My goal is to do something educational daily, even it's just a few minutes. Here's why:
- Teaching and learning time creates a bonding moment between Grace and me. Sometimes the day gets full, and she and I both need that time to tie a few heart strings.
- Small steps (hopefully) prepare me for future homeschooling schedule. I figure if I ease into homeschooling slowly, by the time I have to do this for real, it should be a part of our routine. I'm not lying when I say homeschooling scares me silly. My biggest concern is striking the balance of proper education, family time, and keeping the home in working order.
- Directed activity calms Grace. She is at the age where she needs some play time structure. She gets bored and begins to misbehave. If she's gotten to that point, I know I missed my cues to direct her mind to something structured.
- It's fun! It really is amazing to watch little children as they learn and discover. Their joy of learning is truly infectious and delightful.
Sometimes I fail to be consistent. I get busy, so I put it off, and it gets late. Dinner has to be fixed and daddy gets home. No one wants to do school once our favorite person is home for the day!
 |
| Leah has an insatiable appetite for crayons. We can't keep her out of them! |
I would love to hear any other homeschoolers out there with suggestions for establishing/easing into a school time routine with pre-school age children.
6 lovely comments:
April,
There are many ways that you already home school the girls on a daily basis and you are consistant with it, I think one of the first ways is potty training, another, is doing chores....I agree you should do something everyday at the same time, what about getting a digital clock, stop watch type sold at Marc's and setting it to go off everyday at the same time, or better yet use your phone, find a funny ringtone, so when the girls hear it they know 15 or whatever min are expected of me to do work, it becomes part of your routine, and also, they may be having the best time of their life right then, but, schooling overrides, you can come back to the fun, just a suggestion, love you blog! love ya
My 5-year-old twins have one of those clocks in their bedroom that makes different bird sounds at the top of the hour... For awhile, when they heard a bird call, they were to bring me a book and we'd have a "reading break." Then we changed to "Top-of-the-Hour Preschool." Years ago I read a book by Cheri Fuller called Opening Your Child's Nine Learning Windows and decided we'd actually try to gently rotate through activities in each of the windows every day or so. I decided to use "foreign language" as a separate window, so we have 10 windows total. But by gradually working through each of the areas on a regular basis, it helps to develop each of the "multiple intelligences." We consider the Spiritual and Values windows to be tantamount, so we hit them every day with scripture reading and musical scripture memorization for the Spiritual Window and watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons together and discussing them for the Values Window. And we have "defaults" for especially busy days or weeks! Playing memory songs during meals or nap/quiet times, tracing and coloring coloring sheets, assembling puzzles or playing with magnetic pattern blocks, etc. Easy, no-work-for-mom options. Often given copies of Cheri Fuller's book as baby shower gifts. Awareness is empowering!
My oldest turned three in May and I started doing Preschool with him in August when area schools started. It's three days a week (Tuesday-Thursday) from 9:00-9:45. Sometimes we start a tad late or tad early. It doesn't matter but that time is definitely set aside for school whether either one of us wants to do it or not. The books I use are similar to the one you pictured above. In fact I'm using that same book...:) But I did find Preschool books on the alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes and my local Dollar Tree and we are doing that. We actually enjoy doing "school"!
@Kari (Allison) Smith Thanks, Kari! I love your small but consistent time schedule. I'm gonna give it a shot!!
I hate to say it (My husband and I joke about it) but my son has the attention span of a gnat! So I don't spend too much time on one thing. We work on tracing lines, tracing/writing his name, an alphabet letter a week along with matching Bible verse, a shape a week, and a color. I also found plenty of websites to print off worksheets to teach him fine motor skills like cutting. I think it's his favorite of all the things we do. It may sound like alot but it really does only last between 30 to 45 min.
@Kari (Allison) Smith
Oh yes...it's ok if they don't get it all at three. They're going to get the same material only in a different format when their four and five. It's best to keep them interested.
Post a Comment