My post on getting ready for a new homeschool year felt a little disorganized to me. Maybe that’s because I had several children interrupting me every 17 seconds (I usually don’t punish myself in this way, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do).
For the next few days I thought of more and more ways to make things easier this homeschool year. I took notes, thought some more. And I’ve come up with a lot of things that will work for our family. Maybe they’ll help you too?
Keep Ruby (The Preschooler) Busy
To be honest, this is my biggest concern this year. Right now, Ruby is enjoying a stay with my parents. It’s been nice having a little break from her antics. Real nice.
Well, other than the fact that I woke up this morning with body aches, and a red, painful streak-y spot on my breast: mastitis. That’s not fun a day before school starts. Last year, I had a baby two days into the school year. Some people will do anything to get attention! But I digress.
Being at her grandparent’s has underscored to me that keeping her busy and engaged is paramount to preventing behavior problems.
Imagine a tornado coming through and picking up the contents of a petting zoo, a Toys R Us and an American Girl doll store, and then depositing it in a house. That’s what it’s like at my parent’s home.
While I’m not one who believes that kids need a lot of stuff, they do need a lot of stuff to do, especially at this age. In the absence of any exciting activity, Ruby now opts to pick on her baby sister.
Keeping the bright, precocious preschooler busy while the big kids do school is a must.
So.
– I found this huge list of activities for 3 year olds that I will refer to. (I have to weed out the many fun activities for this age that create messy choking hazards for the younger sibling crawling around.)
– I’ve put most of her toys up in a toy library of sorts. The point of this is to rotate them: I’ll create wow! factor which will keep her interest, and there will be less mess since she’ll have access to fewer toys. I’m also starting to rotate her books. She loves her books, but she totes 5 or 6 of the same ones around all the time, so I doubt she’ll mind.
– I created a bag of goodies just for her that I’ll keep up out of sight/reach, and only bring out when the kids start their math at the beginning of the school day. It has stickers, old unneeded workbooks for her to “do school” in, scissors, glue sticks, crayons, colored pencils, Post-It notes, etc. I’ll pick an activity from the Bag o’ Fun and make a big deal out of her doing her “math” or whatever. There’s even a REAL workbook in there with pre-math and pre-writing exercises. She’ll love it. And she’ll have to remain at the table in order to use the goodies. Then, it goes UP until the next day. (This is the most important part, because girlfriend can destroy a wall in seconds with a nubbin of a crayon.)
– I am going to get really FIRM about insisting she stay in BED for quiet time. Last year I tried (and mostly failed) to fix her napping issues. But after reading DreamLand, I’ve decided this is a non-negotiable in her life. The book mentioned research which shows that 3 year olds who are made to stay in bed for a nap sleep 2 hours more in each 24 hour period, compared to 3 year olds who aren’t. In other words, the nappers didn’t shorten their nighttime sleep, which many parents may have presumed. And the nappers? Their behavior and relationships with their parents were far better, too. So there’s that.
– Assign the big kids to small pockets of time where they are expected to take Ruby outside to run around. She can jump on the trampoline, swing, whatever. And I always make her WALK when I do my daily walk around the neighborhood.
– And lastly, I’m going to work harder to keep her by my side and involve her in my activities. She loves to help in the kitchen, and has her own spray bottle of cleaner, so I’m sure she’ll be happy to do this.
How do you keep your preschooler busy and happy in your homeschool?
Part 2, about making homeschool easier by creating schedules and encouraging independence, is here.
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