2 Year Old Curriculum For Homeschooling Preschool (What We Do!) (2024)

Here you’ll find a 2 year old curriculum for early preschool at home.

My two year old daughter wants to learn all the things! She’s always asking to do worksheets and activities.

What you want your child to learn and what they actually learn may vary depending on their level of development.

However, if you’re looking for a general idea of what your two year old toddler should learn, there are some key points to consider.

What Should My 2-Year Old Learn?

• recognition of basic shapes
• recognition of basic colors
• recognize the numbers 1-10, both in, and out of order
• ability to count to 10
• number quantity 1-5 (counting objects)
• visual discrimination of matching the same objects or pictures
• ability to sort objects between at least 2 colors
• recite common nursery rhymes or songs
• recognize and name common animals and household objects
• recognize and name some letters of the alphabet and letter sounds

If you’re wondering how to go about ensuring you’re child is learning all these things, I’ve put together what I deem as a learning curriculum for a 2 year old.

In the next section, you’ll see a general lesson plan I use as a guide each week for my toddler at the age of almost two and a half.

This post contains affiliate links.

2 Year Old Curriculum Lesson Plans

I’ve always made learning resources freely available for my toddler to learn around the house. But now that she is nearly 2 and a half years old, I want to be more intentional about her learning with actual lesson plans.

I don’t have daily plans, but rather a weekly planner that will help keep us on track, but not be so rigid each day.

As long as by the end of the week, most or all of what was planned gets done – that ‘s great.

These curriculum plans are for 26 weeks – focusing on one letter each week.

Once we finish everything, we will take a few weeks off to enjoy the summer, and then start our 3 year old preschool curriculum.

It’s best to do most of these things in the morning or early afternoon when energy levels are normally good.

You don’t have to have a set schedule at this age. Go by what and when your child feels like doing it best. For my child, it. is. all. the. time! lol

My weekly lesson plans include:

(The song, poem, rhyme, books, and letter activities all focus on the letter of the week.)

1 Song

1 Poem or Rhyme

2-4 Book to read-aloud

4-6 Letter Activities

2 other Literacy activities

1 Math activity/skill

Learning Binder – daily

Flash cards (5-7 new vocabulary words/pictures)

Pre-writing/tracing

That is all we are doing as a two years old curriculum!

For some it may seem like a lot and for others, not enough. Every family has different needs.

My daughter is constantly asking me to do activities with her so I’d rather have more, than not enough.

Here’s a copy of what I had planned for the first week (sorry for the unfocused photo):

Do you want a copy of the lesson plan template to use with your 2 year old?

I’ve made it available for you as a free download here! (no opt-in required).

When writing everything in I added checkboxes to make it more of a weekly 2 year old curriculum checklist.

I can easily change the amount of checkboxes I use by adding more or erasing it since I use these erasable gel pens that I love so much!

Also, here’s a little more details about each area of the curriculum…

Books For Read-Alouds, A Song, and A Poem or Rhyme

Most likely you already know that reading to your children is important to help them develop a love of reading and learning.

While I already had a good number of books at home, I wanted to be sure my 2 year old was being exposed to books that were appropriate for her age.

I created this 2 year old book list to be intentional about reading these books in particular.

I also found other book lists online that would be appropriate.

Each week, I also have a song and a poem or nursery rhyme that we sing and/or read during the week.

Online, you can easily find weekly ideas for read-alouds, songs, poems, and nursery rhymes. I don’t use any specific curriculum because I like to gather materials from different sources.

You can find many great resources and books at the library and I include them in my 2 year old curriculum lesson plans.

I actually own this excellent all-in one big book to find a lot of nursery rhymes and stories.

Literacy Activities (start at age 2.5 yrs.)

My toddler is often engaging in free-play toys that offer some opportunity to practice some pre-literacy skills. However, I do think it’s important to have a few things that you actually spend a few minutes with your child doing.

My child is closer to 2 and a half years of age, so you might find these a little advanced if your child just turned two.

Here are a few things we use and do:

1. Alphabet Puzzle (see it here) – My daughter loves this one! She grabs a letter that is on the floor and I ask her what the letter is (or sound).

Next, I ask her if she can find where it fits in the puzzle. We have done this one together quite a few times. Now she often does it herself.

2. Alpha Pops (see it here) – Match the uppercase and lowercase letters with these popsicles. So fun! The color matching also makes it easier for younger kids.

View Alpha Pops on Amazon

3. Preschool Learning Library(see the 2+ version here) – This is an excellent resources for preschoolers! There are 86 matching pairs that teach preschool concepts such as the alphabet, letter sounds, counting from one to twenty, and color recognition.

Letter of The Week Activities (start at age 2.5 yrs.)

A very common curriculum for preschoolers is to do activities for one letter of the alphabet each week. Oftentimes this only starts at around age 3 or 4, however, my daughter has shown a lot of interest in letters and letter sounds and anything to do with school.

Therefore, I recently started doing some letter activities with her. This way, by the time she turns three and starts our official preschool homeschool curriculum, she will already have a good grasp of all letters and letter sounds. We do one letter per week.

I don’t use any letter activities that has her writing any of the letters (I prefer to start letter writing at age 3-4). The printables I use involve coloring, using do a dot markers, pasting, using playdough letter mats to form letters, etc.

You can find a bunch of free and paid printables on ‘Teachers Pay Teachers’ and many websites online.

Math Activities

I like to do at least one math activity that covers a specific math skill each week.

When she was on the younger side of the age of 2, we did a lot of color sorting. You can do this any counters, or with these popular bear counters and sort them by colors in containers.

Now that she has mastered that skill, we are now sorting those same bears by size. Sorting by size (small, medium, and large) is a more advanced skill for toddlers.

My daughter also loves counting objects. The learning binder I talk about further below, also includes math activities.

Flashcards

We started using flashcards when my daughter was just a baby!

As a baby of course she would just look at the pictures or letters/numbers and hear me name them.

Then she began repeating me, then saying it with me, and finally saying it by herself.

This was how she learned her colors and shapes by the age of one.

Now we go over letter sounds with flash cards and also common household items and animals to increase vocabulary.

Ideally, you would choose a few cards to go over each week. This can easily be done during breakfast, lunch, or dinner.

2 Year Old Learning Binder

I setup a learning binder for my 2 year old using both free online printables and paid printables from Teachers Pay Teachers. My daughter always asks me to do the activities in the binder.

The activities include things like, matching shapes, matching pictures (practices visual discrimination and vocabulary), and number quantity activities.

I found printables from different places online but many of them were from the toddler learning binder by Jady Alvarez on Teachers Pay Teachers.

I created this simple cover page for the binder:

The binder is easy to setup. The things you will need include: a 3 ring binder (I like the ones that allows for a cover page), sheet protectors, laminating pouches (non-thermal), and velcro dots (be sure they are clear dots like these ones).

If you have a laminator, you won’t need the sheet protectors and you could use the thermal laminating pouches that are designed to be used with a laminator.

I don’t have a laminator so I use the adhesive type pouches for the pieces that need to be cut out and use the sheet protectors for the printables that go in the binder. Either way will work great.

You may find some activities easier than others, which is good. Save the more difficult ones for later when they need a little more of a challenge.

Pre-Writing Skills/Tracing

Now that my daughter is almost 2 and a half, we just started using pages from this tracing book.

I tore out the pages and placed them in sheet protectors so my daughter can practice over and over again with a marker. I guide her in the right direction and we only focus on 1 page front and back at a time.

I plan to only have her work on writing letters and numbers next year, so the tracing practice is a great introduction to writing.

Before using the tracing book when she had just turned two, I had her freely use a white board to help increase her fine-motor skills. She still loves using it!

I will draw something simple such as a sun, and then have her draw one too.

Here’s a short list of things we have on-hand for pre-writing skills:

• a doodle magnetic writing board
• Crayola Mess Free Coloring Pads and markers (these are perfect for toddlers!)
• crayons and coloring books and paper
• Kumon tracing book

Final Thoughts

Whether you want to use a few or all of these ideas as a 2 year old curriculum, your toddler will surely enjoy the time they spend bonding with you and learning. This is such a fun age group to start introducing key learning concepts.

Related Curriculum Articles:

• 3 Year Old Homeschool Preschool Curriculum
• Kindergarten Homeschooling Curriculum Options
• Best Puzzles For 2 Year Olds To Enjoy
• 10 Top Books For 2 Year Olds (Book List)

2 Year Old Preschool Curriculum Plans