Mother Goose Time

Mother Goose Time is the homeschool-and-preschool subscription line published by Experience Early Learning, an Oregon-based early childhood curriculum company with more than forty years of history. Each month a themed box ships with all materials, a daily teacher guide, and manipulatives for a secular, standards-aligned preschool program that licensed preschools and homeschooling families both use.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Unit studies / hands-on-kit / traditional preschool
Worldview	Faith-neutral (secular by default; optional "Experience God" Christian enhancement available)
Grades	Ages 3-5 (preschool); baby and toddler lines extend to ages 0-2.5
Formats	Monthly subscription box (print + physical materials)
Cost tier	Premium
Parent intensity	2
ESA-common	Varies
Accredited	No (curriculum itself); aligned with early learning standards
Established	1984 (per "40+ Years of Curriculum Development")
Website	mothergoosetime.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	3	Standards-aligned preschool scope; appropriate depth for 3-5 but not a reading readiness program
Ease of teaching	5	Fully scripted daily plans and pre-prepared materials; lowest-prep preschool curriculum in the mainstream
Content quality	4	Well-produced, durable materials; thoughtful theme cycles
Flexibility	3	Structured monthly themes; harder to modify than printable programs but flexible in pace
Value for money	3	Premium pricing reflects the physical materials; competitive against comparable boxed programs
Worldview scope	4	Genuinely secular; optional Christian add-on keeps core materials faith-neutral
Visual/design	5	Among the most polished preschool materials on the market
Support resources	4	Customer service, licensed-preschool partnerships, member portal, Experience God optional overlay

Who the publisher is

Mother Goose Time is published by Experience Early Learning, an Oregon-based early childhood curriculum company. The publisher's own materials describe a history of "40+ Years of Curriculum Development," placing the company's origins in the early 1980s. The company has rebranded and expanded its product line over time, what most homeschool families know as "Mother Goose Time" is now, per the current publisher website, part of the broader Experience Curriculum family, which includes Experience Baby (ages 3-18 months), Experience Toddler (18 months-2.5 years), Experience Preschool (2.5-5 years), and Experience Multi-Age (18 months-5 years).

The scale of use is substantial among licensed preschools. Mother Goose Time's primary market historically has been licensed childcare centers and preschool programs, which purchase the curriculum to meet early-learning standards and receive classroom-ready materials shipped monthly. The homeschool market is a secondary channel, and Experience Early Learning has built explicit homeschool-facing pages and pricing tiers to serve individual families. The company operates out of Oregon per its corporate filings and ships nationwide with Spanish-language editions available, per the publisher's product pages.

Mother Goose Time is secular by default. The core curriculum materials do not reference religious content; character education is included but framed in social-emotional and civic terms rather than in religious-moral terms. For Christian families who want a religious overlay, the publisher offers an optional Experience God supplementary program that adds Bible content alongside the secular core. The separation is clean: the core stays secular, the religious overlay is opt-in, and neither is contaminated by the other. This is unusual among preschool curricula, which tend toward either fully secular or fully religious, and it is one reason Mother Goose Time is usable across a wide range of family contexts.

The core pedagogy

Mother Goose Time is organized around monthly themes, with each month's box containing all materials a family needs to execute the curriculum for roughly four weeks. A theme might be "All About Me" (the body, senses, identity), "Exploring Our World" (geography and culture), "Nature Detectives" (plant and animal study), or similar. Each themed box includes a daily teacher guide (typically running 20 school days of content), printed books, art supplies, manipulatives for math and science exploration, music, and family engagement materials, "ready-to-use lesson plans, themed learning materials, books, art supplies, manipulatives, and family engagement tools" per the publisher's description.

The pedagogy is traditional preschool as framed by the early learning profession, standards-aligned, developmentally sequenced, and built around the domains of language and literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, creative arts (art, music, and drama), physical development, and social-emotional learning. What distinguishes Mother Goose Time from a binder-of-printables preschool curriculum is the physical materials: each box ships with the actual manipulatives, art supplies, and consumables the child will use that month, so the parent does not source items from around the house or purchase them separately.

Signature mechanics: (1) Monthly subscription box, materials arrive at the family's door roughly one month at a time, pre-assembled and organized for the theme; (2) Daily teacher guide with timing, each day has a scripted plan with estimated minutes per activity, making parent prep minimal; (3) Multi-year theme cycle, themes rotate across a multi-year cycle so families using the program for two or three consecutive years do not repeat the same content; (4) Licensed-preschool alignment, because the curriculum is primarily sold to licensed centers, it is aligned with state early-learning standards and with Head Start requirements in many markets; (5) Optional Experience God add-on, for Christian families who want the Bible overlay, the add-on runs parallel to the secular core; (6) Spanish-language editions, full curriculum in Spanish at the same price point, a rarity in the homeschool preschool market.

A day in the life

A four-year-old working through Mother Goose Time's current month's theme begins the morning at 9:00 with a circle-time gathering, a song from the month's music selection (5 minutes), a review of the calendar and weather using the provided manipulatives (5 minutes), and introduction of the day's topic from the teacher guide (5 minutes). A literacy activity follows, listening to a story from the month's book, tracing the week's letter on a provided template, and practicing a song-based rhyme (15-20 minutes). Math exploration using manipulatives from the current box, counting with provided counters, sorting by color using the box's provided cards (10-15 minutes). A break for snack. An art or science activity from the daily teacher guide, with the consumable supplies already in the month's box (15-20 minutes). A music and movement segment (5-10 minutes). Closing circle. Total: 60-90 minutes of structured preschool, with the rest of the day unstructured.

A family running two or three preschool-age children together uses the same daily teacher guide with minor differentiation, older children do more with the literacy and math activities; younger children focus on fine motor and observational pieces. The monthly box is priced per child for materials but the teacher guide and core lesson structure work across siblings without modification.

What they do exceptionally well

Lowest-prep mainstream preschool. Mother Goose Time's box-ships-with-everything model genuinely removes the daily material sourcing and preparation that other preschool curricula require. A parent with a newborn and a four-year-old can run Mother Goose Time during afternoon quiet time with five minutes of setup, because the materials are already out of the box and organized. This is a real operational contribution to families who want a preschool program but cannot run a craft-heavy curriculum that requires sourcing and prep.

Materials quality. The manipulatives, books, and art supplies that ship with each month's box are genuinely good, not the cheap-feeling consumables that less-expensive preschool programs sometimes ship. Families who receive their first Mother Goose Time box commonly comment on the unboxing experience; the materials are visually rich and durable enough to survive a preschooler's use.

Genuine secularism with clean religious opt-in. The core Experience Preschool curriculum is genuinely faith-neutral, which makes it usable for families across the worldview spectrum. The optional Experience God add-on is clean and separate rather than integrated into the secular core, which means Christian families can add religious content without affecting non-Christian families' use of the base program. This separation of concerns is unusually well-executed.

What they do poorly

Pricing is premium. Mother Goose Time does not publish a simple per-month price on the public pricing page, which frustrates families doing simple comparison shopping. The pricing model requires families to submit a questionnaire or contact the sales team, and the effective cost per child runs roughly $60-$100 per month per child per archived pricing documentation from 2022-2024 and third-party review coverage. Over a 10-month school year that is $600-$1,000 per child, premium positioning for a preschool program, even accounting for the included materials.

Not a reading-readiness program. Mother Goose Time's literacy track covers letter recognition, phonological awareness, and early print concepts but does not teach a child to read. Families whose four- or five-year-old is ready for formal phonics typically pair Mother Goose Time with a dedicated early-reading program (such as All About Reading Pre-Reading or Logic of English Foundations). The program is honest about its preschool-readiness positioning, but families expecting a reading curriculum will be disappointed.

Shipping dependence. The subscription-box model creates shipping dependencies. A late box disrupts the weekly rhythm in a way a digital-download program does not, and families in remote or international locations sometimes experience delivery friction. The company ships nationally from Oregon; international families face higher costs and longer transit times.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Mother Goose Time if: you are a secular, broadly religious, or Christian family who wants a polished, box-of-materials preschool curriculum without sourcing supplies; you value lowest-possible daily parent prep; you have a 3-to-5-year-old at home alongside other obligations (younger siblings, older children in formal school, work-from-home); you want Spanish-language curriculum materials; you have the budget for $60-$100 per month per child in preschool materials.

• Skip Mother Goose Time if: you want the cheapest path to a preschool curriculum; you already have abundant household craft supplies and prefer a print guide over a shipped box; you want an integrated religious curriculum where Bible content is woven throughout rather than an opt-in add-on; you want a reading-readiness program that teaches phonics and decoding; you prefer printable digital materials for multiple children rather than per-child consumables.

Cost honest assessment

Mother Goose Time does not publish fixed per-month pricing on its customized pricing page, which asks families to fill out a questionnaire before revealing rates. Based on archived public pricing documentation from 2022-2024 and third-party review coverage (which placed monthly homeschool pricing at roughly $60 per child per month as of 2023), and on current vendor references, the effective cost for one preschooler runs roughly $60-$100 per month as of April 2026, with multi-month and multi-child discounts available. A 10-percent discount applies to three-month Experience Preschool subscriptions per the publisher's promotional materials.

Compared to Little Hands to Heaven (roughly $75-$110 for a full year of the teacher's guide plus household supplies), Mother Goose Time is dramatically more expensive at $600-$1,000 per year. Compared to The Peaceful Preschool ($99 for a 26-week guide), Mother Goose Time is six-to-ten times more expensive. What Mother Goose Time delivers for the higher price is the physical materials, the polish, and the near-zero prep load, real features for families who value them.

A realistic all-in family budget for one preschooler using Mother Goose Time for a 10-month school year runs $600-$1,000. Two siblings using the same subscription with a multi-child discount typically run $900-$1,400.

ESA eligibility notes

Mother Goose Time / Experience Early Learning is present on some state ESA marketplaces, particularly those with broad preschool-eligibility rules. Arizona's ClassWallet has historically approved Experience Early Learning products as secular curriculum; Florida's MyScholarShop has similarly listed the line in some periods. Because the curriculum is secular, the religious-content restrictions that affect Christian publishers do not apply; Mother Goose Time's ESA-eligibility friction is usually at the age-range level (some ESA programs fund only kindergarten-and-up rather than preschool) rather than the worldview level. Families pursuing ESA funding should confirm with their state administrator whether preschool-age materials are fundable and whether Mother Goose Time specifically is in the state's current catalog.

Alternatives

• The Peaceful Preschool, a family would choose The Peaceful Preschool over Mother Goose Time for a literature-based preschool at roughly one-tenth the annual cost, accepting that the parent sources craft supplies and books from outside the guide.
• Little Hands to Heaven, a family would choose Little Hands to Heaven over Mother Goose Time for an explicitly Christian preschool at a budget price point, with biblical content integrated rather than optional.
• Before Five in a Row, a family would choose Before Five in a Row over Mother Goose Time for a gentler, literature-anchored preschool without the monthly box logistics and at a much lower annual cost.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed Mother Goose Time's main site, Experience Preschool product page, homeschooling curriculum landing page, and pricing information page. Historical pricing was cross-referenced against archived 2022-2024 publisher pricing documentation and third-party review coverage on homeschool.com and Only Passionate Curiosity. Program details and current pricing ranges verified April 2026.