How to Teach Online Preschool

Do you wonder how to teach online preschool? This article has tips from Deborah Browning – online preschool owner – about how to teach online preschool and why an online preschool might be perfect for you!

Deborah Browning was a daycare provider. She worked long hours, she managed a classroom full of 30 three and four-year-olds, and she was stressed. Her heart longed to teach children, but instead what she found herself doing each day was crowd control.

Until the day at school when her back went out and she had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Forced to medically resign from her position, she decided to purchase a daycare center with a friend, but that sale fell through.

Then she saw an ad about starting a preschool and was taking steps to open a preschool business in her home when COVID-19 hit. Then she found Joy Anderson and decided to start her online preschool.

Here are her tips on how she now successfully teaches online preschool:

Just Start Your Online Preschool!

Deborah had all the business basics in place from when she was going to purchase the daycare center so when she transitioned to the online preschool model she was close to having everything set up, but hadn’t officially launched her business yet when her husband helped her out by posting about her venture on Facebook.

She says, “It is so nerve wracking putting yourself out there because you are either going to face criticism, rejection, or acceptance.” But if you don’t start your online preschool you will never know if it will work for you or not, so just go for it.

Teach With A Systematic Approach

A systematic approach is a way of teaching that uses the same framework for every single class. Here is an example of how Deborah teaches phonics:

• Monday—Introduce the Letter of the Week.
• Tuesday—Listen to a song (YouTube video) that shows the letter sound in words.
• Wednesday—Practice writing the letter.
• Thursday—Read a Letter Poem and have students find the letter on the screen.
• Friday—Do a Directed Drawing using the letter, for example, turn the capital letter J into a jack o’ lantern. The teacher draws a line for the picture and the student follows the drawing.

[Bonus Tip: Show everything in isolation. When teaching a letter or number, show only the letter or number in isolation, without a picture. Pictures on flashcards are just a distraction. Only show either the lower case or upper case of a letter, one at a time. Avoid showing colors mixed with a shape. Children have one track minds and they will either see the color or the shape but will be confused by both at once.]

With a systematic approach the children will get used to the system, you will develop a routine in your teaching, and you and the children will know what to expect during each subject and each class time.

This method of teaching also takes the guesswork out of lesson planning. You will know how you will teach every single day so all you will need to do is plug in activities for the new letter.

Follow The Same Schedule For Every Class

Just as the systematic approach provides an outline for each subject, it also provides a plan for each day’s schedule. Here is the schedule that Deborah uses:

• Movement
• Pledge of Allegiance
• Calendar (today’s date, days of the week, months of the year, seasons)
• Weather
• Story
• Phonics
• Sight Words
• Movement
• Math

Following this simple schedule removes the stress of figuring out how to keep kids engaged for an entire hour in a virtual classroom. And an added benefit is if you forget a step, the children will remind you so you can go ahead and add that in.

Include A Lot Of Movement In Your Classes

• Plan time in your class schedule for them to move around.
• Start every class with movement.
• Use songs with hand motions and clapping for your calendar time.
• Have them go over to look out a window to tell you what their weather is like.
• Incorporate movement into your story time.
• Add an action associated with the letter sound in your phonics lesson (J says /j/ like jump! Jump with me. /J/, /j/, jump!)
• Take a movement break between your phonics and math lessons.
• Have them show you numbers using their fingers.

Decide On Your Own Length For Your Online Preschool Classes

We recommend one 30-minute Teaching time session and one 30-minute Preschool Pals session for each class. Deborah has found success teaching 1-hour classes.

Your goal should be to provide a good quality education to each child, and you don’t want to rush through your teaching. A slower approach will help your children to retain more of what is taught. Work with your parents, your students, and your teaching style to find the class structure that works best for you all.

Allow Time For Flexibility

Remember, you are working with children. If you have a two-part lesson planned and they start to become disinterested, cut the lesson short. On the other hand, though, if the children are extremely engaged in what you are teaching, extend the lesson a little longer. If children are engaged, they are learning so go with it.

Teach With Thematic Units

Thematic Units are a way of teaching that centers every week around a certain theme, e.g., dinosaurs, pumpkins, or holidays. All the activities, and stories for the week will follow that theme. A thematic unit approach coupled with a systematic approach to teaching will simplify many things with your online preschool.

There are so many possible themes! How do you decide on one? One resource that Deborah uses is Preschool In A Box by Preschool System.

Preschool in a Box includes a curriculum with 36 different themes with enrichment activities for the entire school year. Another resource for finding thematic unit ideas is Pinterest using a search phrase like “preschool themes for December.”

Deborah’s methods are just one way to teach online preschool, but you can follow these great tips to get your online preschool started.