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Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Soul: How to Homeschool in the Early Years

Charlotte Mason· Curriculum· Homeschool· Outside-the-Box Kids· Pre-School

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It was a beautiful fall day. The air was crisp but mild and you could just feel the seasons changing. Our family piled in the car and drove to a nearby apple orchard. We have been visiting Apple Charlie’s since I was a little girl and it is a tradition I love to carry on with my four children. We picked apples, visited the petting farm, inhaled the intoxicating smell of freshly baked donuts, went on a hayride and when we left, we felt full…and not just because of the treats we bought.

While the apples may have fed our bodies, the day had fed our souls.

preschooler's soul via cindy rinna

Nurturing your pre-schooler’s mind and body are important parts of raising your child but nurturing your pre-schooler’s soul is the most crucial piece of the triad. Without a well-fed soul, the mind would become arrogant and the body would become reckless. The soul is the link that makes a strong mind and body worth having. Without a well-fed soul, your child cannot truly thrive.

But here’s the problem – nurturing your pre-schooler’s soul is such an infinite task with so very little time to accomplish it.

The good news is that feeding your child’s soul is not a one time task to cram into his first six years; it’s a lifelong commitment but how you begin in the pre-school years will set a good foundation.

Heads up…this post is on the longer side so grab a cup of coffee and get cozy or scroll all the way down to the end for the bullet points ;).

How to Nurture Your Pre-schooler’s Soul

The pre-school years are the time to decide what is really important. What do you want your child shaping his life around? What do you want his central focus to be? How do you want him to form his identity? What makes him, him and what makes your family, your family?

The present age urges us to do more than ever during this early stage – structured activities, sports, playgroups, and other running around can easily consume you during this time if you let it. Choosing one or two worthy activities a week might be good, depending on your situation but this time is best spent building your relationship and enjoying the natural rhythm of your home. When you keep life simple at this stage, you will find many opportunities to pour into your little one’s soul now while the soil is most fertile.

For our Outside-the-Box kids it is especially crucial for their souls to keep life simple and quiet during these years. Many OTB kids receive a diagnosis of some sort during these years and it is a time for the family to accept a new normal, recalibrate, come up with a plan, and embrace.

So how do you nurture your pre-schooler’s soul?

Bible

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men.”
– John 1:1-4

The end.

I mean, really, we could stop there but this is what’s critical to understand – anything that feeds the soul is from God. Anything lovely and beautiful and nurturing and good comes from Him. And it all points back to Him. Reading your child the Bible, therefore, is the utmost soul nourishing activity you can do.

In the pre-school years, a storybook bible is your best bet for introducing your child to the Word. There are many, but I have listed our favorites in my Pre-school Booklist for the Well-Read Child. If you haven’t downloaded your free copy yet, go ahead and grab it now. 

Music

Music tells us how to feel. You are forming your child’s tastes in the pre-school years and what is being poured into his ears and consequently, his soul, matters. It matters a great deal.

If you don’t agree, I’d like you to sing – in its entirety – the theme song to your favorite TV show growing up. I bet you can.

Music has been an integral part of history from the beginning. From the psalms of David to your favorite Pandora stations today, humankind has used music for expression, pleasure, and even a high form of worship. Music clearly carries meaning.

What is the soundtrack of your child’s pre-school years?

Is it depleting twaddle or full of pop culture messages?

Or is it is life giving?

Good music is not age-sensitive. While there are a few artists worthy of your child’s time, you may want to steer clear of much of the stuff produced for children. Here’s my test: if your child’s music makes you want to put your head through a wall when it comes on, it should not be in your home.

Our favorite music in the pre-school years is:

Art

If music tells us how to feel, then art shows us what to feel. Beautiful in sight, true art will captivate the soul and move the emotions to joy.

The best ways to expose your pre-schooler to great art is through picture books and wall art.

There are many, many choices for picture books and sadly, many of those choices are terrible ones when it comes to art. If your five-year-old can replicate the “art” in the book to perfection, it probably isn’t art at all.

Look for picture books that strike you as gorgeous – that catch your breath, that are full of detail. Look for something you could rip the page out of and hang on your wall.

I have listed our favorites in my Pre-school Booklist for the Well-Read Child. If you haven’t downloaded your free copy yet, go ahead and grab it now. 

As for wall art, be careful to heed Charlotte Mason’s words regarding art in general:

But, as a matter of fact, the minds of children and of their elders alike accommodate themselves to what is put in their way; and if children appreciate the vulgar and sentimental in art, it is because that is the manner of art to which they become habituated.

– Charlotte Mason, Vol. 1 p. 308

Children are never too young to be surrounded by beauty. And as with music, you are cultivating their affections in the early years.

Poetry

“What is poetry?” I asked.
He laid the wilted petals in his palm. “Listen to Mother play. She practices and practices a piece, and sometimes a magic happens and it seems the music starts to breathe. It sends a shiver through you. You can’t explain it, really; it’s a mystery. Well, when words do that, we call it poetry.”

– from Emily by Michael Bedard

Ah…poetry.

I daresay this is the most misunderstood and perhaps even feared subjects that homeschoolers tangle with. I have always loved poetry, even as a child, so while I cannot understand the struggle some feel, I can assure you there is something out there for everyone. For those who do not have a natural affinity towards poetry, I beg you…give it a chance for the sake of your child.

If you would like to see a full explanation of benefits, check out this article but I will try to win you over with a few bullet points.

  • poetry allows us a peek into the soul of another human being
  • it has been around just about forever – it’s one of the oldest art forms so it must be worth a second look
  • poetry has genres within itself and there is something for everyone. If you say you don’t like poetry, I would argue that you haven’t found the right poetry for yourself yet.
  • reading it is fun! I have never met a child who didn’t like a nursery rhyme, one of the most foundational types of poetry
  • poetry builds family culture. Do you know what goes great with poetry? Tea and cookies. Try it and I bet you’ll agree :).

I have listed our favorites in my Pre-school Booklist for the Well-Read Child. If you haven’t downloaded your free copy yet, go ahead and grab it now. 

The Great Outdoors

I wrote a full post on this topic a while back so I won’t go too far in depth here. The short of it is that Charlotte Mason felt very strongly about young children spending large chunks of their time outside and if you try it, I bet you will, too.

Some of the benefits include working your child’s attention to detail, providing solace and refreshment, and growing a reverence for life.

Family Traditions, Rhythms & Values

These are the pillars of life that mark the passing of time in our day and year as well as help develop who we are as a family and by extension, who you are helping your child to become.

It all sounds very lofty but played out in real life it’s quite simple to be intentional about these things.

Family traditions

Think of seasons, holidays, and birthdays.

Do you visit the pumpkin patch every fall? Do you catch fireflies together in the summer? Does your child wake on his birthday to a special song? What does Christmas morning look like for your family?

These are the times that you want to be intentionally building memories. You do this by putting some traditions in place. Not only can this help your child feel like his world is more predictable (an especially important thing for an OTB child), but this gives everyone something to look forward to.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

– Ecclesiastes 3:1

When God created the seasons, I can’t help but think it was a beautiful message to us about how we should live.

Rhythms

Rhythms are bite-sized traditions. This is the flow of your day, your week, and your month.

What do you do every morning? What does your bedtime routine look like? When do you read, play, and clean? Your home life follows a certain cadence and it needs to be an intentional one that you have set out to achieve. Chaos will always prevail if you let it. By setting a rhythm to your day, you are creating a firm boundary against letting chaos take over. That’s not to say some days won’t be hectic – of course these days will come – but I bet you will find that those days come when your family is off from its natural rhythm.

Values

Having a strong value system answers the most foundational question for your child: who am I?

What do you stand for as a family? What beliefs do you hold central?

This not only helps with character and habit training, but it helps your child to have a sense of belonging. This can come through in the way you speak to your children. For example,

“We use our words when we are angry, not our hands.”

“Rinnas put others before ourselves.”

“Our family values people over things.”

In other words, you’re a team.

Many families put together a mission statement or a list of values. We have something I call “The Rinna Family 15” that breaks down who we are as a family unit.

For more reading on this topic, you should check out:
Our 24 Family Ways: A Family Devotional Guide
The Lifegiving Home: Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming

So to recap…

During the pre-school years, the best way to nurture your child’s soul is to

  • Choose a few great storybook bibles and read to your child daily
  • Expose your child to meaningful music
  • Expose your child to beautiful art
  • Read your child large selections of worthy poetry
  • Spend lots of time together in the great outdoors
  • Intentionally invest in family traditions, rhythms of your home & strong family values

This concludes the principles behind nurturing your pre-schooler. Next time we’ll talk practicalities with scheduling.

Catch up on the series if you haven’t read the first three posts:
Pre-School, Not Preschool: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Mind: How to Homeschool in the Early Years
Nurturing Your Pre-Schooler’s Body: How to Homeschool in the Early Years

P.S. if you’re the type of person who prefers information like this in one compact resource instead of hopping around the blog, you’re in luck! The ebook, Nurturing the Pre-School Years: The Charlotte Mason Inspired Guide to Homeschooling Your Outside-the-Box Child in the Early Years is coming soon.

Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss the announcement!

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