Homeschool Preschool & Kindergarten: What to Prioritize

One of the things I have had to accept in motherhood is that I cannot emphasize everything equally in every season.

There are simply too many good things.

There are beautiful books, practical life skills, outings, memory work, homemaking systems, language development, art, music, and a thousand worthwhile ideas.

But if I do not know what I am actually prioritizing in this season, the days start to feel scattered.

So this season has forced me to get clearer.

Mini Contents

Why I think every season needs clear priorities
The first priority in this season: relationship with God
The habits I care most about right now
What our family rhythm of formation looks like
Why beauty subjects matter to me so much
How I teach virtues with simple phrases and living ideas
What I think still needs explicit teaching
If you also feel scattered in this season, start here

One of the things I have had to accept in motherhood is that I cannot emphasize everything equally in every season.

There are simply too many good things.

There are beautiful books, practical life skills, outings, memory work, homemaking systems, language development, art, music, and a thousand worthwhile ideas.

But if I do not know what I am actually prioritizing in this season, the days start to feel scattered.

So this season has forced me to get clearer.

Why I think every season needs clear priorities

I used to fear missing out because my younger one had to nap. Then, I felt frustrated that we’ve got more of us and getting around it now harder. Then, I wonder if I’m shortchanging my kids because we don’t drive.

I understand, personally, how hard it is to have a grateful, joyful, hopeful posture. It’s a work in progress, as I’m learning that these priorities are not about making life smaller. I think they help us stop drifting.

Without clear priorities, it is easy to fill the days with activity while quietly missing the deeper formation we are hoping for. A mother can end the day tired, the children can end the day stimulated, and yet still feel that the most important things remained vague.

For me, the question became:

What kind of relationship with God do I want to cultivate in the children and myself?
What habits of the body, the mind, and the spirit are important?
What kind of atmosphere do I want our home education to create?
What actually needs explicit teaching in this season, and what can be cultivated more indirectly through family life?
What is my responsibility in it?
In this, my husband plays as much a part in the reflecting, discussing and deciding. So, what is it that we want as a shared family culture?

Those questions have helped me simplify. To be grounded, joyful and at peace where I am.

The first priority in this season: relationship with God

The first priority for me in this season is helping the children build a real relationship with God.

That includes spiritual habits like:

prayer
reading the Word
worship

But I do not want those habits to become mere motions.

I want them to have some felt understanding of what these things point to.

If we say that God is Creator, then I want that to mean something. I want the children to be in contact with creation. I want them to notice it, appreciate it, and respond to its nuances. I want them to see that the world is not flat or ordinary or empty of meaning.

That is part of why I care about beauty, nature, art, music, and close observation.

They are not separate from spiritual formation for me.

The habits I care most about right now

There are a number of habits I care about in this season, and they are not “academic.”

Habits of decency and orderliness

I want the children to learn:

to care for their person
to care for the space around them
to notice what is out of place
to move through the day with a basic orderliness

Habits of obedience

I want obedience to be understood not only as external compliance, but as a willing responsiveness to what is good, fitting, and right.

Habits of attention

These are intellectual habits, but they are also spiritual habits.

I want the children to practise:

focus
attention
humility before what is in front of them
stillness of spirit
careful looking
careful listening
bringing the will under good control

That kind of attention changes how they receive the world.

What our family rhythm of formation looks like

In this season, our “curriculum” is quite simple at its core.

We always begin with family prayer.

We read directly from the Bible together, trusting that the Word is living and active and that the Spirit can work in the child. We do not try to overcomplicate it.

Usually we:

read a maximum of five verses at a time
keep the reading portion small enough to truly attend
model narration as parents after reading
narrate as closely as possible to the text

This gives the children a way to begin listening carefully and receiving what they have heard.

After that, we often move into a hymn.

Then come the beauty subjects:

art appreciation
music appreciation
artist study
composer study
nursery rhymes
folk songs
folk tales

We focus on 1 artwork per week, 1 classical music piece for a term, 1 playlist of nursery rhymes and folk songs per term.

These are part of how I want the children to realise how big and wide the world is, and how rich it is with ideas.

Why beauty subjects matter to me so much

When I introduce an art piece, I am not only interested in the final picture.

I want to open up questions like:

Who was this artist?
What was it like to live in his time?
What ideas was he trying to portray?
What might have been difficult about making this piece?

For example, if we are looking at Van Gogh, I do not want the child to think only, “This is a painting.”

I want them to slowly see that art lives inside a world of ideas and craftsmanship.

So we might talk about things like:

the world of the Impressionists
how new paint tubes allowed artists to work out in nature more easily
how artists became deeply attentive to light
how movement, clouds, leaves, and atmosphere could be noticed and portrayed

That kind of study trains observation, wonder, and respect for the work itself.

It also helps children appreciate difficulty.

They begin to understand that beautiful work often requires patience, resilience, craftsmanship, and care. That is one reason I am intentional about having an art space at home and making art an ordinary part of life.

If you want the fuller art-space side of this, I would also read How to Start Sensory Play and Art at Home Even If You Feel Overwhelmed.

How I teach virtues with simple phrases and living ideas

When it comes to teaching virtues, I do not think it is enough to only name the virtue or the word.

I want the children to have short phrases that are easy to repeat, easy to remember, and simple to understand.

For example:

stewardship: we take care of everything that comes through our hands
contentment: we make the most of what we have
generosity: my hands always have something to give

I like simple phrases because they are actionable.

When a child repeats the phrase, the child can also begin to understand what that virtue looks like in practice.

I also try to connect each virtue with living ideas and concrete examples.

If we talk about hands, for example, I want the children to see hands not only as body parts, but as gifts from God that can bless other people. Then I can connect that to people who use their hands skillfully and generously:

craftsmen
therapists
traditional medicine practitioners
people who bring comfort or healing

That helps the virtue feel more embodied and more inspiring.

And then we reinforce it through repetition:

short phrases
songs
catechism
examples from real life

That is one reason I also care about homemaking and chores as part of formation. They give the child repeated real-life situations in which stewardship, contentment, responsibility, and generosity can be practised. If you want the practical side of that, I would also read How I Involve My Kids in Chores and the Values I Want Them to Learn.

What I think still needs explicit teaching

Outside of all of that, the main things I think still need explicit teaching are language and math.

Even there, I want them connected to real life first.

For language, that may mean:

building print awareness through what we see around us
noticing words in ordinary life
connecting reading to usefulness first

And after that, I want to connect them to beauty:

poetry
rhyme
nursery rhymes
Tang poetry
moral stories
language that is rich in their own culture

For math, I want the same instinct.

I want numbers and patterns to be connected to reality before they become only abstractions.

So much of what I want in this season is really this:

real life
rich ideas
living words
beautiful things
orderly habits
spiritual formation

If you also feel scattered in this season, start here

If you feel unsure what to prioritize with your children right now, I would begin with a few reflection questions:

What do I most want to be taking root in my child in this season?
What habits matter most right now?
Which parts of our current day feel merely busy rather than formative?
What am I trying to cultivate in the child’s relationship with God?
Which beauty subjects or living ideas would help open the world a bit wider?
Which virtues need simpler, more repeatable language in our home?
What really needs explicit teaching, and what can be formed more gradually through family life?

Then I would choose just a few priorities and repeat them deeply.

If you want help making those virtues and family phrases more visible, the Virtues Pack printable is where I would keep the short phrases, habit cues, and family-language reminders that help children internalize what stewardship, contentment, generosity, and other values actually look like in everyday life.

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Thriving New Mama