What To Do With Toddlers & Preschoolers While You're Homeschooling

One of the popular questions I was asked in my Large Family Living series is, "What do you do with toddlers and preschoolers while you're trying to homeschool?"

It's funny, I remember asking the same thing when my big kids were little.  I think part of the answer is to have older children who are patient and understanding.  When your kids are all little, things are more challenging.  I've always said, "If you have 3 or more kids, and the oldest is not capable of showering by themselves yet, you're in the Boot Camp Years of parenting."

I've had littles underfoot pretty much ever since I started homeschooling.  Different things work for different kids.  Sometimes, it feels like nothing works for some kids!  Busy toddler boys are a handful!  

Here are a few things that we've tried over the years, or are working for us now. 

Cheap and free ideas:  Coloring!  Crayons, markers, colored pencils...  Whether you print pages for them to color, or use the back of junk mail for them to scribble on, most kids will color for at least a little while.

Scissor practice!  A preschooler can be set to work cutting out non-essential coupons, or shapes you've drawn for them.  

Dot Markers  There are many printable dot marker pages online, or there are books you can buy.  

Blocks are always good, and can be combined with other toys like Little People or animals, or they can be used on their own to teach size (big, bigger, biggest), colors, and counting.  

My kids have all really enjoyed Legos/Duplos/Mega Bloks.

Math manipulatives:  We have counting bears, pattern blocks, tangrams, links, balance, etc.  While one thing won't necessarily hold their attention for a long period of time every time, sometimes dumping out and cleaning up one after another of them will occupy your toddler long enough so you can help another child get through their math.  

We store our manipulatives in these cute buckets from Lakeshore.  

The nice thing about occupying your littles with math manipulatives is that they're educational.  Learning shapes, classifying, and more happens organically when a parent or older child plays with a toddler or preschooler who is using one of these sets.

One thing that helps occupy our younger crowd is having certain toy sets in buckets, so they are less accessible.  This serves the dual purpose of making them more special, and it keeps the pieces from being mixed up in the bottom of the toy boxes.  

Wedgits are one of those toys.  Any time they ask, "Mommy, can we play Wedgits?" I tell them yes, as long as the playroom isn't already totally thrashed, and if it is, I ask them to pick up first, so they don't mix the Wedgits in to the general toy population.  We have a standard set, a purple set, the idea cards, and a baseplate.  These can occupy my girls for quite a while, and they're great for spatial reasoning.  Think of them as toddler Tetris.  

Some playthings I would totally love to add to our collection of special school toys:

Rainbow Nesting Wooden Blocks Stacker - I can't justify the expense, but oh, isn't it lovely?  

Animal Counters (I know we have bear counters, but these offer more sorting opportunities)

Safari Toobs --these are great for kids who don't put things in their mouth anymore!  Lots of open ended play possibilities.  We have a few, but I'd love to get some more.

It's important not to overlook the simple things.  Inside, colored masking tape on the floor makes a great balance beam for physical exercise.  Outside, you can achieve the same thing with sidewalk chalk.  Sidewalk chalk is also good for driveway artwork.  And once you're out there, how about bubbles?  The spill proof bubbles are pretty good now.  Your older kids can be working on nature studies or art (we seem to have been assigned a lot of "go outside and draw" in our current art book lately) while your littles run off some energy outdoors.  As spring fever sets in, we'll probably take our schoolwork outside as a treat.  Last year, I used to read aloud to the kids while we lounged around on the warm trampoline in the sun.

We keep a basket of board books in the school room that Katie can read any time she wants to hang out with us.  I'm very lucky.  She's usually happy to play with her kitchen set or the Playmobil sets left over from when the big boys were little, downstairs in the playroom, for quite a while.

Next school year, Katie will be 4, and I intend to get a little more serious about directing her toward educational activities for part of the day.  However, I'm a big believer in the idea that play is the work of children, so I'm not going to go overboard with a rigidly structured, labor intensive curriculum.  Last year, I had the chance to review a fabulous book, The Homegrown Preschooler: Teaching Your Kids in the Places They Live.  There are a ton of great ideas in there that will keep us busy.

If you can stand messy, there's always painting, play doh, and water play.  Just don't be surprised if your big kids want to stop what they're doing and get in on all the fun your busy little bees are having with the things you're trying to distract them with so you can homeschool the big kids.  Irony, much?

I'd love to hear what your little ones do during school time!  

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IT HAD TO BE YOU $100 Visa Giveaway from @SusanMayWarren!

Today, I want to tell you about It Had to Be You, a novel by Susan May Warren.  Oh, this was a good one!  I actually got caught up in it the night I picked it up, and when Paul woke up after 1 a.m. and I was still reading, he was not exactly thrilled with me.

It's a love story, but you could tell that from the cover art, right?  This book makes me smile just trying to describe it.  The characters are strong, vivid people you can easily imagine.  The tension of knowing that Eden and Jace are going to end up together, but not seeing how it's going to happen because they're so different and don't like each other at all makes the story suspenseful.

Parts of it are sad, parts of it are funny, but all in all, this was a great read for a cold winter's day, since it's centered around the world of hockey.

You know how sometimes you get the same "theme" or message from several different sources in your life?  Call it the Law of Attraction, or God trying to get your attention, or whatever you want, but here again, I find myself picking up the theme, Why do bad things happen to good people?  I liked the conversation between Jace and Eden's dad, John, where he talks about blessings from ashes and discovering what was seeded in the fire.  (If you're interested, there actually are certain trees that only sprout after a fire, learn why here.)

This book will make you smile.  It may make you cry.  And hopefully, it will make you register to be an organ donor.  I know Sam and Maddy's story made me want to double check my license for that telltale pink dot.

I loved the way there were several different threads going within the story line.  I felt made the book more multifaceted.  This was a worthwhile read, and I'll be looking for more books by Susan May Warren next time we make it to the library.

Susan May Warren is celebrating the release of her newest Christiansen Family novel, It Had To Be You, with a $100 Visa cash card giveaway and offering readers a free book club kit.

  One winner will receive:

• $100 Visa cash card
• Take a Chance on Me and It Had to Be You by Susan May Warren

Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on March 29th. Winner will be announced April 1st on Susan's blog. Also, visit her website to learn more about the It Had To Be You backstory and Susan's free book club kit.

Don't miss a moment of the fun; enter today and be sure to stop by Susan's blog on April 1st to see if you won.

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Weekly Wrap Up, St. Patrick's week 27

Hannah had to make a leprechaun trap for school over the weekend.  We started with a little shoebox, which Hannah painted black.

I set Brianna to work finding some "gold" to entice our leprechaun.  She came up with some beads and a little trophy, and glitter glue.  Then Brianna drew lines on construction paper so Hannah could cut strips for the rainbow.  I used packing tape to hold the rainbow together from the back.  

I wrote her name in glitter glue in the lid, and Hannah wrote about how she made her trap and how it works.  There's something very cute about elementary kids' writing.  

And here's my girl with her finished product, ready to take it to school and share about it in front of her class.  

Meanwhile, in other news, Katie has learned how to use and enjoy Hannah's Leap Pad.  They've got Kai Lan and Little Pim Chinese  on there, along with some other educational stuff, so I don't mind her using it a little once in a while, but it's weird to me how young kids start with technology these days.  Hannah uses computers at school in first grade.

Katie wore one of Hannah's old St. Patrick's Day shirts on Monday.  As we start to talk about who will go where for school next year, it's looking more and more like Katie will be the only one of the 3 youngest kids at home.  I will have to be creative about including her in our school day, since she won't have anyone to play with downstairs any more.  I have a couple of curriculum ideas in mind for her, but I want to be realistic about my limits, as well.

Lukey had a new shirt that says, "Irish Pandas Eat Clover."  His transition meeting with the school district was Wednesday, and I think it went well.  We have an appointment for his assessment in June, and his IEP meeting in July, and school starts in August.  He'll be fitted for a wheelchair next month for transport to & from school on the short bus.

This is Luke's shirt.  Eli saw it when it came in the mail and decided it was such a great shirt he wanted it.  Yes, my 12 year old son stuffed himself into the 2 year old's shirt.  That's a clover he's posing with.  Little ham.

Brianna made corn muffins on St. Patrick's Day and dyed one of them with green food coloring.  She has started a new review product we'll be telling you about soon.  

Here are the boys' actual St Patrick's Day shirts.  If Eli's shirt looks familiar, it's because you saw it in February.

We read our new book, God's Amazing World, together on St Patrick's Day.  Have you entered to win your copy?  We're also working on a new audio book, about a homeschooling family, and we're enjoying it just as much as we did our Stories of the Pilgrims audio book, or The Golden Goblet, that we listened to during our Egyptian studies.  

This week, I also happened to catch Miss Hannah napping.  School can be exhausting, and some days, she can use a little rest in the afternoon.  Note to self:  Buy the child some new socks.

Precious girl.  I wouldn't think it would be comfy to sleep with glasses on.

Fortunately, she wakes up happy and ready to face the rest of the day.

We learned to draw stick figures this week.

We tried the rectangle approach and the hot dog approach.

This week, we got our art supplies order for an art curriculum review that we're really looking forward to.  The book didn't show up until after Friday's school day was finished, or we'd have already started it.  We have several fun reviews in the works right now.

We're going to be making Greek pots, so I asked the kids to make sketches to come up with ideas of what they wanted to paint on the finished pots once they're done.  (Above is Brianna's)

Jack did a great sketch of the Trojan Horse.

Excuse the messy playroom.  It's rare to catch Luke on his tummy, and I was impressed with the train track Katie was creating.  People sometimes ask what the little ones do while we're homeschool.  Mostly this.

Eli works on his enunciation, pronunciation, and projection skills, reading from 2 Kings.

And Brianna practices her good posture (or not) while she works on math.  She has completed the timed math drills in addition, subtraction, and multiplication that I've got the kids doing on Xtra Math.  She's looking forward to finishing division and being done with those.  The boys are both still working on addition.  Speed is a challenge.

Notice anything different about Eli?  He's sporting a new 'do.  Last time I cut his hair, he decided to keep a stripe.  It suits his personality, but I'm hoping it's one of the more short lived styles.

Our classroom has the sounds of German and Spanish continuing from our Mango Languages, but we've also added an Aussie accent with a new math program Eli is using on the computer.  We'll be letting you know more about that next month.

Linking up with:  http://www.greatpeaceacademy.com/ and

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