Homeschooling Hands On: Preschool Years

Those of you with a toddler or preschool-aged child who are thinking about homeschooling, I want to encourage you for a minute with something that works for me. Don’t stress over the need to purchase or do a “pre-packaged” or “in the box” curriculum with your child! You can use what you already have in your home…love, patience, and a little imagination.

Did you know that they will learn and build a great foundation for learning if you just let them imagine, interact, and explore the world around them with your guidance?

Let me explain more of what I mean along with giving you some ideas to get you started.

IMAGINE

A child’s imagination is beginning to flourish along with being very vivid and active at this early age! Have you ever taken the time, without your child knowing, to just listen to them as they play? Oh, the stories that girls can make up as they play with their dolls or that boys make up as they play with their dinosaurs! If it isn’t the stories they tell, then it is the pictures that they draw to go with a story. Here are a few things that you do to enhance those imaginations!

• Read books or tell stories.
• Read picture books and make up your own story.
• Share silly rhymes or riddles.
• Look for faces or animals in the clouds or trees.
• Play dress-up — Set up some shelves, boxes, or hangers where there are costume elements that your child can easily access for pretend play, such as hats, capes, masks that don’t restrict vision, and whatever other fanciful items you think of.
• Have blocks available for them to use build whatever their heart desires.
• Have a basket of art supplies available for them.
• Play with puppets. Make sock puppets together to use!
• Create a tent or house out of blankets and sheets

INTERACT

A toddler or preschooler loves to interact with their parents or other adults. I often hear parents joke around with each other at how talkative their young ones are, but do the adults really take the time to listen to what the child is saying? Taking the time to interact with your child will not only help them to develop their verbal skills but also their world around them. It is also important that you take the time to let your child play and interact with their peers. So what can you do to help them with interaction skills?

• Talk to your child as he/she play about the shapes, colors, and numbers of their toys.
• Daydream together.
• Take field trips to the zoo, museums, and library story times.
• Get together with friends and go to the park.
• Join a homeschool group and do play dates.
• Do household chores together.

EXPLORE

What young child doesn’t like to explore? They are always on the search for something. They want to have their hands on everything. They want to see it. They want to smell it. They want to taste it. Here are some things that you can do with them to help them explore.

• Play with Playdoh.
• Take walks and observe nature — take a magnifying glass with you!
• Plant a garden or grow plants in pots.
• Bake cookies.
• Play with sand and water.
• Do a treasure hunt.

Let them take the time to imagine, interact, and explore their world through their eyes. Relax and let them learn by imagining they are the king of the castle, interacting with you by counting the stripes on the zebra at the zoo, and exploring the backyard looking for worms!

Doing these things with my younger children helps to relieve stress and enjoy the time of their childhood because it does not last forever!


This post is linked to:

• Works for Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family!

**repost from my contributing article at Happy to be at Home!

Homeschooling Little Ones--Pre-K/Kindergarten Curriculum

In my series, Homeschooling with Little Ones, I have covered my game plan with a new baby, keeping toddlers occupied, training of toddlers and my daily routine. I am going to close the series with giving you an overview of what I am going to be doing with my daughter(will be 5 in December) this school year. Last year we worked on getting this preschool list accomplished, along with fun and playful activities.

To start out our year, we are going to focus on a different letter of the alphabet. I haven’t decided if we are going to do a letter per week or every two weeks. I also haven't decided if we are going to go in ABC order because some letters are easier to write/trace than others. I am going to be doing some of the activities that I found at Letter of the Week along with other activites that I have linked below.

Here is a list of the different things we are going to study with the alphabet…

A= Apples, Angels, and Ants Lapbook
B= Birds, Blue, Bees and Butterfly Lapbook
C= Circle Shape Book with C Words, carrots, caterpillars , and cars
D= Dogs, Ducks, and Dolls
E= Earth, Eggs, and Elephants
F= Fruit, Fish, Flowers, Feathers, Flag, fire safety, and Frogs
Visit a Fire Station, Collect Pictures of Flowers
G= Girl, Green, Grapes
H= Heart, and House
I= Ice Cream, and Indians
J= Jewelry, Jello, Jumprope, and Jungle
K= Kites, King, Kangaroo, Kindness, Kitchen
L= Ladybugs, Lions, Library and Lambs
Visit the Library
M= Music, Monkey, Money, and Manners
N= Nursery rhymes, Nurse, and Neighborhood
O= Oceans, Orange, Owls, and Opposites
P= Popcorn, Pizza, Princess, and Penguins
Q= Queen, Quilt, and Quiet
R= Rainbow, and Rocks
S= Senses, Stranger Safety, Strawberries and Stars
T= Trains, Tiger, Tomatoes, and Teeth
U= Umbrella, and Uncle
V= Violets, Vacation, and Vegetables
W= Winter, Whales, and Wagon
X= Xray, Fox, and Box
Y= Yellow, YoYo, Yarn, Yogurt
Z= Zoo, Zebra
Visit the Zoo

Along with the alphabet, we are going to do unit study/theme units at Reading A-Z which will cover Math(shapes, numbers), Language Arts, Handwriting, and Science. (There is a required free membership in order to see all their pages.)

Any kind of Reading Readiness will be from reading lots of library books together and Starfall. Towards the middle of the year, I will be working more with Phonics, sight words and Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons.

Bible will be activities from Bible ABC's, Awana, and ABC Memory Verses. We will also be working on character education thru books and activities. We will also be working with learning the fruit of the spirit.

Aside from the learning page for Handwriting, I will be using tracing exercises in jello, finger paints, sand, and whipping cream and also using tracing sheets from handwriting worksheet generator and worksheets to help with word and letter spacing and handwriting for kids.

Here is a list of other early childhood resources.

**Stay tuned for our journey thru the curriculum...our accomplishments, our skips, and our additions to our fun filled year.

Homeschooling with Little Ones--The Routine

As I continue my home schooling with little ones series, I thought I would give you a glimpse of what my daily routine looks like.

Please understand that this is more of a routine than watching the clock for the next time frame.

Here is our routine (the times are approximate):

7am~~I am up to get hubby’s lunch made and to get him out the door by 8am.
8am~~Breakfast and morning chores. It doesn’t happen every day, but I try to get my shower while the kids are doing their chores!
9am~~Start school (sometimes, like Mondays, start time doesn’t happen till 9:30)

Morning school time runs till 11am. During those two hours, I work/play with my little ones while my older ones do independent work. Independent work is studying AWANA verses, Math work (unless it is a new concept then it waits till the afternoon), Spelling work, and Creative/Journal Writing.

11am~~Noon “Recess time” There is another home school family on our block so the kids get together to play for an hour before lunch. If the other family is having a coop day or is gone I use the time for us to take a walk, or to play games in the backyard!

12:30pm~2:30pm Afternoon School/Quiet Time. This is when my little ones are napping. The older ones do a ½ hour of quiet reading. I am able to work with my older ones on school work. We either check or do Math together. We do Science and History together. Usually we are all done by with everything by 2:30pm sometimes it ends up closer to 3pm.

3pm~~Kids do their afternoon chores before having their free time. I take the time to get dinner prepared, work on laundry, and/or have more time with my little ones.

6pm~~Dinner time. Hubby has just come home by this time so I love to have dinner done and waiting on the table for him when he arrives home.

After dinner, each of the older kids has an “after dinner chore” that needs to be done before they are allowed any more free time. This also allows everyone’s food to settle before more play or a family walk or bike ride.

7:45pm Bedtime routine starts. Routine consists of baths, if needed, pajamas on, snack, daily Keys for Kids, and prayer. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays are “bath nights” so bedtime routine usually starts around 7:30pm.

Kids bedtime is 8:30pm, however, the four older ones are allowed 5-15 minutes of reading time before lights are out. The amount of reading time is based on whether or not they got to bed on time or not. If it is after 8:30 before they are in bed then their reading time is cut short.

It doesn’t always happen but hubby and I usually try to get to bed around 10pm. By this time, both of us have relaxed enough from our busy day to actually go to sleep. We also have had time together to talk about our day and any problems that we need to work on together. We even take time to pray together.

So there is glimpse of what a “typical day” looks like at my house.

You probably are wondering why there is no specific time for blogging or household management (cleaning, pay bills, laundry, grocery shop, etc.) to get done because I don’t have any set times to do these things. I usually only do a school schedule four days a week so that gives me one day to get all my errands and grocery shopping done. My hubby only gets paid twice a month so there is only 2 days each month that I pay the bills. Cleaning and laundry get done during the daily chore times or on Saturday mornings. As for blogging, I work on that during quiet time or at the end of the day when the kids are in bed. Saturday or Sunday afternoons are my “planning” times, that is when weekly menus and blogging topics are decided.

To find out what works for others, head over to Rocks in My Dryer!

Here is the previous post of this series....Part 3 of Homeschooling with little ones

Homeschooling with Little Ones--Part Three

I have been doing a series on homeschooling with little ones. I was going to discuss my schedule that I do with my pre-k/kdg. child, but I will get to that in the coming weeks. This week, I want to back track a bit and talk more about those toddlers!

Being able to do homeschooling of older children with little ones takes training the little ones that they can not have Mom’s attention all the time. The training that you do with the little ones starts when they are infants and continues as they get older. Once they are toddlers they begin to realize that schedules and routines are just a part of the day.

**the links below in this post are no longer available!**
Over the last couple of weeks, Crystal over at Biblical Womanhood has been writing a series on “Successful Homemaking with Toddlers”. I have enjoyed reading her series because it fully has expressed how I have done my training with my little ones. Instead of trying to summarize it or re-write what she said I am just going to link the series here so you can take the time to read her practical ideas, thoughts, and encouragement. Enjoy!

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 1

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 2

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 3

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 4

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 5

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 6

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 7

Successful homemaking with toddlers-Part 8


Part Two of the series---keeping toddlers occupied

Homeschooling with Little Ones--Part Two

Last week, I gave you my game plan for getting back into the “groove” of homeschooling when a new baby is added to the family.

The question to answer this week, “What can I do with that toddler who is pulling at my leg or begging for things while trying to school the older children?”

The best thing that I have found to help with this issue is to make sure that I take some time with them before I start working with the older ones. I get in some snuggle time, or play time with them while the older ones are working on their chores or independent learning time. It makes my toddlers feel like they are not left out of my “radar”.

While I am working with my older ones, I make sure that my toddlers have something to keep them occupied. I usually keep toys in a bin that I only bring out during those times when I need to occupy them while I work with older ones. I let them play in the same room as where I am working with the older ones. This helps in two ways: 1. keeping an eye on them so I make sure that they are not getting into trouble. And 2. it allows them to feel a part of things despite not doing the same thing as the older ones.

If the toys don’t keep them occupied, then I let them sit at the table with me and scribble on paper or if we are doing a project/experiment that it will not hurt them being a part of it then I let them be involved with us.

Another thing that I have done to keep them occupied while schooling the older ones is move everyone outside (when it is not raining)! The toddlers can play in my fenced in backyard and the older ones get to sit in a different place to work on school work. IF it is raining, then I pull out the “rainy day idea box” or look to have fun indoors. In the box, I have other toys that I can bring out(these are toys that they don’t play with that much so it makes for something new and interesting), craft supplies, and books.

If all else fails, I schedule my school time with the older ones during the toddler’s naptime!! The older ones and I can get lots done for school in two hours!!

Part three of the series---training of the toddlers

Homeschooling with Little Ones--Part One

How do you homeschool your kids with having a baby or little ones in the house? Homeschooling with little ones can be challenging! However, having a “game plan” always helps me to overcome the challenge.

Here is my “game plan” with a new baby in the house…

First, I decided when I was going to start school. Do I wait till after baby is born (which was the beginning of November) or do I get a head start? I decided to get a head start and we officially started our school year the week after the 4th of July. Needless to say, my kids were not too happy that they had to start working on school work again especially since none of the other neighborhood kids had started school. However, I told them when baby came they would be getting at least a six week break! They seemed to lighten up on the complaining when I told them that news.

Yes, you read correctly…at least six weeks!! Sometimes I have gone for as many as 8 weeks without doing “formal” schooling with my kids after a baby. It basically is a time of adjustment for everyone. It gives me time to rest after having a baby. It gives me time to get into a routine with a new addition. It gives me time to plan. It gives me a relaxed time with my family without any pressures of meeting any goals. It is also a time where I can fit in field trips, errands, and other things (like read alouds, board games, and art/craft projects) that I normally can’t fit in during our school year. I figure that my kids are learning even by playing Legos or K’nex, watching videos, playing with each other and helping me out around the house that doing “formal” schooling is not a necessity while trying to adjust to the new addition.

Once we get back into a routine, ie knowing when baby is going to take naps or needing to be fed, I start working back in the “book work” starting with Math. You probably are wondering why I start with Math? We start with reviewing basics and work back up to where we were before our new addition. Math seems to be the subject that my kids seem to lose the facts the fastest.

Once we get going on a routine, it looks like this at first….Reading and Math usually ends up only taking us an hour at first to get thru those subjects. Then as the weeks progress we add back in Writing/Language Arts/Spelling, History and then Science. Science is the last of the subjects that I add back in because usually I find it harder to keep up with doing experiments and such. Usually Science is added into the mix at about week 3 of getting back into the school routine.

The bottom line is to take the amount of time that you need to take to get yourself and your family into a routine that works well with everyone.

Next week, I’ll be giving some suggestions as to how to handle having that toddler pulling at your leg or begging for things while trying to school the older children.

Part Two of the series--keeping toddlers occupied