Timberdoodle Preschool Curriculum Kit

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The Timberdoodle Preschool Curriculum Kit contains everything you need to homeschool and prepare your child for lifelong success! This custom pre-k curriculum is one of the best homeschooling programs in the market.

On a recent Facebook post, one of my neighbors asked how other parents felt about sending their kids back to school this upcoming semester.

She got a lot of responses and the parents seemed to fall within these groups:

Parents that are struggling with home education and are ready to send their kids back to school (the majority)
Parents that are fearful of the current situation and unsure what to do
Parents that are choosing to homeschool for at least another year or permanently

Following that post, I noticed an influx of new parents into homeschooling groups online. Most were overwhelmed by the choices in curriculum and how difficult it is to find information on what and how to teach kids.

I understand this feeling all too well. At first, homeschooling feels overwhelming.

There are so many curriculum options and different approaches that parents are thrown for a tailspin.

From structured lesson plans that mirror public school to unschooling, where children receive no formal education of any kind, the world of homeschooling is full of choices.

And if you always thought you’d send your kids to public school, like I did, then it’s even scarier.

Here are some of the questions that kept me awake at night:

What if I make the wrong choice?
What if I am unable to teach my child?
What if I miss something important and mess up my child’s future?
Will my child be able to participate in sports? Socialize with other kids? Go to prom? Graduation? Am I robbing him of important life experiences?

I remember the sheer pressure to get it right, to choose the best curriculum out there.

And it was so hard to find a preschool curriculum that addressed my concerns and my child’s needs and that didn’t require me to spend hours building a curriculum on my own.

After reading several books and scouring the internet for the information I needed, I found Timberdoodle.

10 Reasons I Chose Timberdoodle Homeschool Preschool Curriculum

Timberdoodle Preschool Curriculum Kit Review

Timberdoodle is one of the oldest companies in the market offering homeschool curriculums.

Here are the reasons why I love Timberdoodle:

Complete, academically strong homeschool curriculum kits designed to address major educational and developmental areas
Curriculum kits require little to no extra work like printing, laminating or buying loads of extra supplies
Religious or secular options, for children from birth to high school
The Timberdoodle Preschool Curriculum includes several educational toys (learning through play)
Convenient – you only need to purchase once for the entire year
An amazing customer service and the ability to customize the curriculum to the child’s gaps and abilities
Lessons in the Timberdoodle Preschool Curriculum are low prep, so there is no need to spend hours the night before planning and assembling things for the next day
The quality of the products – Timberdoodle does not create the materials, but instead sources the curriculum from the best programs available in the market
Timberdoodle’s free online scheduler and handbook that allows you to plan your week, month or entire year. You can print the schedule for your records and state requirements.
The philosophy behind the Timberdoodle Curriculum Kits – that learning should be hands-on and fun!

Timberdoodle Preschool and Pre-K Curriculum Kits

Timberdoodle offers 2 different curriculum kits for kids considered preschool age – the preschool kit and the pre-K kit.

The preschool curriculum kit is the starter kit, great for kids 1-3 years old who are just starting to learn the alphabet, numbers, colors, etc.

The pre-K curriculum kit is for children ages 3-4 years old who are eager to learn, but not yet ready for kindergarten or reading.

Timberdoodle Placement Test and Ordering Process

After making our decision to go with the Timberdoodle Homeschool Curriculum for Preschool, I was unsure what kit to purchase, so I contacted the customer service to ask questions.

A homeschool curriculum can be a pricey investment and I wanted to make sure I was making the right choice.

And Timberdoodle did not disappoint. After communicating back and forth with their customer service, and administering a placement test for our son, I purchased a Custom Timberdoodle Curriculum which included materials from their pre-K and kindergarten kits.

I highly recommend that you administer a placement test to your child before purchasing any curriculum. Had I not done so, I might have purchased things that were below or above our son’s ability level, hindering his learning development and most importantly his desire to learn.

During the placement test, which can be answered mostly by the parent, I uncovered skills my son was lacking (letter sounds, rhyming, fine motor skills) and also discovered he was excelling in areas like letter recognition and math.

Timberdoodle has their placement test for free on their website and can also provide you additional tests and support if you contact them. Their customer service responded promptly and were super helpful, which is an additional reason we chose to purchase a preschool/ kindergarten custom homeschool curriculum kit through Timberdoodle.

Being able to customize our child’s homeschool curriculum to better meet his abilities is by far the biggest advantage of homeschooling to us. Our son can learn at his pace, ability level and through the method that best fits his learning style.

Timberdoodle Curriculum Kit: Arrival, Cost and Results

One of the unexpected joys of homeschooling is that you get to open the curriculum boxes and watch your child’s excitement, like it’s Christmas in July!

When our shipment arrived, my son opened the box and was so excited with his new toys and books that he seriously thought it was Christmas!

I don’t know about you, but I never felt that way about getting school books in my life!

How much does it cost?

Many homeschool curriculum providers give you the choice to buy a kit for the entire year (which I recommend) or buying it little by little.

The total cost for the custom curriculum was around U$700. It might seem like a lot, but it covers 2 years (preschool and kindergarten) and it was worth every penny.

Just on printer ink and lamination, I would have spent at least U$300 downloading and printing free resources online. On top of the countless hours of research and preparation that the curriculum kit saved me.

Results

Since we started homeschooling last September, we have used most of the contents in the curriculum and have gone through 1/2 of the material (remember my custom kit covers 2 years worth of education).

I also purchased additional materials to add variety and also to address some gaps in my son’s development, which I will explain in more detail in a separate post.

In terms of academic achievement, here are just some of the examples of the progress we’ve had so far. My son is now 3.5 years old and he could not do most of these things last year.

Math

Counting 0 to 100 and in factors of 1-10.
Basic addition and subtraction and understanding of place value.

Language

Letter sounds and rhyming.
Beginning blending, cvc words and some sight words.
Handwriting improvement. Can hold pencil and trace within lines all the alphabet and numbers.

Social Studies

Knowledge of feelings, facial expressions and emotions. Able to articulate what he is feeling and also what others are feeling and why.
Knowledge of some occupations and what they do.
Knowledge of how money is made and how it is exchanged for goods.

Science and Geography

Can name some continents, countries and several states in the US.
Days of the week, days of the month, seasons, weather and major holidays.
Why things are magnetic, why objects float/sink.
External body parts and functions.

Art and Fine Motor Skills

Independently trace letters, numbers, shapes, fold and cut paper, peel and place stickers and use glue.
Paint and color per instructions.
Can address most of his needs independently (clothing, hygiene, feeding).

Critical Reasoning

Can establish steps to solve problems and can reason through puzzles, mazes and logical games.
Can use observation skills and discern differences, hidden objects/shapes and recognize patterns.

What is in the Timberdoodle Custom Preschool/ Kindergarten Curriculum?

If you are interested in checking out the Timberdoodle Homeschool Curriculum Kits, visit their website.

If you are interested in separate components of the curriculum or to supplement your child’s education while schools are out, I’ve compiled a list of products we purchased that are also available on the affiliate links below.

Math

Math was super important to us. We wanted an academically strong curriculum that challenged our son to excel.

Our son tested at a Primer or kindergarten level for Math and although we didn’t want to push him, we knew that he was ready for a more structured program.

Math-U-See was highly rated by other parents and our son has enjoyed it.

The counting bears are for children just learning to count and are also great for color recognition and basic addition.

By far, the math product that my son is craziest about is the Polka Dot Game. We have played this game several times a month.

Language

Language has probably been one of the hardest subjects to teach our son. He caught up to letters and letter sounds super easily, but struggled with rhyming.

He also favors math over language any day of the week, so although he tested at a kindergarten level for reading, we spent a lot of our first year, working on other parts of the English language and have just started working on the All About Reading program.

If your child does not know the alphabet, syllables, rhyming and other building blocks, All About Reading offers a primer level that is better for younger children.

The handwriting practice book that was included in the curriculum kit was not engaging my son, so I bought the ones listed below and we’ve had more success with it.

All About Reading Level 1
Handwriting : Uppercase and Lowercase Letters
Write and Erase Letters

Critical Reasoning

Our son absolutely loves the Mad Mattr and Three Little Piggies Game. The Building Thinking Skills book was great for pattern recognition and observation and grouping skills (opposites, things that go together).

Science and Geography

This is probably the area of the curriculum we have focused the least during homeschooling.

The reason for that is we learn a lot about the world while traveling and by getting out in nature. We also take normal family opportunities like cooking and gardening to teach our son science. Everything is a learning opportunity.

Our son has enjoyed looking for metal with the big magnet and reading the Berestain Bears book, but we have not yet started experimenting with the STEM book.

We will be learning more about the body this summer as our son is showing interest into organs, circulatory systems and skeletal structures while playing with this puzzle.

Art and Fine Motor Skills

You will notice a larger amount of materials in this section, and that is because our son had almost no fine motor skills or finger strength to hold a pencil.

He couldn’t hold a crayon or pencil, so this is an area we identified through the placement test that he needed to work on.

He has since made amazing progress in this area (read about results above).

Over the past year, we purchased more books so that he could practice lines, mazes, letters and numbers and recently he has been practicing writing numbers 1-30 with this write and erase product.

These books were really good and really engaged our son. He begged to do the jobs sticker book several times during the first couple months and really enjoyed learning about the different jobs in the book “What Do People Do All Day?”

If you have a child with high EQ, you might not need the “A Whole Bunch of Feelings Book”. If you have a child who struggles to communicate his/her feelings, then this book might be very beneficial.

Summary

I recommend the Timberdoodle Curriculum Kits for any parent who wants homeschooling to be effortless and fun for the kids. There is little to no prep required and a large part of the curriculum is play based for young children.

The kits contain everything you need for the school year and can be tailored to your children’s needs and abilities. Besides tailoring the curriculum to different grades, you can also choose a secular or religious option.

I hope this post helped you make a decision on the materials to buy for your children as you navigate homeschooling for the first time and that you have fun while teaching your children during this time.

If you have any questions, leave them down below and I will do my best to answer them and if you want to see what each of these products looks like inside or what they cover, check out my in depth video review here.

I also made two other videos that might interest you on materials I purchased through Amazon and through Target.

If you liked this review, then you might also like these:

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This website contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate and participant in other programs, I may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.