Homeschool Preschool Room on the Spectrum

❤️💛💙 There are several links within this post. I do get a small commission if items are purchased through these links for no extra charge to you. These items are things my family has used and have been given the stamp of approval. My family thanks you 💙💛❤️

Back in October my husband and I looked at our everyday life and we were disappointed. Our family life seemed far and few between. At that time we had ABA from 8-12 Monday-Friday, preschool (special education) from 12-330 and OT and Speech once a week in the evenings for a couple of hours. That meant twice a week the four of us only had 2 hours before bedtime to spend together.

It was exhausting. It was draining and eventually I felt like someone else was raising my children.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/11992/BFTDDD9p

Now disclaimer: early intervention is the KEY to helping your kiddos on the spectrum, but you also have to find what works for your family. There is SO much education out there.

We wanted our preschool room to be set up at home just like what you would find in a typical preschool! I want to give them the same opportunities with homeschooling, just with a little twist.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/22038/BFTDDD9p

Centers

Now I went to nursing school… but my mother in law quickly educated me on the importance of centers and what those should look like. So first let’s start there!

Apparently there are a few centers every classroom should have 🤷🏽‍♀️ Who knew right?

Your centers should be blocks, fine motor/manipulative, pretend play and art.

Here is how we put together our centers:

Our Block Center

My favorite part of this center is something that I didn’t realize until I created it. Playing with blocks is just pretend play! We added, people, animals, ambulances etc to help aid in this when they build buildings.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/8655/BFTDDD9p

Like most children on the autism spectrum, pretend play does not come naturally to my children. Because of this, we set aside a time in our school schedule daily to either work with “pretend play” or at our “block center.” Just because they do not know how to do something naturally does not mean they do not or will not enjoy it. Present it like you would any other curriculum.

These are the exact blocks I got off of Amazon. I LOVE them!

https://amzn.to/3eWpviA

This is a link to the large animals we also purchased for our block area. The quality is excellent.

https://amzn.to/3EYGH1D

Pretend Play Center

For now, I tried to keep cost minimum and just used items we had already!

Our small station has dress up, restaurant, and a baby station.

https://www.autismworks.com/a/13077/BFTDDD9p

Currently we just have dress up hats in our pretend play area. However, the hooks on the wall are to be used for pretend play outfits! This will help them get extra practice on dressing themselves.

Here is a link to the hats we purchased a couple of years ago. They have worked great for our purposes! The miner hat actually lights up. My boys loved this!

https://amzn.to/3n0ailg

For our restaurant station we have the kitchen, pretend play food, a menu, a checklist for the waiter/waitress, a clock and then the clean up supplies for when the restaurant closes!

Lastly, we just have the baby station. My sister in law just had a baby back in December. Our baby was used a lot for “practice” with the “new baby.” Our boys aren’t super excited about pretend play so I just put baby in a basket that I had lying around the house. Works just the same as a bassinet!

This is the baby that we purchased online. Doesn’t do anything fancy but helps with our pretend play.

https://amzn.to/3zumVd3

Library

Here is a link to the bookshelf we bought! I was very impressed. Easy enough for me to assemble and has two pull out drawers under.

https://amzn.to/3zrrWmQ

Now I learned a lot about myself cleaning out the books… I used to have my books color coordinated on the bottom two shelves of the playroom. Although, esthetically appealing the boys never really went for their own book choices there. I purchased a small shelf off of Amazon so that our books could be forward facing so the boys would find them better and after about 20 books it looked pretty full.. below is our books for “rotation.” 🤦🏽‍♀️

Art center

We began running out of room so made a small corner work for this center.

In our art center we just have an easel (which I also use for circle time during preschool), paints, play dough, colored pencils, crayons etc. Basically your typical art supplies. Also found those art ponchos at wal mart 2/$1!

I know that you are supposed to leave art supplies out to “spark creativity” but I do not like surprises… so these supplies are on the third shelf. I do however put out a “art tray” during supervised free play!

Fine Motor/Manipulatives

This is the station that I had ready to go at my house just in the boys playroom. In this station we put our beads, sand tray, stacking toys, sorting toys and STEM books. I have a pretty large learning resources selection that we plan to just rotate through this station.

And on our shelves in the front room we keep the toys to rotate.

Below are links to learning resource toys that our family puts the stamp of approval on:

https://amzn.to/3eXJGwJ

https://amzn.to/31t8QA3

https://amzn.to/3zD0S4c

Those are our main stations in our homeschool preschool! Stay tuned as we learn more along the way.

Thank you for joining us on our Autism Journey. We hope to provide your family with the support we are always in desperate need for. If you liked this post feel free to check us out on Instagram, Pinterest and tiktok at asdmama1017.