The key to successful homeschooling with toddlers is preparedness. Knowing this now, as I do, all the year round I keep an eye out at garage sales, thrift stores, and craft blogs for activities, inexpensive ones, that will keep a toddler’s attention. I don’t spend much money on busy activities for my toddlers, and many of them I’m able to make at home. Part of my being prepared to homeschool with toddlers includes teaching them to be able to sit for five to ten minutes at a time, on a blanket or in a high chair, with their own activities when I need to help an older sibling. Now, let me share some of my favorite activities, which we keep set aside for lesson time, and I’d love to hear yours.

Most toddlers love fine motor activities and beading is such a great toddler activity, whether it’s large wooden beads or pasta or animal shapes with holes. As with all things, use parental wisdom – if your toddler tends to put everything in their mouths, then you might have to wait a year or so on this activity.

I remember watercolor books from my childhood but they seem to be harder to find nowadays. We especially like the ones with little dots of paint all over the picture. They also make watercolor books with the paint palette at the top of the page. I tend to find watercolor books in the most unusual places, like drug stores, and most recently, Joann’s Fabrics. Whenever we’re in the coloring book section of a store, I take a quick peak for them and stock up when I see them.

Our first lacing cards came from a garage sale, vintage ones with shoe laces to thread through. Recently I’ve seen them available on www.amazon.com and in Barnes and Noble, so their popularity is growing. If you’re pinching pennies, you can also laminate some pretty graphics or magazine cut-outs and hole punch around the border. Dollar stores carry shoe laces, which are still our favorites for lacing. We are a crafty family and these are a hit with the toddlers in our home, who get to do their own “sewing.”

Lego Duplos are also kept for lesson time. They come in a large variety of shapes and colors and I don’t have to worry about them being a choking hazard for any babies that may be crawling around.

It may seem simple, but stickers are loved by the toddlers in our home and are a great activity for building those fine motor skills. I ration out a 500 pack of stickers from the dollar store with scrap paper and let our toddlers create a masterpiece.

A metal sheet (you can use a cookie sheet) and magnet sets are also a fun toddler activity. We have animal magnets, firemen magnets, Bible story ones, and the traditional numbers and letters. I sometimes write out words so our toddlers can match their letter magnets to them on the baking sheet and they can play act out their own stories with the people and animal magnets.

Play dough in our home is reserved for lesson time too. We make it at home, add in glitter for sparkles and essential oils for scent. You can color it with coffee, kool-aid, jello, or food coloring. We keep a basket of play dough toys like cookie cutters and a small rolling pin. Here is the recipe we have always used:

In a saucepan, mix two cups of flour and two cups of water. Stir in one tablespoon of oil and one teaspoon of cream of tartar and one cup of salt. Cook over low heat, stirring, until the dough thickens. When it is cool to touch, knead in your colors, scents, and sparkles of choice. We store ours in plastic zip-lock baggies.

I’d love to hear some of your toddler’s favorite activities too – won’t you chime in?

strong>Hannah is a relaxed homeschooling mama of six. Her and her family are big on the outdoors, big on family days, and big on making memories in everyday small ways. She loves handcrafts, iced lattes, re-arranging furniture and counts falling into bed exhausted a sign of a really great day. She and her husband make a home in upstate New York with their energetic children and a menagerie of animals. Hannah blogs at Cultivating Home and you can connect with her on the facebook page, Cultivating Home.

Help! How do you get the little ones to stay still while you “attempt” to teach them? They want to bounce off the wall while I am trying to teach them to count, do phonics and even simple things like learning the colors.

Although not a homeschooling mom, my mother was super good at teaching us things very naturally. I don’t think she or anyone of her generation gave a thought to “kindergarten readiness”, but by the time we got there, we knew our colors, skip counting, rhyming words, alphabet, and how to tie our shoes.

And yet, she never sat us down or set out to teach those things. It all came very naturally. “Let’s put your red shirt on today!”, and “2-4-6-8, who do we appreciate?” were just a part of life, as were rhyming games I can remember passing the time in the car playing with her.

Can you do the same? Sometimes it’s just a matter of getting into the habit of really talking to our little ones, and making these learning conversations a part of our everyday rhythm. I find that mealtimes afford me a few minutes with a captive audience, and I can set out to teach quite a bit while they’re strapped into a booster seat or have their little mouths full. Same goes for the bath. I have a friend who read the entire Chronicles of Narnia to her preschoolers while they were otherwise occupied at bath time.

You can teach all kinds of things this way, naturally. The other thing my mom taught me as I became a young mom myself was to name things specifically to my children instead of generally. Instead of saying, “Look at that birdie!”, we can say, “Look at the robin!” I have an extensive knowledge of plants and trees because my mother was raised by an arborist who taught her and she in turn taught me, although the “lessons” were by way of everyday conversations. We would be at the nursery buying plants and she would say, “Oh, I just love rhododendrons!” She could have said, “Those flowers are pretty”, but because she took the time to call them by name, I have been able to identify species of plants since I was a child.

Are you beginning to get a sense of the possibilities? There’s certainly nothing wrong with formal learning, and along those lines I would encourage you to make a list of the concepts you want to teach your little ones. But then ask yourself how you might seize the opportunity to just make the learning of those things a part of your every day lives.

Kendra Fletcher is the homeschooling mother of eight, ages 18 down to 3. She has never known what it means to homeschool without the presence of preschoolers, and loves to encourage other moms beginning their homeschool journeys with little ones underfoot. Her website and blog can be found at Preschoolers and Peace.

As I was pondering what to write for a post this month, my five-year-old sat on the floor nearby playing with some frozen orange juice lids that I had made into math manipulatives.  He set them up from 0 to 9 going one way, then rearranged them so they were going backwards.  So I took the opportunity, since it was available to me, to review another concept with him and asked him to remove all of the even numbered lids.  We talked about what “even” and “odd” mean, he completed the task and shortly after that, he went on to a different activity.

These lids just happened to be out this particular day because we had family in town.  I had given my toddler-nephew a Tupperware container and the lids to pass the time and keep his attention while his mom was away.  Both my five-year-old and four-year-old on separate occasions chose to work with them simply due to their availability.

One of the best things about homeschooling is that we are with our children for most of the hours in a day and have a unique relationship with them and their learning.  School doesn’t run on a set schedule, and a little bit of planning and inspiration can go a long way toward catching those moments of focused learning that might just “pop up” throughout the day.

There are two basic ways to take advantage of these opportunities:

Availability of Materials:

I’ve heard this concept referred to as “strewing”.  I’m not even sure if it’s a word, but it simply means the intentional (and often surreptitious) laying out of materials in the hopes that our children will notice and be inspired to work with them.  With the immense amount of “stuff” in our homes, educational and otherwise, it’s easy for kids to be overwhelmed and not know what to work with, often complaining of boredom amidst plenty.  Here are some ideas of materials to leave out for little hands and minds to find:

• games that haven’t been used in a while
• Legos, wedgits, blocks, or other building toys
• marble runs
• cereal boxes, scissors and tape
• art books with paper and pencils or crayons beside them
• a challenging puzzle
• play-doh tubs
• CDs/books on tape
• origami or kirigami supplies
• tangrams
• comic books, or the comics in the paper, and a book of blank comic plates to make their own

Availability of Self:

This is so simple, but much more important than the materials above.  We, as the teaching parents, need to always be mentally and emotionally available to our children, open to every question and learning-sensitive moment.  If it’s true that children have sensitive periods when learning is easier and more organic (and I believe it is), we need to be there to recognize them and take advantage of them.  When my boys were working with the number lids, they were engaged and interested and actively working their minds around math concepts.  Guiding them to discuss even/odd (or skip counting, or measurement, or word problems) used those minutes, helping to make more mental connections than sitting down with them in a formal lesson would.

I am by nature a structured mom and homeschooler.  I like having a plan and sticking with it.  Sometimes I don’t want to answer the spontaneous questions as fully as I should, and sometimes I miss the “pop-up” moments, but if I’m intentional to work toward that goal, I’ll catch them more often than not.  And truly, being a part of the active learning process is a gift, rewarding and fruit-bearing in my children’s hearts and minds, and in mine as well.

What are some ways you have taken advantage of learning moments in your home?

Christine Hiester is a Christian, homeschooling mom to three boys and a girl, ranging in age from 10 to 3 years old. She is a musician by trade, eclectic in homeschool style, and continues to grow and learn along with her children in this journey of life and discipleship at home. Visit her blog at Fruit in Season.

I was talking with some parents trying to get a feel for what the most important thing their child(ren) learned before the age of 5. I got a lot of “potty training,” “socialization,” “reading” and “how to be away from mommy.” Most of their answers focused on the child being ready for kindergarten at a school. This got me thinking about what my children are learning within the first five years of life. Here is my list of the top 5 things. Actually it’s four things because the last one is for the parents.

Character
When I speak of character I mean the moral traits I think are important for my boys to learn. I have met bunches of homeschooling moms say they don’t even attempt academic teaching until their children have mastered the basics of good character and obedience. I must say I agree completely. If my children don’t mind when I ask them to do something non-academic, I really don’t see our schooling efforts being very productive.  Also I really believe that those first 5 years are key to imparting these vital lessons into the hearts of young children.

Manners
Ok, this probably goes along with character but it’s really important. From the time that my boys could indicate they wanted something I started teaching them “please” and “thank you.” I started off with sign language and then the actual words when they were old enough. No matter where you go to school, manners are very important.

Social interaction
Homeschooling allows children to be exposed to different groups and ages of people. This offers the opportunity for learning different levels of social interaction.  My boys have learned how to respect and converse with other adults, children their age and even senior citizens. I even spent a day at the grocery store pretending to get lost so that my children would feel comfortable asking people in uniform for help.  I’ve also been able to take my children to different places: museums, concerts, art and dance shows.  I think these are invaluable chances for teaching my children how to behave in different circumstances and locations.

Learning is Fun
This is a big selling point for me when it comes to homeschooling. I LOVED learning as a child and I want to instill that same love in my children. By homeschooling them we can make things as fun and silly as we want. We don’t have to restrain ourselves to fit into a classroom or to accommodate the 20 or more other children in the class. I love finding creative ways to teach my boys new things. They enjoy the process so much better when they are so wrapped up in the fun that they don’t realize they are learning.

For the parents
The most important thing you will learn as a parent before your little one gets to 5 is them. By keeping them home you are able to really get to know your child. What they like and don’t like. You get to see how they learn the best and what their temperament is like. This is valuable information when moving forward academically. You also get the confidence in knowing your children are not being exposed to things that differ from what you want for your family. I’m always grateful when watching my boys on the playground. Usually they are the only ones running around pretending to be Care Bears, but I feel good knowing that these are things I feel are appropriate instead of running around reliving something adult or teen that they have been exposed to.

There you have it, my top five things that your children (and yourself) can learn in those precious first 5 years of life.

LaToya Edwards is a homeschooling, single mom of two beautifully busy boys, one that has been diagnosed with SPD. She has a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Development, will soon have her law degree and aspires to run her own adoption agency in the future. She is a very busy woman, but wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s loves music, poetry and reading fiction stories. But mostly she just loves spending time with her boys. LaToya get real over at Christian Momma, where she blogs about the struggle and journey of being a single christian woman and mom.

As we stood in line, I had been urging my son to push ahead so he wouldn’t miss his turn. I was teaching him to behave in a manner that was the exact opposite of how I want him to behave as an adult.  I want my son to be a man with a servant’s heart, one who places others before himself.

It is never too early to begin teaching children good manners.  Children who practice good manners live out the Biblical traits of respect and kindness toward others and they are often treated in kind.  These children stand out from the crowd, not only because of their behavior, but because of the confidence that comes from knowing what to say and how to behave in any situation.  Teaching your preschoolers good manners is a gift you give them for childhood and beyond.

Here are 5 manners your preschooler should master:

• Greetings and Goodbyes: In addition to learning simple greetings such as, “Good Morning,” “How are you?” and “Nice to meet you,” preschoolers can also learn how to shake hands, look at people who are speaking to them, and answer questions loudly and clearly.  Older preschoolers can be taught to ask appropriate questions and compliment others. Start by prompting your child with statements like, “Isn’t Mrs. Jones wearing a pretty hat? I wonder where she found it.” When it comes to conversation with non-family members, some children are more hesitant than others.  This is an area where it is important to know your child.  Is your child simply being stubborn or is he painfully shy?  Know your child’s limits, and be patient as you help him learn to interact with others.

• Please and Thank You: Teaching children to say please and thank you is a no-brainer, but more important than the words themselves is the attitude behind the words.  Even young preschoolers can learn that they are not entitled to receive gifts or favors from others; therefore, they should display thankfulness in word and tone.Preschoolers should also begin learning to accept compliments graciously.  While it may be cute when a four-year-old says, “I know!” to a heartfelt compliment, that statement is likely to be considered rude if made by an older child.  As the saying goes, “Start how you mean to finish.”  Preschool is a great time to begin teaching humility.

• Respect for Others and Their Property: Accidents happen.  However, a child who frequently hurts her friends or damages property may need a lesson in respect for others.  Teach your child how to handle delicate items, and instruct her to always ask permission before touching other people’s belongings. In addition, teach your preschooler to wait patiently, to be polite when interrupting adult conversation, and to be aware of how his behavior affects others.  This is an area where you will have to do lots of coaching.  Ask questions like, “Do you think this lady in front of us enjoys having her chair kicked?” “Do you see that gentleman reading? Perhaps we should lower our voices.”

• Apology and Restitution: We all make mistakes, and it is never too early to learn how to accept responsibility and apologize for those mistakes.  In my experience, preschoolers can learn that different levels of offense require different levels of apology. If your child accidentally bumps into someone, a simple, “Excuse me,” will suffice.  If he deliberately hurts a friend, a more elaborate apology is in order.  I teach my children to apologize and state the reason they are apologizing.  “I am sorry I did not share the toy with you.”  Some parents go a step further, and teach their children to ask for forgiveness.

Some mistakes require an apology and restitution.  If your preschooler knocks over his juice, you may want to have him apologize and offer to help clean up.  If he breaks a friend’s favorite toy, you may want him to apologize and offer to replace the broken item.

Once your child has apologized and made restitution (if necessary), put the matter to rest.  In addition to teaching our children the art of apology, we should also teach the art of forgiveness.

• Lend a Helping Hand: Help your preschooler get into the habit of looking for opportunities to lend a helping hand.  Have her help carry items, hold the door for others, set up and clean up, or distribute items to guests.  On the other hand, it’s also important for children to understand that they should not insist on helping when their help is not wanted.  For instance, most preschoolers don’t want help opening their birthday gifts.

How to Teach Good Manners

You don’t need a curriculum to teach your child good manners.  Simply make sure you are doing the following in the course of daily life:

• Be a good role model: Children are excellent imitators.  I’ve often heard one of my children speak in a nasty tone of voice, and then realized that tone came directly from me.  If we are rude, our children will be also.  Likewise, if we display good manners, our children are likely to follow suit.

• Practice: Talk to your preschooler about appropriate behavior in different types of situations.  Role play in areas where your child is struggling, and needs more practice.  Give your child reminders before entering situations where you may encounter a particular problem.

• Require manners at home: Once your child learns to use good manners with parents and siblings, it will be second nature to use them outside of the home.  Encourage your child to think about how his words and actions affect family members.  Have him rephrase unkind statements.  Most importantly, make sure to praise your child when he gets it right.

• Live by the golden rule: My husband often refers to me as the “manners police,” and if you’re anything like me, there are few things more embarrassing than having a child behave rudely in public.

However, even as adults, we make embarrassing mistakes.  When teaching your preschooler good manners, extend lots of grace. Remember to treat your child the way you want to be treated.

Carletta Sanders is a loving wife and homeschool mom of four. Her mission is to share information, ideas and inspiration with homeschoolers at each stage of their journey. To learn more, please visit her website, Successful Homeschooling or her blog.

I recently mentioned to someone that I was planning to homeschool my soon to be 5 year old son. One of the first questions that she asked was what I was going to do with my 2 year old son.   I just smiled and told her “I’m homeschooling him as well!” She looked at me a little confused and said something to the effect that she wasn’t sure that she could do that with her toddler.  She’s a stay-at-home mom to a 2 year as well so I just simply told her that she was already homeschooling her toddler without even knowing it. She got a puzzled look on her face and said “No I don’t do anything like that. We just spend the day playing.”

Honestly I run across many people that think that homeschooling small children should look like the traditional brick and mortar schools that the older children attend. It doesn’t. In fact it’s simply a matter of being a little more intentional with your play time.  There are a lot of curriculum out there geared towards toddlers and I’m not saying that they are a bad thing, but mostly they are just packaged activities that you can do with your child to help them learn some basic concepts.

At our house homeschooling looks a lot like making a big mess with the toys.  You may find us at the table with fingerpaint working on fine motor skills and some art appreciation.  For some extra educational value I may point out the different colors that we are using and encouraging my son to ask for the colors by name.  Sometimes we may break out toothbrushes, plastic forks or cars and run them through the paint to make fun designs and for some more fine motor skills.

Sometime you may find us sitting on the floor amidst blocks and animals playing “farm”. This is a perfect time to practice a few skills. You could sing “Old MacDonald” using the animals as props for the song. Maybe to sit down with your child and practice naming the animals and the sounds they make.  My son loves to stack blocks. Often he will sit and stack as high as he can before knocking it over. That’s learning!! Sometimes he makes little houses for the animals or a castle for mommy.  He’s still learning.

Puzzles and books are an excellent idea for a quiet activity. Both my boys are avid book readers and whizzes at puzzles. Shortly after their second birthdays I had to move them up from the peg puzzles to the 24 piece jigsaws because they were doing all 8 peg puzzles in a minute flat.  I have found that the giant floor puzzles are often a big hit with little children. The size of the pieces makes it a bit easier for them to handle and fit together.

And I’m sure I don’t have to say much about the many different benefits of reading with your children. My favorite parts of reading with my boys are the cuddles and quiet moments.  I love sharing that time with them, especially if it’s a book that I loved as a child.  It’s gotten to the point now where my boys are able to “read” to me at night because they’ve memorized the stories.  Those moments also provide chances to expand my toddler’s vocabulary and work on colors, shapes and even counting.  I can’t explain the look of excitement on his face one night when we opened a book and he recognized the letter O.  This wasn’t from me drilling him with flashcards and foam letters. This was simply a result of him being exposed to different print materials, asking me what the letters were and him retaining some of that information.

It is really that easy. I think the best thing about homeschooling my toddler has been being able to watch as he discovers new things during the day.  I often take for granted some of the simple things in our home, like the light switch. My son discovered that he was tall enough to reach the light switch one day and spent an hour “making sun”.  I guess if I had any final thoughts on homeschooling small children it would be just to relax and enjoy. Don’t stress about the things that you should be doing or what they should be learning.  It’s really mostly about enjoying your time with your child. As you do this you will see what they are interested in and the different ways they like to learn. All of this will be invaluable to you as they grow older and are ready to move to more academic work.

LaToya Edwards is a homeschooling, single mom of two beautifully busy boys, one that has been diagnosed with SPD. She has a bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Development, will soon have her law degree and aspires to run her own adoption agency in the future. She is a very busy woman, but wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s loves music, poetry and reading fiction stories. But mostly she just loves spending time with her boys. LaToya get real over at Christian Momma, where she blogs about the struggle and journey of being a single christian woman and mom.

Sarah Mae raises her babes, loves her man, home-keeps, Java-hugs, homeschool teaches, idea slings and blog writes. She is a truth seeker and a grace lover. Her passion is to see women living intentional lives to the glory of God, and more specifically to see the hearts of women turned towards home. You can find her offering up her thoughts at her personal blog, Like a Warm Cup of Coffee and at the DaySpring website, (in)courage.  She is the gal behind RaisingHomemakers.com and the Relevant Conference.

This fall I am anticipating the beginning of learning lessons with my soon-to-be-four-year -old. When his two older brothers were each three I began doing intentional learning activities with them. But, when this son, my youngest, turned three I felt pulled in too many directions to do more than point him to a drawer of activities to choose from.

However, this fall I know I’ll be ready and he’s, of course, more than ready for more. A warm feeling envelops my fingers as they peruse my well-used box of preschool lessons: The tactile feathers, dried cereal, and sandy glitter. The sweet writing attempts; the haphazard shapes glued to faded construction paper. It’s a precious time of remembering when my older guys were that young. And looking forward to one more preschooler — his abundance of energy, his thirst for knowledge, his whimsical ideas – motivates and inspires both my teacher heart and my mommy heart. We are in for some precious times together.

I can’t wait to revisit things that start with ‘P’, collecting items from around the house and placing them in the mouth of the letter monster he made from a laundry detergent box. I’m eager to read all the books about apples and pumpkins and turkeys we can find this fall and do the flannel board activities I lovingly cut out so many years ago. Once again, I get to spend time on fun websites like Kinderart, First-School, and 123child. I’m so glad they’re still around! There are so many things I’m looking forward to doing one more time… one last time.

Most of all, however, I’m interested in deeply knowing this youngest little man of mine; the child who has so patiently waited for my attention. I’ll remind myself of my own advice, relax with him, really listen to his responses and ideas, let him work “outside the box” and enjoy getting to know his personality inside and out. I get the honor of doing this one more time. It was absolutely worth the wait.

Debra Anderson has three sons ages 11 and younger. Her passions are education, mentoring, her husband, writing, church ministry and missional living — not in that order. She has her seminary Masters degree in Christian Education, is married to her pastor-husband of 16 years, and resides in their newish home in Denver, CO. In spite of moves between four different states, she has always home educated her boys — even on the hard days. She maintains a blog at www.emergent-homeschool.blogspot.com.

I’ve been teaching our children preschool at home for a few years now. I began planning and doing educational activities with them both since they were each about 2-1/2. This past school year, as they turned ages 3 and 5, we embarked upon a formal preschool curriculum.

This coming fall, though, marks the start of our first “official” day of homeschooling. We prayerfully entered into the decision to move onward and begin kindergarten at home with our oldest this coming school year. This is the first time we’ve joined a homeschool association, researched and invested in a multi-subject curriculum, and diligently kept up with and filed away all school papers.

Any homeschooling parent knows that the first “official” year of schooling at home is a bit overwhelming at first. Though I am a relatively organized person, navigating these waters, I must say, is proving to be tricky. There are so many questions! I think of new questions every single day.

Yet, what keeps me moving forward in my spring-before planning sessions and positively adamant we have made the right decision for our family? It’s very simple: The high hopes and expectations I have.

I’ve read negative statistics about homeschooling. (Haven’t we all?) But I’ve also read some encouraging and positive benefits that put my mind at ease and my heart at rest.

These positive benefits are also, for us, some of the reasons why we have decided to teach at home:

- Homeschooled children don’t necessarily become socially awkward and shy. In fact, research I’ve read (and feedback from other homeschoolers) tells me that the opposite can be true. Homeschooled children are often better able to relate to, carry on a conversation with, and have friendships with people other than their age. I’ve already seen this when watching our two kids. They have no fear in talking to adults or older children. By most likely being around more adults during the week than most schoolchildren, too, I also hope that my children will continue to sharpen their skills in the areas of communication, empathy, and respect for others.

- Homeschooling your child lets you cater your teaching to things that interest and fascinate them….or allows you to tailor your teaching around your child’s dominant learning style. If your child has a propensity towards a particular area (art, science, math, writing), you can foster that gift and help it to flourish, selectively tailoring your daily lessons to bring more focus to those areas. (This doesn’t mean that your child doesn’t have to do math if he/she doesn’t like math. This only means that you can put more emphasis/extra time toward things that they do best and love the most.) With our son, I see his father’s engineering and technical know-how and interest in him. We can tailor our lessons (namely the science lessons) to be more hands-on and interactive for him, allowing him more chances to build that skill and fortify that talent. (And if a new interest arrives six months from now, we can cater to that, as well!)

- Homeschooling brings families closer together. I’ve heard so many homeschooling moms say how much they have learned about their kids since homeschooling began. The family unit tends to be more unified and closer as a whole since learning is integrated so tightly with the day-to-day life of the home.

- Perhaps the greatest virtue of homeschooling, in my mind, is the ability to ground and help make strong our children’s Christian faith and beliefs during the most crucial years. Very young children aren’t totally able to know right from wrong. I am glad that I’ll be able to be heavily involved in the answering of tough questions, the learning of morals and manners, and the fostering of Christ-like character during my children’s most formative years! This task is a very big responsibility, yes, but an incredible honor, as well.

There are many more benefits of homeschooling (and even more items on our family’s list of why we felt led to go in that direction), but these are my favorite ones.

I am still a bit uncertain and nervous about how exactly the school year planning will progress (or get done!). And I am still unclear about how the initial weeks of our first “official” year will go. Yet I am fervently excited about our decision, about the ideology and the process…..and optimistic about the results.

Meg Wilson is a devoted wife to her husband, Ken, of 10 years, and mom and homeschooling teacher to her 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. When she’s not writing or creating something, Meg loves to cook for, host and entertain friends and family. She also enjoys reading, the outdoors, eclectic music, yoga, and studying history. You can read all about her adventures (and misadventures) at her blog, Muses of Megret and read her product reviews at Muse Reviews.

Now that the holidays are over I’m looking ahead at how we’ll be spending the next few months of our homeschooling journey. New to homeschooling and 3-year-olds, I have been a little overwhelmed. I’ve based my choices on the following considerations; flexibility, creative play, reading and language, arts and crafts, natural routines of a home, and time with other children.

Flexibility – Knowing that things have a way of changing quickly with a 3-year-old, I wanted our homeschool plans to have a “flexible structure” in terms of subject matter as well as timing. Given that my sons interests can change quickly, I didn’t want to invest a lot of money in curriculum or supplies that would require a long-term interest of financial commitment. Also, considering I’m entering into the second half of my pregnancy with our second child, I wanted to cut myself some slack for those days I’m not feeling very energized.

Creative play – In all my reading on child development, as well as my personal observations, creative play is key. As he put it today, “I don’t go to school. I learn by playing with my toys!” I marvel at the structures he puts together with his Legos and blocks, the stories he creates with his action figures, and the logic he verbalizes as he created meaning and interprets relationships in the world. The questions that arise from such creative free play have served for some of the most profound learning experiences we have had together. Notably, they are questions I probably would not have thought to address in any lesson I would have created on my own. It is a wonderful opportunity for me to follow his lead.

Reading and Language – Aside from all the obvious reasons for reading daily to my son, I am building on reading because my son loves being read to. Otherwise extremely active, he will sit for an hour at a time as long as I’m reading stories to him. He loves studying illustrations. He will gaze at the ceiling, listening intently, as I read to him the descriptive imagery of classic children’s stories like The Wizard of Oz or The Velveteen Rabbit. He’ll stop me when he doesn’t know what a word means or ask questions regarding a characters motivations. He recently has taken to “reading” me his favorite stories and asking me to teach him how to spell certain words or asks for confirmation that a work begins with a specific letter. A friend of mine recommended a literature-based learning program for young children called Five in a Row.  We’ll be starting to make that a part of our daily activities in 2 weeks and I’m looking forward to it.

Although my son didn’t start talking until he was about three, he is making up for lost time! He loves words. He delights in learning the meanings of new words. Often when he is playing on his own and thinks I’m not listening, I hear him turning a word over and over under his breath, practicing its pronunciation until he masters it. He also loves listening to other languages and has developed quite an impressive ear for them. He requests a CD called “Magic Spanish for Kids” by Beth Manners whenever we get in the car. We also, based on recommendations from friends, recently introduced the “Muzzy” http://www.early-advantage.com/Muzzytrialoptin.aspx language program into our home. He loves it and will regularly incorporate foreign words into his stories or make his characters be “Spanish” of “French”. It is really amazing. So we do some part of the Muzzy program daily as well.

Arts and Crafts – These projects are often inspired by the questions my son asks and have often served as a way to access learning in a hands-on fashion. For example, we were on a trip at a local museum when we got on the topic of the solar system. This sparked a lively conversation on the way home and we decided together to build a model of the solar system to hang in his room. He’s not a fan of coloring, preferring to build things. As a result most of our projects are about creating forms from folding paper, molding clay, cutting and pasting, and so on. However, he has recently become a big fan of painting, so we’ve focused on combining colors and getting experience with the texture of the paint rather than trying to paint “something.” I love and frequent the www.familyfun.com website for free ideas, but there are many out there! I also created an art supply basket for my son to access whenever he feels inspired to create a drawing or cut and paste so that he is not dependent on my availability to express his ideas.

Natural Routines of a Home – Given that my son often wants to help me in whatever I’m doing, I try to create opportunities for him to work along side me as part of the natural routine of our home. I want my son to understand that he is an integral part of our household and is valued for his contribution. It may take him a bit longer to put his toys away than it would for me to do it myself or making pizza for lunch may be a bit more messy with his help, but the pride he feels in contributing and the interactions that we have while working together are priceless. He understands houseworks as something that is necessary and important and fun as we do it together. We talk about why we do the chores and why they are important. He is particularly fond of helping me cook. Thank goodness there are a number of great “cooking with kids” resources available!

Additionally, homeschooling has given me the incredible gifts of being able to create meaningful daily and weekly routines. Without most of the artificially imposed time tables of a typical work day or school day to dictate when to do things, I have been liberated to tune in and understand my own biological rhythm and to observe my son’s rhythms. I’ve been able to create our daily and weekly schedules based on those and it has made an incredible difference in the quality of our time together. I’m able to maximum productivity mid-morning and target more structured homeschooling activities and household work for that time because that is when I feel most energized. I noticed that my son tends to have more attention for activities that involve fine-motor skills in the morning, so that is when I’ll introduce arts and crafts. Alternatively, my energy dips mid-afternoon. For a while I thought my son’s energy soared during this time. However, I’ve come to understand that the increased activity is actually a display of overstimulation and the need for some quiet time. Often I’ll read to my son during this time period and often this results in taking a nap together on the couch. Although it is challenging in the winter in New England, the best time for him to have physical play time outdoors is the late afternoon and early evening as his attention span is lowest at this time and the exertion helps him to calm down sufficiently for bedtime. Another example is that we don’t typically do lessons on Mondays. I tend to use that day to get ready for the week and to complete housework lingering from the weekend. My son enjoys hours of unstructured time to fantasize with his toys and help me with housework following what is typically and engaging weekend of music classes, sports, religious education, and family time.

Time with other Children – While this is the first thing that other people worry about when they hear that I’m homeschooling, in my mind it is the easiest part of the program to establish! Several other mothers and I created a co-op that meets weekly to give our children, ages ranging form newborn to 5 years, an opportunity to learn and play together. We alternate weeks of informal playgroup with more formal lessons based in stories, arts and crafts, and free play. Our family became members of the EcoTarium which has provided countless hours of fun, learning, and social interactions over the past few months. They have a wonderful preschool enrichment program one morning a week that we attend whenever we have a chance. My son does a weekly Music Together class with my husband and had a tremendous time playing soccer as part of our local youth soccer league this past fall. As a family we attend weekly worship at our church and he enjoys the Montessori-based religious education program offered there. Finally, he spends one day a week at a home daycare with children ages infant to 10 years while I work from home on my business. That doesn’t include all the other things we do like seeing friends, going to the park, the beach, and seeing family members throughout the month. His social experiences vary from structured learning time in a group while listening to stories or following directions for projects to complete free play with others.

My husband and I feel so blessed to be able to offer our son such rich opportunities for experiences. We feel so humbled as he absorbs everything like a sponge and often comes out with profound insights that floor us. While it may be a lot to juggle and certainly takes a huge commitment on our parts to be engaged at all times, we truly are grateful and it is absolutely worth the effort. The proof is in the pudding, as they say. My son is so happy and enthusiastic about life and learning. As a mom I hope that he never loses that spark. My commitment to being a homeschooling family revolves around fanning those sparks into flames of passion for his life and for the contributions he’ll be able to make to the lives of those he cares about and to the world that awaits.

I’d love to hear about what you’re doing at home with your preschool-aged kids and what resources you’ve found most helpful! I’m always looking for opportunities to learn more. What I’m doing is working for now, but kids can change so quickly and it can be hard to keep up!

Joonu is a wife and mother to a 3-year old energetic little boy and has one on the way. She is just starting out on her journey in homeschooling and embraces it as a family lifestyle. She is also a successful yoga teacher, the co-founder and President of a charity called Blackstone Valley WomenAid, Inc, coordinator of service activities at her church, and a Chief Dream Officer of an entrepreneurial development community for women called The Dream Factory Community. She enjoys being in nature, spiritual study, reading, golf, chocolate, and spending time with family and friends. She started blogging as a way of recording her observations and got great feedback from family and friends so she kept going. Her intention is that by sharing of her own experience she can offer resources, support, and ultimately enrich someone experience of themselves as whole, perfect, and loved. Please visit her blog at howhomeschoolinghappens.blogspot.com.