Homeschool PreK & Kindergarten – the 1990s Edition

This is a blog post that I have wanted to write for many years now – in fact it just might be the one that inspired me to write a blog!

I know it is now 2026 and there are so many amazing new homeschool curricula currently available. But I still wanted to make this blog post and many more like it, outlining what my mom used for me and my siblings when we started homeschooling back in the late 1990s and what I use for my preschool and kindergarten students.

Starting out, I will say, my mom was wise and purchased many reproducible books so that she could put us all through them without purchasing more than one. With that said, she did invest in a large Xerox copier and went through about two toners each year. Definitely more cost effective, though it was a time commitment. Many of us loved to hear the sound of her copier or even jump in and help!

Most of these books, I still have with me and I use for my current students. They truly are special to me and have come a long way. I have seen the companies change their style and it makes these older books so much more valuable if you can get your hands on them. Many are available on eBay, at homeschool consignment stores, or on local homeschool swap pages.

My Teaching Experience

Besides helping my mom teach my three younger siblings when they were at these learning levels, I also had the privilege of helping a few other families. One young family I would see often and bring a fun preschool activity or game I loved to play with the little boys. Now we are still close and I love reading with them and their little sisters as they start homeschooling.

I also stepped in to help another homeschool family as nanny during a few of their busiest years of life. Soon my role also consisted of homeschool teacher as I brought the two little ones under my wing. I was privileged to teach them for 3.5 years – they were 4 and 2 when I started. The 4yo would beg to do school with me and that sweet little one didn’t want to be left out! That was the best time as they were both so eager to learn and looked forward to “Miss Heidi” days!

We had a blast doing all the ‘Aaachoo Andy’ projects as well as the other Carson Dellosa books I have pictured below. I would work with the four year old on letter sounds and letter activities while his little sister went through her preschool notebook I had made for her and colored so many alphabet pictures!

Over the next several months, I taught them the basics of phonics and the first steps to reading and they were asking for math. They both loved to learn and were eager to sit on my lap and spend time with me every day. I love how the little sister was right there ‘helping’ her big brother ….all while she was learning. It was the sweetest of times.

Pictured below are many of the readers I brought with me as they each learned to read. They had a variety of these little books as well as the Bob books and Dash into Learning books that their mom did with them.

Since then, I have worked with another homeschool family of four children of various ages and grades. Currently I am so excited to be working with another sweet preschooler who loves doing projects! I get to go through Aaachoo Andy again with her – teaching her to follow directions and encouraging her coloring and cutting skills.

Beginning Preschool

The biggest thing when it comes to teaching a small toddler is just to make learning fun. Let them play games with you and have things available to them like sensory bins, fun books, as well as interactive and open-ended toys and games. Letting them create with their hands and do simple tasks with you is far more important than enforcing they learn something by a certain age.

At 2 and 3, we were already coloring many pictures, drawing ourselves on giant paper, and just having fun with crayons, markers, and paint. We were always learning because Mama involved us in the everyday household activities. Toddlers or preschoolers don’t need very much to make learning fun! Counting happens when you are making a snack. Color recognition happens when you are folding laundry. Learning the names of shapes happens when you are playing outside. Letter sounds just become familiar as a child is read to daily and listens to their family talking. All of this naturally happens as most moms are natural teachers…and big brothers and sisters also love to teach!

Listening Skills

For a small child, the most important thing to teach them is just basic listening skills. Starting by giving them simple tasks to do each day like getting dressed, making their bed, brushing their teeth, making a simple snack, and putting things away – all are foundational skills that teach them to follow through on other tasks in the future. Many of the work books I talk about below are great for teaching little ones how to follow directions!

We also listened to a lot of stories and songs. We had the classic Disney stories and lots of Bible stories (like Your Story Hour) on cassette and would spend hours on rainy days listening and re-listening to our favorites on our tape player. We would build cabins out of our Lincoln Logs, make cool cars out of Legos, color pictures or just draw while we listened to stories.

My favorite tape to listen to when I was that young (and to sing along with to my younger siblings) is called Sounds Like Fun. These simple songs are sung by Barbara Milne and the album is actually available on Spotify right now! If you have followed my nanny journey for long, you will know how often it has come up in my Instagram stories as I just love this music for the little ones. It is full of fun, educational songs that are just so sweet. I’ve rocked many a little one to sleep while singing along.

Memorization Skills

Little ones at even 2-4 can have amazing memorization skills! I still remember some of the poems Mama taught me when I was that little. She started us with a few short Bible verses and Bible songs and then taught us some poems. On days when naps were essential, Mama always put on some cassette that I fell asleep listening to. That got it stuck in my head a lot faster! The joy when I knew something all the way through was exciting!

Reading Skills

Mama read to us from many books and as we each got older, we read to the next younger sibling(s). Books are always so important and with all that are available now, it is quite easy to have a bookshelf just for the little ones! Some of our favorites to read aloud to little ones are the Dr. Suess books, Beatrix Potter series, and the Kenneth Taylor Bible Storybook.

As we started sounding out words, we were eager to learn more! So we began with these Abeka readers.

Writing Skills

One of the first things we did for school was learning basic writing. Teaching a child to write their name is the best way to start. They get interested because they know their name the best and it comes alive to them as it belongs to them.

To do this, Mama would write our name on penmanship paper and put it into a clear sheet. We would then trace it with dry erase markers until we knew it. Then she would write the color words, the days of the week and the months of the year. Soon, we’d be writing our siblings’ names as well.

When it came time for Mama to do school with my older brothers, I wanted to be included, so coloring became more involved and that was where many of our simple books became our first school books. These are the books I list below full of letter and color recognition as well as fun coloring activities.

Basic Preschool Books

These are my favorite at home workbooks that I have used with my students. Most are Carson Dellosa and a few are Instructional Fair work books. These books were the beginning of our education for so many reasons. They were fun and simple, yet repetitive, making learning fun for us. From letter-recognition coloring pages to letter sound activities and dot-to-dot alphabet pages. A gentle approach to learning all the things a toddler is seeing around them in every day life.

Our favorite book to teach basic sight words, color/cut/paste, and how to follow directions will always be this Language Arts book from Carson Dellosa. Our favorite section has been these alphabet characters that begin with Aaaachoo Andy. They are such sweet and simple projects for kids and they love them! It goes up to about 4^th grade, so we just used it to fill in any gaps in learning. I use many of the pages as fun pages for little ones.

I am so blessed that my mom was able to keep all of these workbooks. As far as I know, not many are in print anymore, but I still wanted to share them here. They are a timeless treasure, something that can be used for ages. If anyone is interested in what homeschooling a preK and Kindergartener looked like back in the 90s and early 2000s, this is what we used. I have found a few at homeschool consignor stores as well as on ebay! If you do find any, you have found a treasure as they just don’t make them like this anymore. These are reproducible black and white pages that I love! Most new ones published now are actually full of color and far more busy. So these old editions are so special!

Preschool & Kindergarten Math

For math we just had fun with counting bears, linking cubes, pattern blocks, shape stencils, and things like that. My mom did purchase Saxon Math K, but it basically is just an outline of things for little ones to learn. It isn’t necessary to have as you can pretty much just do games with your little ones to learn basic preschool math skills. If your little one can count to ten, learn colors, and do basic patterns, you are doing great!

If you see that your child is loving math and could do more in a day, starting with Saxon Math 1 is great! Many of us started by the time we were four and got pretty far even though we didn’t know how to read just yet. It starts out sooo very simple and basically is just teaching coloring, graphs, and counting.

And remember, every child is different! For some of us, math was more fun and came easy whereas for others, learning to read came early. It all depends on the child and where you are in life. Having them help out with a new little sibling is far more important than making sure your child learns all the things before a certain age. But at the same time, realize they are interested in learning and incorporating learning into daily tasks is the best way to making learning fun for their little brains!

I hope you enjoyed this posts about preschool and kindergarten learning! So much of this I got to do with my younger siblings 20 years ago and then with my nanny kids over the last 8 years. It has been so much fun and will always be my absolute favorite age to teach!