Our (Free) Homeschool Binder Resources
When I first started 'practicing' homeschool with Pippin, I had high hopes but not a lot of context. What could a 2.5 year old learn? What would they enjoy? I read about some children who could read at 3 years old, others who didn't learn until 6 but were strong in other areas. I hoped to use the Sonlight homeschool curriculum once Pippin got older, but the teachers guide and books started from the 3/4 Preschool year. At two and a half years old, he fell more under the category 'totschooling'. So I focused on materials that would be a fun and casual introduction to letters, numbers, and the world around him.
I wasn't ready to commit to a curriculum or materials that would be expensive or exhausting, especially if homeschooling didn't work well for us. I also didn't have much of a budget, or access to homeschooling communities from our home in the Netherlands. What I did have was plenty of free time, a working printer, and fast internet. So I started searching online for what was available, and then we tested out at home what worked and didn't. And, as always, we went to the library a lot, and tried to go to playgrounds, stores, and the market so Pippin's active little self got plenty of exercise and new experiences.
Eventually I figured out that collecting papers and fun worksheets was all well and good, but I needed some sort of structure to hold it all together. I did a lot of searching online for how to organize all the loose papers and ideas. We had extra binders in the house, but what could I put in one?
Then I found someone had already created the structure I was looking for in the form of 'monthly themes'. I enjoyed reading their blog post about how they were in the same situation, of wanting to teach a child (or more than one) but finding that too much organization just frustrated everyone.
I happily printed off their comprehensive Monthly Preschool Themes Monthly Preschool Themes list and added a few of my own ideas. For example, in their family they celebrated the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo in May; my family lives in the Netherlands so we celebrate King's Day in April. It's easy to note additions and to be inspired by their list of ideas, but I tried to stick with one or two main themes per month.
Then I created a preschool/totschool binder for Pippin and started adding the monthly sections.
This person posted a cool 'Preschool Planning Page' with spaces to fill in items like crafts, gross motor skills, books, and field trips. I used it more as a monthly plan so that I could jot down ideas for each category that reflected our monthly theme. For example, in our space month (August), I wrote down "Read library books about space" in the section "Picture Books". In the "Screen Time" section I wrote down "Watch Magic Schoolbus episode about space". I didn't always accomplish everything I wanted to, but having notes and ideas was really helpful. It would be easy to adapt the page for different children; if Bloom turns out to be a baking or crafts fanatic, we could add "Bake star cookies" or "Craft a cardboard tube telescope" to the list for the space month.
This Monthly Bin Labels printable wasn't strictly necessary, but was so much fun! Having a cheerful A4 picture as a section header helped me easily flip between months in the binder. Eventually I expanded my system and printed two of each labels per month; in my master binder I kept all my prepared and 'to do' papers, neatly labeled, and then each month I pulled out the consumables for the monthly section I needed (leaving the monthly paper in place for the next year). As I finished a month, I moved the header page, worksheets, coloring pages, and crafts to the year's 'finished' binder, and returned any repeatable pages (weather songs, dice or duplo diagrams, etc.) to their monthly section in the master binder.
This Books to Read printable was one of my favorite printables. It wasn't even meant as a homeschool resource, but I liked the simplicity of it. As with many resources, it was easy to adapt for my homeschooling; we only used the start/finish date section for longer books, and just wrote the date for picture books we read. I printed 12 of these per year, and I fill them in every month before filing them in my yearly binder of completed schoolwork. A lot of books fall through the cracks as we forget to write their names down, but the easiest way I handle that is just to go through the list of 'titles loaned' on our library account and list the books we checked out every month.
Together, those four printables form the backbone of my homeschool binder. I add a fun binder cover (searched for 'free printable binder cover') and let Pippin decorate it. Once those elements are in place, I add in whatever resources fit the theme, our interests, and the learning level.
For the earliest learning resources, these are some of my favorite printables.
These Duplo alphabet mats are a simple and fun for little kids to learn to recognize the letters, plus have the fun of moving around duplo blocks.
Here is a similar set of Duplo counting mats. I printed these off and put them in plastic sleeves for in the binder, but laminating would have worked as well.
There are so many adorable alphabet crafts out there, but I like the Nemies alphabet for the simple, cute letters in both upper and lower case. Nothing needed besides the printables, scissors, and glue or tape.
Pippin enjoyed these Roll and Cover games, rolling dice and then figuring out what number matched the amount of dots. Along the way I explained simply about the different holidays or seasons represented by the background picture, like Valentine's Day, spring, Christmas, summer....
My mother - a homeschooling mom extraordinaire herself! - has bought all of the best manipulatives for Pippin, which means that he gets to grow up with my old favorites like Pattern Blocks, Interlocking Cubes, and Counting Bears. So of course we have printables for those too. But if Oma hadn't brought them, we could order them from Amazon or, as one friend did, we could print out paper versions. Besides being so much fun to play with, these blocks and bears help teach spatial awareness, colors, and counting.
This set of pattern block mats come in animal shapes, but a quick search online will pull up mats for holidays, letters/numbers, or more intricate challenges like rockets and racecars.
Over the last two years our binders have been a brilliant resource that have grown with us and are now slowly being replaced. We still use them for fun 'extras' like crafts and holidays and projects, but Pippin is moving on to read-alouds and workbooks that give him the range and depth of information that he needs as a kindergartner. I have a bigger budget, and more confidence that we're on the right track with homeschooling him, as he really enjoys learning with me (and I enjoy teaching him!) He's making good progress, already able to read and constantly adding new information to his brain (then wanting to discuss how it applies to his world). I also have less hours available to hunt down fun, free printables, but I still have these resources bookmarked for when Bloom is ready for them. I hope this post was helpful if you're looking for resources, or even just for encouragement that it is possible to start homeschooling without buying tons of expensive books and tests and materials!
I wasn't ready to commit to a curriculum or materials that would be expensive or exhausting, especially if homeschooling didn't work well for us. I also didn't have much of a budget, or access to homeschooling communities from our home in the Netherlands. What I did have was plenty of free time, a working printer, and fast internet. So I started searching online for what was available, and then we tested out at home what worked and didn't. And, as always, we went to the library a lot, and tried to go to playgrounds, stores, and the market so Pippin's active little self got plenty of exercise and new experiences.
Eventually I figured out that collecting papers and fun worksheets was all well and good, but I needed some sort of structure to hold it all together. I did a lot of searching online for how to organize all the loose papers and ideas. We had extra binders in the house, but what could I put in one?
I happily printed off their comprehensive Monthly Preschool Themes Monthly Preschool Themes list and added a few of my own ideas. For example, in their family they celebrated the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo in May; my family lives in the Netherlands so we celebrate King's Day in April. It's easy to note additions and to be inspired by their list of ideas, but I tried to stick with one or two main themes per month.
Then I created a preschool/totschool binder for Pippin and started adding the monthly sections.
This person posted a cool 'Preschool Planning Page' with spaces to fill in items like crafts, gross motor skills, books, and field trips. I used it more as a monthly plan so that I could jot down ideas for each category that reflected our monthly theme. For example, in our space month (August), I wrote down "Read library books about space" in the section "Picture Books". In the "Screen Time" section I wrote down "Watch Magic Schoolbus episode about space". I didn't always accomplish everything I wanted to, but having notes and ideas was really helpful. It would be easy to adapt the page for different children; if Bloom turns out to be a baking or crafts fanatic, we could add "Bake star cookies" or "Craft a cardboard tube telescope" to the list for the space month.
This Monthly Bin Labels printable wasn't strictly necessary, but was so much fun! Having a cheerful A4 picture as a section header helped me easily flip between months in the binder. Eventually I expanded my system and printed two of each labels per month; in my master binder I kept all my prepared and 'to do' papers, neatly labeled, and then each month I pulled out the consumables for the monthly section I needed (leaving the monthly paper in place for the next year). As I finished a month, I moved the header page, worksheets, coloring pages, and crafts to the year's 'finished' binder, and returned any repeatable pages (weather songs, dice or duplo diagrams, etc.) to their monthly section in the master binder.
This Books to Read printable was one of my favorite printables. It wasn't even meant as a homeschool resource, but I liked the simplicity of it. As with many resources, it was easy to adapt for my homeschooling; we only used the start/finish date section for longer books, and just wrote the date for picture books we read. I printed 12 of these per year, and I fill them in every month before filing them in my yearly binder of completed schoolwork. A lot of books fall through the cracks as we forget to write their names down, but the easiest way I handle that is just to go through the list of 'titles loaned' on our library account and list the books we checked out every month.
Together, those four printables form the backbone of my homeschool binder. I add a fun binder cover (searched for 'free printable binder cover') and let Pippin decorate it. Once those elements are in place, I add in whatever resources fit the theme, our interests, and the learning level.
For the earliest learning resources, these are some of my favorite printables.
These Duplo alphabet mats are a simple and fun for little kids to learn to recognize the letters, plus have the fun of moving around duplo blocks.
Here is a similar set of Duplo counting mats. I printed these off and put them in plastic sleeves for in the binder, but laminating would have worked as well.
There are so many adorable alphabet crafts out there, but I like the Nemies alphabet for the simple, cute letters in both upper and lower case. Nothing needed besides the printables, scissors, and glue or tape.
Pippin enjoyed these Roll and Cover games, rolling dice and then figuring out what number matched the amount of dots. Along the way I explained simply about the different holidays or seasons represented by the background picture, like Valentine's Day, spring, Christmas, summer....
My mother - a homeschooling mom extraordinaire herself! - has bought all of the best manipulatives for Pippin, which means that he gets to grow up with my old favorites like Pattern Blocks, Interlocking Cubes, and Counting Bears. So of course we have printables for those too. But if Oma hadn't brought them, we could order them from Amazon or, as one friend did, we could print out paper versions. Besides being so much fun to play with, these blocks and bears help teach spatial awareness, colors, and counting.
This set of pattern block mats come in animal shapes, but a quick search online will pull up mats for holidays, letters/numbers, or more intricate challenges like rockets and racecars.
Over the last two years our binders have been a brilliant resource that have grown with us and are now slowly being replaced. We still use them for fun 'extras' like crafts and holidays and projects, but Pippin is moving on to read-alouds and workbooks that give him the range and depth of information that he needs as a kindergartner. I have a bigger budget, and more confidence that we're on the right track with homeschooling him, as he really enjoys learning with me (and I enjoy teaching him!) He's making good progress, already able to read and constantly adding new information to his brain (then wanting to discuss how it applies to his world). I also have less hours available to hunt down fun, free printables, but I still have these resources bookmarked for when Bloom is ready for them. I hope this post was helpful if you're looking for resources, or even just for encouragement that it is possible to start homeschooling without buying tons of expensive books and tests and materials!
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