Homeschooling With A Toddler

Homeschooling with multiple children is always a bit of a balancing act, especially when one (or more) of them is a toddler. Keeping your toddler happy and entertained during your school time with your older children can be tough. In this post I share my best activities and tips for keeping your toddler busy so that you can focus on working with your older children.

Sensory Bins

Sensory bins are a fantastic way to keep toddlers busy for awhile. A sensory bin is simple to make. They are a simple bin filled with some sort of tactile material like sand, rice, dry beans, kinetic sand, etc...additional materials can be added as well like small figurines, sea shells, pretty stones, pom poms, acorns, small toy cars, anything small and fun to play with.

Sensory bins are great because in addition to just being fun for toddlers, they also promote healthy sensory integration and encourage imaginative play. For more information about sensory bins and some ideas for making some of your own, check out this post from Your Kids Table.

Coloring Books

Even pretty young toddlers can learn to hold a crayon and move it around on a page. I keep a bunch of cheap coloring books on hand for my toddler to work in during school time. Her favorites are coloring books with cute animals.

Pom Pom Sorting

My daughter loves this activity right now since she's learning her colors. Just set out several plastic bowls and dump out a pile of different colored pom poms. Put one of each color, each in a different bowl and have your toddler try to sort them by color.

For younger toddlers, skip the color sorting part. They will just have fun putting pom poms in and out of the bowls. Plus it's good for fine motor development.

Legos Or Blocks

Playing with Legos (the larger toddler sized ones) or wooden blocks is almost always a hit around here. They can keep my two year old entertained for quite a while.

Get Them Their Own School Supplies

Get your toddler their own pencil box and fill it with crayons. Get some cheap Dollar Store workbooks and a couple notebooks. Your toddler will love playing school along with their older siblings. And you never know what they may pick up. My two year old is learning the letters of the alphabet by listening to her sister's spelling lessons.

Board Books

One of my two year old's favorite things to do while her older sister and I work on reading is to "read" her own books. She loves to flip the pages and say "read, read, read...." it's seriously the cutest thing ever. I am so glad she is developing an early love for books. Hopefully she'll be excited to learn to read when the time comes.

Use Nap Time To Your Advantage

Luckily most toddlers still take naps, unless your one of my "sleep is for the weak children". Use nap time to your advantage, save messy or difficult projects and lessons for when your toddler is asleep.

Be Patient

Most important is just to be patient, with yourself and your toddler. It's a tough balancing act. Toddlers have short attention spans and sometimes your older kids need your focus. Take breaks when you need to.

And keep in mind that one of the advantages of homeschooling is that you can work at your own pace. If a lesson gets interrupted, that's okay, you have time to do what needs to be done and then pick your lesson back up.

How do you keep younger siblings busy during school lessons?

If you enjoyed this post, check out:

-Homeschool Curriculum And Resources: My Top Picks

-Learning To Read Is Not A Race

Follow me on:
Facebook
Pinterest
Instagram
Twitter

Comments

Water Relay Races For Kids

I don't know about your kids, but mine absolutely love games involving water and getting wet in the summer time. In this post I share 5 of our favorite water relay races to play with friends. These are perfect for birthday parties, homeschool get togethers, and other group events. Sponge Relay: For this relay you will need: - 2 teams of several kids each -2 large sponges -4 small buckets or containers of some sort Divide your participants into 2 teams and have each team line up single file at a predetermined starting place. Hand out a sponge to the first participant in each line. Set a bucket of water by each team. Set an empty bucket about 20 ft away from each team. The two empty buckets should be the same size and should have a "fill line" marked half way up. On a count of 3 (or ready set go) the first participant in each line should dip their sponge in the bucket of water, run to the empty bucket, squeeze the water from their spo

STEM Art: 21 STEAM Project Ideas

My kids love STEM projects and we're always looking for ways to add more art to our homeschool days, so I decided I am going to try to dedicate one morning a week this year to STEM art activities. In this post I share some of the ideas we're planning to try, plus a few favorites we've done in the past. What is STEM Education? STEM education is a blended and often hands on approach to teaching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, which are some of today's fastest growing industries. STEM education offers students the opportunity to problem solve and work on real world problems and questions. Sometimes the acronym STEAM is used, to include the arts. Adding art to STEM education encourages creative thinking and problem solving skills. It can also help make the other included subjects more appealing to some students. STEM Art Projects Penny Spinners- Learn about centrifugal force and make your own spinning tops with this fun post from Teach Beside Me. Explo

Make Your Own Mineral Identification Kit

One of my family's favorite hobbies is rock hounding. We love collecting and trying to identify neat rock and mineral specimens that we come across. You can put together your own simple kit for identifying rocks and minerals with materials you likely already have around your home. In this post I will explain how to put together your own mineral identification kit and how to use it to identify rocks and minerals you find on your adventures. Making a Rock and Mineral ID Kit Grab yourself a printable Rock and Mineral Journal for recording your observations here: Printable Rock and Mineral Journal , and then gather the following supplies: -A pencil -A coin -An iron nail -A piece of glass (an old pocket mirror works well) -A ceramic tile -A small watertight bottle or container -Some vinegar -A magnet -A magnifying glass -A dropper (optional) -Rock and mineral guide (optional) -A small container or bag to keep it all in Fill the small watertight

Learning About Thailand: Activities and Resources

Thailand ended up being a really fun country to study. There are so many amazing Thai recipes to try and lots of neat buildings and monuments to learn about. My family's favorite part of this unit study was learning about Asian elephants, they are such interesting and intelligent animals! Basic Information Thailand is a country in southern Asia. It is boarderd by Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Andaman Sea. The northern region is mountainous while the southern region is hilly and forested. Capital- Bangkok Population- 69.6 million Size- 198,115 square miles Currency- Baht Type of Government- Constitutional Monarchy National Anthem- Phleng Chat Thai National Animal- elephant Flag Famous Places The Grand Palace- The Grand Palace in Bangkok was used as the official royal residence of Thailand from 1782 to 1925. It is still used today for ceremonies and state functions. The palace sits on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. It consists of many buildings and pavilions set around a

Learning About The Human Body Part 1: The Skeletal And Muscular Systems

At the end of each school year, I sit down with my daughter to discuss what topics she wants to learn about the next year. One of her science topics she picked to study this year was the human body. Instead of ordering a boxed curriculum set, I decided to put together my own human body unit. In this post I share some of the resources we used for learning about the human skeletal and muscular systems, plus instructions for a couple hands on learning activities. You can find my post about the human respiratory and circulatory systems here , and my post about the human digestive and nervous systems here . The Human Skeletal System Our skeletons are the frame of our body. They give us structure, without them our bodies would be limp like noodles. They also provide places for muscles to attach so our bodies can move. Why Does Your Body Need Calcium? Experiment: This is a simple experiment you can do to explore why calcium is important for our bones. You will need: -several clean

Search This Blog