensure my oldest was introduced to key preschool concepts. I also knew I would need something to serve as a guide for my mind when life felt otherwise chaotic (i.e. our third baby was arriving that November!).

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The curriculum is a downloadable file that is available for $20. I then printed it from my home computer/printer in black and white. The resources required were mainly standard school supplies and I used our Jesus Storybook Bible and My First Message Bible for the Bible readings. Purchasing the "Wee Sing Bible Songs CD" is recommended though I just looked up each song on YouTube and saved a playlist there.

Stacie includes the following main components in this curriculum:

1. Bible Adventure: Reading the Bible story, singing any recommended songs, and related craft or project. 
2. Theme Adventure: Explore the theme with crafts, science projects, cooking projects, and so forth. 
3. ABC & 123: Specifically introduces an alphabet letter. We also explore colors, shapes, and numbers during the year. 
4. Life Skills: Review various self-help skills, learn to complete chores correctly, practice manners, and do a service project. I’ve also listed additional activities you can use to substitute for ones you might not like or have time to complete.

Two other optional sections:

• Book Bag: I list books to go along with the theme and sometimes suggest an activity to be completed around the book. 
• Learning Bags: These are my version of busy bags that can keep younger siblings busy while mom works with an older student.

Painting apples for 4-year-old and "freestyle" painting for 2-year-old

My two oldest boys were 2 and 4 years old when we used this program and the hands-on projects were a home run for both of them (with special modifications for my 2-year-old, of course!). Stacie presents many craft and hands-on ideas for each week to choose from. We usually picked one or two to focus on as our crafty attention spans diminished fairly quickly. 

E's "Book of Creation"

Along with the "hands on" projects being a hit, we followed many of the "Book Bag" read aloud recommendations and added a few of our own as well. Throughout the year and that summer, we enjoyed E.B. White's "Stuart Little", "Charlotte's Web" and "Trumpet of the Swan". The kids ate those up!

We ended up creating our own version of the "Learning Bags" in box form, called the "Busy Box". Having a few simple activities, puzzles and little books stored up for my younger boys has helped greatly even in Kindergarten this year, too.

The most valuable portions of this curriculum for me personally were the Hymn, Composer Study, and Artist Study recommendations each week. Little did I know, we were being walked through the beginnings of our own "Morning Time" routine. The habit of studying these beautiful ideas was being formed and we built on that in the following school year.

My children and I greatly benefited from using the God's Little Explorers Curriculum for our first year of homeschooling and I highly recommend it for those who are also just starting out. This is an aesthetically well-designed, affordable preschool curriculum and we made many fun memories together using it! Click here to visit Motherhood on a Dime.

"K" is for King