Our preschool curriculum
A Curriculum Built on Intentional Learning
I built this play-based preschool curriculum the way I coach the teachers at my own school: choose one idea worth a week of a child’s attention, pose it as a question, and let children investigate it through play. Direct instruction happens in short bursts — a ten-minute circle, a two-minute transition song — and the real learning happens at the centers, where children are choosing, building, negotiating, and trying again.
Development comes before decoration. Every activity is written twice — once for young twos-and-threes, once for fours-and-fives — because “ages 2.5–5” should never mean one worksheet and good luck. And every unit is deliberately low-prep: if a center takes longer to assemble than children will spend playing in it, it doesn’t make the cut.
Preschool curriculum studies
Five Studies, One Connected Year
Every weekly unit belongs to one of five studies — broad questions children return to all year, at deeper levels each time. A study is not a theme bin; it’s a lens. “Pumpkins” is a theme. “How do living things change?” is a study.
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Who children are, who loves them, and how a room of strangers becomes a classroom family. Children explore identity, feelings, friendship, classroom jobs, and the helpers and places of their neighborhood — the groundwork every other study stands on.
Essential questions
- Who am I, and who is in my world?
- How do we take care of each other?
- What makes our classroom ours?
Example units
- We Belong · Week 1
- My Amazing Family
- Community Helpers
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How the world transforms: seasons turning, seeds sprouting, caterpillars disappearing into chrysalides, and children’s own growing bodies. This study builds the habit of observing over time — noticing, predicting, and checking back tomorrow.
Essential questions
- What changes, and what stays the same?
- How do living things grow?
- How can we tell a new season is coming?
Example units
- Falling for Fall
- From Seed to Sprout
- Butterfly Watch
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Curiosity with a method. Sensory play, water and light, magnets, ramps, and the beginnings of a fair test: children learn to guess out loud, try it, and look again. The teacher’s script here is mostly questions — the units tell you which ones to ask.
Essential questions
- What happens if…?
- How can we find out?
- What are my senses telling me?
Example units
- My Five Senses
- Sink or Float
- Light & Shadow
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Math children can hold: counting real things that matter to them, sorting and comparing, copying and inventing patterns, and building with shapes. Number talk is woven into snack, lineup, and cleanup — not saved for a worksheet.
Essential questions
- How many — and how do we know?
- What comes next?
- How are these two things the same?
Example units
- Patterns Everywhere
- Shapes in Our School
- How Tall? How Heavy?
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Process over product. Open-ended art, music and rhythm, dramatic play, and storytelling: children practice having an idea and getting it out — with paint, blocks, a costume, or their own two hands. No thirty identical craft turkeys here.
Essential questions
- What can this material become?
- How can I show what I’m imagining?
- How does music make us feel?
Example units
- Artists at Work
- Music All Around
- Tell Me a Story
Inside every unit
Anatomy of a Weekly Unit
Every unit ships the same six pieces in the same order, so once you’ve taught one, you can prep the next in a single planning period.
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Weekly Lesson Plans
Five full days mapped from arrival to pickup: a scripted circle time, center rotations, a small-group focus, transition songs, and a read-aloud with talking points. Written so a substitute could run the day.
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Centers & Activities
Eight to ten center invitations across literacy, math, art, science, and dramatic play — each on one card with materials, a five-minute setup, and what to say while children work.
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Assessment Tools
Observation checklists tied to the week’s goals, split by age band, plus an anecdotal-note page. Designed for a clipboard during center time, not a filing cabinet after hours.
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Parent Newsletter
A ready-to-send family letter: what we’re learning, the week’s vocabulary, one question to ask at pickup, and a no-pressure home extension. Families feel included; you write nothing.
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Editable Templates
The planning grid, newsletter, and name-based activities ship as editable files, so you can swap in your schedule, your class list, and your school’s name in minutes.
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Prep Guide & Materials List
One page listing everything to print, gather, and cut. Most units need a single printing session and materials your classroom already has — no specialty shopping trips.
70+ pages per unit Written for ages 2.5–3 and 4–5 Instant download · print and go
Scope & sequence
A Year at a Glance
Thirty-eight weeks, five studies, one arc: start with belonging, follow the seasons, build math through the slow winter months, and end the year making and celebrating. This is the planned publishing sequence — teach it in order or treat it as a menu.
| Month | Weeks | Study focus | Example weekly themes |
|---|---|---|---|
| August | 1–3 | Community | We Belong · Our Classroom · Feelings & Friends |
| September | 4–7 | Community | All About Me · My Amazing Family · Community Helpers · Where I Live |
| October | 8–11 | Change & Growth | Falling for Fall · Pumpkins & Apples · Weather Watchers · Nocturnal Animals |
| November | 12–14 | Community | Gratitude & Giving · Food & Family Tables · Helping Hands |
| December | 15–16 | Creativity & Expression | Music All Around · Light & Celebration |
| January | 17–20 | Patterns & Math | Patterns Everywhere · Shapes in Our School · Count It Out · How Tall? How Heavy? |
| February | 21–24 | Patterns & Math | Sorting & Matching · Friendship Counts · Build It Up · Money in the Market |
| March | 25–28 | Exploration & Discovery | My Five Senses · Sink or Float · Light & Shadow · Mixing Colors |
| April | 29–32 | Change & Growth | From Seed to Sprout · Butterfly Watch · Rain & Rainbows · Baby Animals |
| May | 33–36 | Creativity & Expression | Artists at Work · Tell Me a Story · Build It Big · On Stage |
| June | 37–38 | Community | Look How We’ve Grown · Celebrations & Goodbyes |
This is the planned sequence as the library grows — We Belong is published now, and new units release in roughly this order. Year-round programs: the sequence loops; summer weeks repeat spring studies with fresh themes.
Development goals
Four Domains, Two Age Bands
Every unit states its weekly goals across four developmental domains — and states them separately for younger and older preschoolers, because a two-and-a-half-year-old and an almost-kindergartner are doing different work at the same table.
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Social-Emotional
Built through scripted circle times, daily feelings check-ins, and centers that require a partner — community isn’t a September unit here, it’s the operating system.
Ages 2.5–3Separating from caregivers with confidence, naming big feelings (“you’re stomping — you look frustrated”), and playing alongside a friend without a turf war.
Ages 4–5Solving peer conflicts with words before a teacher steps in, holding a role in cooperative play, and sticking with a hard task past the first frustration.
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Language & Literacy
Built through repeated read-alouds with talking points, print-rich center labels, daily name work, and vocabulary that carries from circle to centers to the parent newsletter.
Ages 2.5–3Picking up new vocabulary from songs and repeated stories, holding a book right-side up and turning pages, and joining in on a familiar refrain.
Ages 4–5Recognizing most letters — starting with the ones in their own name — writing that name, retelling a story in order, and playing with rhyme on purpose.
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Cognitive & Math
Built through counting collections that matter (friends, snack crackers, blocks in a tower), sorting invitations, and pattern and measurement centers in every study — not just the math one.
Ages 2.5–3Counting to five with one number per object, sorting by a single attribute, and filling, dumping, and stacking with growing purpose.
Ages 4–5Counting collections past ten, copying and extending AB and ABC patterns, comparing height and weight with real tools, and combining shapes to make new ones.
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Physical & Creative
Built through fine-motor work hidden inside every center (tongs, droppers, dough), a movement game in every lesson plan, and art that is genuinely open-ended.
Ages 2.5–3Building grip strength with dough, tongs, and chunky crayons; jumping, balancing, and carrying big things across the room on purpose.
Ages 4–5Controlling scissors along a line, drawing a person you can recognize, moving to a steady beat, and managing their own buttons, zippers, and glue lids.
Common questions
Questions Directors Ask Me
How does the curriculum align to state early learning standards?
It isn’t written to any single state’s standards — it’s written to the developmental domains those standards share: social-emotional, language and literacy, cognitive and math, and physical development. Every unit lists its weekly goals by domain and age band, and the assessment checklists give you documented evidence against each goal.
In practice, that makes the crosswalk to your own state’s early learning guidelines or your QRIS paperwork straightforward: you’re mapping five or six clearly stated goals, not reverse-engineering a theme.
Will this work in a mixed-age classroom?
Yes — it assumes one. Most preschool rooms I’ve worked in hold a two-and-a-half-year-old and an almost-kindergartner at the same table, so every activity is written with both age bands side by side: the same materials and the same big idea, with different expectations. Your youngest children sort the bears; your oldest graph them. You never run two curriculums in one room.
What if my week gets interrupted — how flexible is the pacing?
Each unit is a self-contained week, and the year-at-a-glance order is a suggestion, not a contract. Field trips, licensing visits, and stomach bugs happen. Stretch a unit that catches fire into two weeks, run a three-day version by dropping the day-four and day-five extensions, or swap whole units between months — nothing in week twelve depends on week eleven.
Is there religious content in the units?
No — the curriculum is secular. Winter units focus on light, music, the season itself, and family traditions in general terms, and no unit assumes a particular holiday is celebrated at home. If your program is faith-based, the units leave room to layer in your own traditions — the editable templates make that simple.
See it for yourself
The Whole System, in one $9 unit
We Belong is Week 1 of the Community study — 72+ pages for ages 2.5–5, with lesson plans, centers and activities, assessment tools, a parent newsletter, and editable templates. Teach it once and you’ll know exactly how every future unit works.
Prefer everything? Playbook+ opens at 10+ units — founding members lock in $7/mo or $69/yr for life.