Why a year-long plan?
Most US preschools cost $9,000-$20,000 per year. Most of what they deliver — structured exposure to early literacy, numeracy, social skills, and creative play — is freely replicable at home with a consistent 20-minute daily routine. This curriculum gives you exactly that: a month-by-month theme, week-by-week skill focus, and a list of free CellieKids games, songs, and parent guides that cover each skill.
It's structured around the developmental research on what 3-5 year olds can absorb (alphabetic principle, one-to-one counting correspondence, color/shape categorisation, basic emotion vocabulary, pre-writing motor skills) without being a rigid school day. Plenty of flexibility — repeat months you loved, skip themes that don't suit your family, take a holiday break.
This pairs well with our 12-week free phonics curriculum: run that for the first 12 weeks of the year (Sept-Nov), then continue with the monthly themes below.
The daily 20-minute routine
- 5 min — sing a song. Warm-up. Same song daily for the week, then rotate. Locks in vocabulary and gets the brain into "learning mode."
- 10 min — focus skill. Whatever this week's skill is from the calendar below. Direct teaching, paired activity, child does it back.
- 5 min — story time. Read a short picture book together. Co-viewing video counts but a real book wins.
Optional: a separate 15-20 min independent play / drawing / building block session later in the day. Not part of the 20.
The 12-month calendar
Theme: Settling in — colors, shapes, names
Month one is about establishing the daily 20-minute routine and building confidence with the basics. Don't introduce formal academics yet — focus on identifying primary colors in everyday objects, naming basic shapes, and following two-step directions like 'pick up your cup and put it on the table.' Sing along to the colors and shapes songs daily. This month builds your child's confidence that they CAN learn at home with you.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Primary colors
- • W2: Basic shapes (circle, square, triangle)
- • W3: Saying my full name + age
- • W4: Following 2-step directions
Theme: Letters of my name + harvest theme
Month two introduces the very first phonics step: the letters in your child's own name. This is the most motivated they'll ever be to learn letters. Practice writing the first letter together with chunky crayons. Pair with the season — count pumpkins at the grocery store, identify falling leaves by color, gather acorns and sort them. Real-world theming creates context that makes content stick.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Letters in your child's first name
- • W2: Letter sounds in name (start phonics gently)
- • W3: Counting pumpkins, leaves, apples to 10
- • W4: Story time + retelling fall stories
Theme: Counting to 10 + gratitude
Move beyond rote counting ("1,2,3,4,5" sung as a song) to genuine one-to-one correspondence — touching each object as you say its number. This is the foundation of all later math. Use snacks, toys, stairs. Pair with a daily gratitude ritual: at breakfast or bedtime, both name three things you're thankful for. This builds vocabulary AND emotional regulation simultaneously.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Counting objects 1-5 with one-to-one correspondence
- • W2: Counting 6-10
- • W3: Recognising numerals 1-10 by sight
- • W4: 'I'm thankful for...' — daily three-things ritual
Theme: Songs, rhymes, and writing letters
December is naturally song-heavy — lean into it. Sing 5+ classic kids' songs daily; the repetition of melody locks vocabulary into long-term memory faster than any flashcard. Introduce rhyme awareness: 'CAT — BAT — what other words sound like that?' Phonemic awareness predicts reading more strongly than alphabet knowledge does. Begin sky-writing letters with a finger in the air, in flour on a tray, in shaving cream on the bath wall. No paper yet.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Christmas / winter songs daily
- • W2: Rhyming pairs (cat-bat, sun-fun)
- • W3: Forming the first 5 letters with a finger in flour
- • W4: Story-time about giving + helping
Theme: Colors deepen + early science
Cabin-fever month — bring the world inside. Introduce science as 'noticing carefully'. Mix red and blue food coloring in water — what happens? Float a leaf, sink a coin — what's the rule? Walk to the window every morning, name the weather, mark a chart. Science isn't about answers; it's about questions. Every 'I wonder why?' is a win.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Secondary colors + simple color mixing
- • W2: 'Sink or float' kitchen-sink experiments
- • W3: 5 senses — name what you see/hear/smell/taste/touch
- • W4: Weather observation + a tiny weather chart
Theme: Feelings + early empathy + counting to 20
Feelings vocabulary is one of the highest-leverage skills you can teach a 4-year-old. Children who can name 'I feel frustrated' are dramatically less likely to have explosive tantrums than children who only have 'I feel BAD.' Read picture books that name emotions; pause and ask 'how do you think she feels?' Pair with extending number recognition through 20 — most kids are ready by mid-year.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Naming feelings — happy, sad, angry, scared, excited
- • W2: Reading faces in books and mirrors
- • W3: Counting from 11 to 20
- • W4: Matching numbers to dot-counts
Theme: Spring growth + plant cycles
Spring is the easiest science teacher. Plant a bean in a clear plastic cup with a wet paper towel — your child sees roots emerge in 4-5 days. This single experiment is more memorable than a year of textbook biology. Walk slower than usual; name 5 plants on every walk. Pair with the animal babies vocabulary — 'baby cow is called a calf' — language richness builds reading capacity later.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Plant a bean in a clear cup — observe roots daily
- • W2: Identify trees, flowers, grass on neighborhood walks
- • W3: Animal babies — kid, calf, foal, chick, joey
- • W4: 'What plants need' — sunlight, water, soil, time
Theme: First sight words + simple sentences
If your child has been doing the daily phonics work, they're ready for the next layer: sight words. These are the 5 highest-frequency words in English children's books, and they don't follow normal phonics rules. Teach by sight (flashcard recognition) plus context (read them in real sentences daily). 'I see a cat' is the first real sentence most children read independently — celebrate it like a first step.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Sight words 'I' and 'a'
- • W2: Sight words 'the', 'is', 'see'
- • W3: Reading 3-word sentences ('I see a cat')
- • W4: Drawing a picture and labelling it
Theme: Writing my name + simple addition
By May most 4-year-olds can write their first name with practice. Use a triangle pencil grip (kid-sized) and lined paper with broken middle line. Don't push too hard — 5 minutes per session, mostly tracing then independent. For math, introduce addition with concrete supports: 2 grapes + 1 grape = 3 grapes. The grapes do the abstraction work. Symbol-only math comes next year.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Writing first name with a model to copy
- • W2: Writing first name from memory
- • W3: Adding 1+1, 2+1 with fingers
- • W4: Adding 1+1, 2+1 with picture supports
Theme: Pattern recognition + summer themes
Pattern recognition is the cognitive foundation of multiplication, music, code, and design. Start dead simple: red bead, blue bead, red bead, blue bead — what comes next? Once that clicks, level up to ABB patterns, then ABC. Use whatever's around: socks, snacks, stickers, building blocks. Patterns are everywhere once you start naming them. By month-end your child should be inventing their own.
Weekly focus
- • W1: AB patterns (red-blue-red-blue)
- • W2: ABB patterns (red-blue-blue-red-blue-blue)
- • W3: ABC patterns (3-color repeats)
- • W4: Make-your-own pattern with stickers or beads
Theme: Read-aloud marathon + creativity
Summer pivots from skill-drilling to imagination-fuel. Hit the library hard — 10 books at a time, rotate weekly. Read aloud daily for 20+ minutes; this is when vocabulary acquisition explodes. Encourage drawing, story-making, block-scene play. Children who consume rich narratives become richer narrative thinkers. The skills built earlier this year become the raw material for July's creative play.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Library run — 10 books out, read 1-2 a day
- • W2: Drawing scenes from favorite stories
- • W3: Telling a story you make up together
- • W4: Building scenes with blocks + acting them out
Theme: Kindergarten readiness review
The capstone month. Quietly check the kindergarten readiness boxes: can your child put on shoes alone, recognise their printed name, count to 20, name 8+ colors and 6+ shapes, separate from you for 2-3 hours without distress, ask an adult for help. This isn't about achievement — it's about confidence going in. Visit the classroom if possible. Read kindergarten-themed picture books. Talk about the routine.
Weekly focus
- • W1: Self-care review — shoes, jacket, lunch box
- • W2: Letter + number recognition refresh
- • W3: 'Tell me about your day' — full-sentence answers
- • W4: Visit the kindergarten classroom + meet the teacher
Weekly parent emails — new free games, guides, and tools
One short email a week. New CellieKids games, parent guides, and seasonal activity ideas — delivered as we ship.
Two reminders for the long haul
One: The single most important variable in every research study on early childhood education isn't the curriculum, isn't the toys, isn't the apps. It's the relationship between the child and the adult doing the teaching. Show up daily, stay warm, stay calm. That's the work.
Two: Skip days. You will. Don't let one missed Tuesday become a missed week. The curriculum is forgiving — if you miss week 14, do week 15 instead. Consistency averaged over a month matters more than perfection in any given week.