About The Preschool Book

A little boy plants a carrot seed even though his whole family tells him that it won't grow. The little boy plants the seed and takes care of it every day. He waters the seed and weeds the ground around it and keeps believing that the seed will grow. One day the little boys hard work is rewarded by a beautiful carrot that grew just like he knew it would.

From The Reviewer

This classic story of a little boy with a whole lot of hope will fascinate preschoolers. It is a very simple and short story, but it teaches a huge lesson to preschoolers about not giving up even when the people around you discourage you from trying. Preschoolers will learn that they can be successful if they work hard and believe that they can do something.

The simple illustrations are appealing to preschoolers and fit perfectly with the simpleness of the story itself. The whole book is done in carrot-like tones that pull the whole story together.

The Carrot Seed should be a part of every preschool library. The simple concept is easy for preschoolers to understand but teaches a very important lesson. Preschoolers will learn to have faith in themselves because they can do big things if they believe they can.

Hi! I'm Rachel Lister, the Preschool Education writer at PreschoolRock.com. I live in Utah with my husband and two beautiful boys. When my oldest son was born, I quit my teaching job and opened a home daycare and preschool. I love to help preschoolers learn about the world around them. They make life interesting and I can't imagine doing anything different. If you have any ideas, suggestions or comments, feel free to contact me.

Helpful Tips for Parents

• Learning environments matter. A space with accessible books, puzzles, art supplies, and natural materials at child height encourages more learning than a child-proofed empty room.

• Mistakes are how children learn. A classroom and home that treat mistakes as information rather than failure produces more confident, persistent learners.

• Field trips — even to the grocery store, the post office, or the library — are powerful educational experiences. Real-world contexts anchor abstract concepts in memory.

• Involve children in planning: menus, weekend activities, family projects. Decision-making and planning are executive function skills that predict long-term academic success.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should my preschooler be reading before kindergarten?

Reading before kindergarten is possible for some children and developmentally not expected of most. The literacy skills that predict reading success — phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words), letter knowledge, print awareness, and vocabulary — are the appropriate focus before age 5. These skills are built through: reading aloud daily, nursery rhymes and songs, alphabet activities, and rich conversation. A preschooler who loves books, knows their letters, and has a large vocabulary is fully reading-ready, whether or not they can decode words independently.

How much learning time should a preschooler have per day?

All of it — because preschoolers learn continuously through every interaction with their environment. The question of "learning time" implies that learning is separate from living, which it isn't at this age. A preschooler who plays freely, has rich conversations, is read to, helps in the kitchen, plays outdoors, and is exposed to music and art is having the richest possible educational experience. Formal, scheduled "learning time" is less productive than a generally enriched daily environment.

Related reading: See also our kindergarten readiness guide and our vocabulary building guide for more ideas on this topic.

🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop

• 📚 Pre-Reading Skills — Activities that involve letters, sounds, rhymes, and print directly build the phonological awareness and letter knowledge that are the two strongest predictors of successful reading development.
• ✏️ Pre-Writing Development — Drawing, tracing, and early mark-making develop the fine motor control and visual-motor integration that handwriting requires — making every drawing activity a contribution to writing readiness.
• 📖 Story Structure Understanding — Understanding that stories have a beginning, problem, solution, and ending develops narrative comprehension — the mental schema children use to make sense of increasingly complex texts throughout their school years.
• 🔢 Early Numeracy — Hands-on counting, sorting, measuring, and pattern work develops the number sense and mathematical reasoning that formal arithmetic will later build on — and preschool numeracy is one of the strongest predictors of later math achievement.

From The Preschool Book

"A little boy planted a carrot seed. His mother said, 'I'm afraid it won't come up.' His father said, 'I'm afraid it won't come up.' And his big brother said, "It won't come up."

Questions to Ask Your Child

Use these open-ended prompts to extend the learning during or after the activity:

• "What was the most interesting thing you learned today?"
• "Can you explain this to a stuffed animal as if they've never heard of it?"
• "What part do you want to practice more?"
• "How is this connected to something you already know?"
• "What would you want to learn more about?"
• "If you were the teacher, what would you tell the class about this?"

There are no right or wrong answers to any of these questions. The goal is to keep the conversation going, model curious thinking, and give your child practice putting their experience into words.