How to choose a home pre k curriculum by time, prep, cost, and format

Published 2026-10-16 · Updated 2026-10-16

A home pre k curriculum is a written plan for the time you and one child spend together. Choose it with four checks: how long you can sit, how much you still prepare, what you pay, and whether the plan is a screen, a printout, or an enrollment. No opened page names one plan that fits every kitchen table.

Those four checks come before brand names. Time is the minutes you can stay beside a three-, four-, or five-year-old before the day needs to move on. Prep is printing, gathering, and deciding the next activity. Cost is a free page, a give-what-you-can file, a purchased ebook, or tuition. Format is online lessons, worksheets, a play ebook, or an enrolled program with parent guides. A plan that fails one check you care about is the wrong plan for this year, even if another family likes it.

Four option types, and where each is stronger

The open results cluster into four types. Each type is stronger for a different house.

Option type	What the opened page is	Format	Money, in that page's words	Stronger when
Free online daily course	Easy Peasy preschool course	Online lessons, optional printables	The site presents a free online course; printables can be printed or bought	You want a daily lesson on a screen and can sit nearby
Free printable worksheet year	Little House pre-K and kindergarten	Worksheets plus chosen activities	Completely free to access, or a give-what-you-can PDF	You want paper worksheets and will choose the extra play yourself
Purchased play ebook	Playing Preschool	Ebook of daily lesson plans	The page sells the program and also links a free sample	You want thematic play plans and will buy the year
Enrolled homeschool program	Bridgeway Academy pre-K and kindergarten	Parent guides inside an enrollment	The page links to tuition plans and an enroll path	You want a school-like program and guides across several subjects

Easy Peasy's preschool page says the course is mainly meant to prepare students as readers, and that it also does counting, shapes, colors, and crafts. It is recommended at age four. The page says to wait six months and try again if a four-year-old is not yet following the work. Lessons are intended as one a day, and the page says the course is now 180 days. A parent or older sibling guides the child. Many lessons have something to print. The page links a 100+ page packet and a 190-page printables workbook, and it also sells an offline workbook so you can skip the printer. Lesson pages include adapted Bible verses and animal alphabet stories. Some steps send you to another website, and the first lesson says a laptop, Chromebook, or desktop is needed for part of the work.

That course is stronger when the lesson itself costs nothing, you are glad to have scripture in the day, and a short online step plus a nearby adult is realistic. It is a weaker match when you want the whole week on paper, with no required screen and no religious text in the lesson.

Little House Kindergarten's page offers a completely free full-year (180-day) homeschool curriculum for kindergarten and pre-K, including 180 days of English Language Arts and Mathematics worksheets, and a screen-free option. The page says you can access the worksheets for free or through a give-what-you-can PDF, and that families should print them. Its FAQ says parents can expect about one hour a day on direct instruction, plus play. A review the page republishes, from Cathy Duffy, describes five PDF books and says the focus is primarily on math and language arts, with activity lists the parent chooses. The same page says the curriculum aligns with common educational standards and that completing it prepares a child for first grade. Treat that as the publisher's claim, not as a result you can count on.

Little House is stronger when you want a free, screen-free worksheet year for reading and math and you will pick the play, the books, and any science yourself. It is a weaker match when you want every subject already written into each day, including a gather list, so you are not choosing the extra pieces.

Playing Preschool's page describes a homeschool preschool ebook. Each year is broken into 19 units of sequenced, hands-on activities in daily lesson plans, and the page says the program packs 190 days of lessons. It names reading, math, science, and art, and it says you can begin at any time in the year. The page sells the ebook and also points to a free sample. It is stronger when you want a purchased, play-based year with the days already written and you will gather materials for thematic units. It is a weaker match when the budget for the plan itself has to be zero.

Bridgeway Academy's pre-K and kindergarten page describes an enrolled homeschool program. It says the program blends structured lessons with hands-on exploration, and it names early reading through phonics, sight words, and read-alouds; math such as counting, addition, subtraction, shapes, and patterns; themed science and social studies; and art, music, and storytelling. The page links to tuition plans. It is stronger when you want a school-like enrollment and parent guides that already name several subjects, and you are ready to pay tuition and follow a program. It is a weaker match when you want a file you print this week and no enrollment.

A roundup on the Positive Action site, updated June 16, 2025, lists named preschool programs for home and school, starting with its own pre-K kits. Use it as a menu of names, then open the publisher's own page before you trust a detail. Rank one and rank two for this search did not open here (a captcha and a challenge page), so this guide does not repeat their lists.

What to check before you print or enroll

Walk the four checks in order, on paper if that helps.

1. Time. Can you stay for a short sitting most days, or do you need a plan that assumes about an hour, as Little House's FAQ describes? A plan that needs you in the chair will not run itself.
2. Prep. Will you print a packet, gather household items, or follow a link? Easy Peasy marks many lessons with something to print. Little House recommends printing worksheets. A week file that already names the gather list saves that decision.
3. Cost. Free can still cost paper, ink, and books. A give-what-you-can PDF, a purchased ebook, and tuition are different bills. Price the year you will actually finish, not the sample.
4. Format. Screen, paper, or enrollment. Add one more question the four checks do not cover: do you want scripture in the lesson, a secular worksheet year, or a file that does not take a faith position on the page?

Then ask who wrote it. A teacher-written ebook, a parent-author course, and a file made with automation are different kinds of trust. Read that limit before you pay.

Questions that ask for a single top pick, a shared rating, or the plan most centers use do not get a sourced answer from these pages. The opened roundup is a list of programs, not a count of enrollments, and the pages do not share one rating scale. An appropriate plan, in the sense NAEYC's curriculum statement uses, is a written plan that can be adapted, uses play as a central part of the curriculum, and gives attention across areas of learning. NAEYC names domains of physical, social, emotional, linguistic, and cognitive development, and subject areas including language, literacy, mathematics, social studies, science, art, music, physical education, and health. A rigid, narrowly defined, skills-focused, highly teacher-scripted curriculum is a poor fit when you cannot adapt it to this child.

That is a map of what to practice. It is not a promise that a week of work will produce a skill, a milestone, or a kindergarten seat. The CDC milestone page for four years lists things most children do by that age, including pretending in play, speaking in sentences, naming a few colors, and holding a crayon with fingers and thumb. Those lines are a health checklist for a conversation with a doctor, not a preschool syllabus and not a pass-fail for your home week. If a child is not meeting one or more milestones, has lost skills, or you have other concerns, that same CDC page says to talk with the child's doctor and ask about developmental screening.

Age three and age four are not the same sitting

Parents ask what to use for a three-year-old and for a four-year-old as if the label on the box decides it. The opened pages do not agree on a starting age. Easy Peasy's preschool page recommends the course at age four and tells you to wait if the child is not yet following the letter work. Little House offers pre-K and kindergarten materials on a relaxed timeline for reading, in the review it republishes. A four-year-old can use a short letter, a count, a shape, and a story. A three-year-old often needs the shorter version of the same idea, and some days the paper can wait.

If you are choosing for a child who is not yet four, start with the time check. A long online lesson or an hour of worksheets can be the wrong format even when the content is fine for an older preschooler. Shorter shared play, a read-aloud, and one small paper task are a fair week. You can add a more formal course later, when the child is asking about letters, as Easy Peasy describes some children doing.

A homeschool preschool curriculum, a pre-K homeschool program, and a preschool curriculum used in a center are the same kind of object: a written plan. Centers often buy a published set and adapt it. At home you might follow a free course, print worksheets, enroll, or use week files. NAEYC says a written curriculum can sit beside a plan that also follows the child's interests, as long as the experiences still match the goals you chose. You do not need a program with a tuition page to have a curriculum. You do need to know what you will do tomorrow.

If the checks point to a printed week

Some families want the week already sequenced, on paper, with an easier step written in, and no enrollment. That is a different product from the free courses above.

Home Preschool Year: Preschool, ages 3 to 5 includes a Start Here guide, a Year Map of all 36 weeks, and 36 week files: a week guide with Day 1 to Day 5 steps and an easier option each day, a print-and-gather list, and 7 activity pages. It also includes 180 numbered lessons, undated, and Progress Checklists for letters, numbers, shapes, colors and early skills. It is a print-only PDF, and nothing is shipped. It needs a printer, paper, crayons, a pencil, child scissors, a glue stick, and common household items named on each week's gather list. An adult sits with the child and supervises scissors and small items. Checklists record what you practiced; they are not a test or a school-readiness result. Made with AI and automation and checked by automated tests; no teacher wrote or reviewed it. For use by one family.

A reader who buys nothing can still use the four checks, the Easy Peasy course, or the Little House worksheets. The honest limit of this advice: a written plan does not replace you in the chair. Pages, videos, and enrollments all wait for an adult to start them, stop them, and skip a day.

For the next step in planning, read free preschool curriculum if cost is the check that decides it, preschool lesson plans if you want the shape of a single day, and preschool unit plans if you would rather organize by topic than by a purchased year.

An illustrative week at the table

This sketch is illustrative. It shows how a parent might use one written week. It is not a prediction of what a child will do.

On the first sitting, name something you use at the table, point to a big A and a small a, and color the letters. If the crayon is a fight, color one letter or trace it in the air. On another sitting, look at an empty frame and talk about a count of none, then draw an empty circle. On another, trace a circle with a finger and use a red crayon on one shape. On another, name pictures and sort them into two groups; you cut, or you supervise child-safe scissors, then glue. On the last sitting, trace a path with a finger, set out cups and spoons for a pretend meal, and ask which activity to repeat. Mark only what you practiced. A missed day waits.

That is a week of doing things together. It is not a score, and it is not evidence that a child is ready for a classroom.

Questions parents keep asking

What curriculum is used in preschool, and what are curriculums for preschool? They are written plans. The plan in a center and the plan at your table can both be called a curriculum. The pages opened for this search do not show one plan used everywhere.

What is a good preschool curriculum for a four-year-old, a good curriculum for homeschooling a three-year-old, or a good homeschool preschool curriculum? "Good" here means it passes your time, prep, cost, and format checks, and it gives you something to do across language, early math, and play. Easy Peasy is built as a four-year-old reading-prep course. A three-year-old may need the shorter step, or a later start. Bridgeway is built as an enrollment. Little House is built as free worksheets. None of those facts makes one of them the right file for every child.

Is there a pre-K homeschool program, and what type should you pick? Yes, there is more than one type. Pick the type whose stronger case matches your house, using the table above. A printable week is stronger when you want paper and a gather list. A free online course is stronger when the lesson must cost nothing and a screen is fine. An enrollment is stronger when you want tuition, guides, and several subjects already named.

What should you do if you still cannot choose? Print or open one week only. Do it beside your child. Keep the plan that you will actually open tomorrow. Leave the rest.