*I purchased the Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool Curriculum for use in our homeschool, but I am also an affiliate for the Rabbit Trails store. This review is my honest opinion. This post includes affiliate links which means I may earn commissions for purchases made while using my link.

When K turned 3 last year, I started our homeschool. I’ve always wanted to homeschool but I had no idea what I was doing and I was worried I’d do something wrong. Although my husband was supportive, when I first told him I wanted to homeschool our future children, he hadn’t seemed into it. Even though that quickly changed, I was still cautious about spending money.

We used a bunch of inexpensive workbooks and used Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool because it was free. I didn’t consider anything else at the time because I didn’t know anything else. Easy Peasy really is a great online curriculum and K still occasionally asks for it, but for this new school year, as a second year of preschool, I decided to purchase a curriculum that looked like it would be perfect for us.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

When my older sister went to college to become a children’s librarian, she had a project in one of her classes that led to her creating artwork in the style of Eric Carle. If you’ve ever read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or any of his other works, you would likely have noticed the unique artistic style of his illustrations.

My sister created several pieces, but my favorite was a butterfly she put on a canvas over grass. It was such a special piece that it made me an Eric Carle fan despite having read only one of his books. Fast forward several years and I was exploring the Rabbit Trails store and discovered that her Preschool Curriculum was based on the books of Eric Carle! That was enough for me to decide that I wanted it, and to also commit to paying for curriculum and digital homeschool resources like we did with the physical resources we had no trouble purchasing.

Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool Curriculum

As I mentioned earlier, the Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool Curriculum is based on the books of Eric Carle. There are 14 units based on his books which include mostly books on a variety of bugs, but also some animals and other objects.

Each unit includes a lesson that relates to the main book, along with a Bible verse that relates to the lesson. The “let’s learn” section includes letters, shapes, numbers, and colors to focus on/emphasize during the unit. There’s also a craft, a video to find online, additional books related to the main book topic (called “Rabbit Trails” and “library list”), as well a list of more ideas of poems, crafts, and activities that relate to the main book topic.

My Thoughts and Experiences

While it’s not exactly a curriculum that you can just open and immediately start, the Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool Curriculum is really easy to use in our home. There was no learning curve and nothing was particularly difficult to implement. I noticed when I looked at the first craft that I didn’t have all of the materials (I was missing the cotton balls that I could’ve sworn I had!). This prompted me to look through the entire curriculum and check what I was missing, so I had to order cotton balls, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. We enjoy being crafty in our homeschool, so these supplies were worth getting and having on hand instead of subbing out other materials.

As you can probably surmise from my blog, we really like to read in our home, so we love all of the books in this curriculum! So far our library, or one of its sister libraries, have had every book that has been included in the Rabbit Trails. This has been super-convenient since I’m able to request them online and pick them up on our weekly (field) trip to the library.

The Good Stuff

Although most children’s books have lessons or takeaways that you understand as an adult, I don’t think K would necessarily recognize the lesson yet at her age. I really love that this curriculum not only shares the lesson, but it’s written in a way that a young child can understand and relate. Each Bible verse has fit perfectly with the lesson and can easily develop into a conversation and an additional lesson of its own. The crafts have given K a chance to be creative – sometimes she follows the specific guide, but usually she chooses to be more abstract in her artwork.

Even though K hasn’t been super-invested in the videos, I love how they’re geared toward children, yet I’m learning new things. I also really like the “more ideas” section since it gives me ideas on additional things to do during the unit, but it also helps me as a newer homeschool mama to understand how to incorporate more ideas into my own unit studies in the future.

What I Feel Needs Work

I feel like the “let’s learn” section, with the letters, numbers, shapes, and colors, is a bit of an afterthought in this curriculum. Like maybe it’s included since these are important things for preschoolers to learn and become familiar with, but it’s not incorporated into the units as much as I would prefer. Although this is discussed in the introduction to the curriculum, I would have liked to see more references to the numbers, shapes, and colors in the units themselves. We haven’t finished the curriculum yet, but I haven’t seen any references to the letters in any of the units we’ve completed.

Overall Thoughts

The Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool Curriculum is a fun curriculum to use in your home. Since the point of preschool is to prepare a child for kindergarten, and a big part of that is learning to learn, expanding attention span, and developing fine motor skills, this curriculum will definitely serve to prepare each of these things. A big bonus for this curriculum is that Christine Zell, the creator of the Rabbit Trails curriculum, has a Facebook group where you can share what you’re doing and see how others are using the curriculum. Christine is active in the group and has responded anytime I’ve shared.

If you’re interested in Rabbit Trails through Literature: Preschool Curriculum or any of the other Rabbit Trails products, use the coupon code “inourhomeschool” to get 10% off your purchase!