Saturday, May 8, 2010

What Do You Do With Infants and Toddlers While Homeschooling?

Waiting for school to begin on Thursday.


This is the question of the day over at The Homeschool Classroom. I know this has a a question of my own from time to time, so I thought I'd share what is currently working for us.

In addition to many other things, I see home schooling as an opportunity to create a close bond between my children. Learning time is something that we all look forward to. All three of my children, age 4, 2 and 8 months, come to 'school' together. We read stories together, sing our songs together, count together, go on our Nature Walks together, etc.

The children each have their own activites that I set out in their bins, but they do their work side by side. This allows for Mustang and Charger to see what the other is doing and learn by observation. Mustang, especially, loves to teach what she knows, and I let her help me with Mini Cooper's activites. Yep, even Mini has a few bins. I have also noticed that Mini Cooper lights up when we sing the Alphabet song or our Days of the Week song. Having them all together does bring oportunities to learn to wait your turn as I cant help everyone at once, but this is an important skill to learn.

To be fair, I am not trying to teach Chemistry or Algebra or even long division to any of my students. I can imagine that would be a bit difficult to learn as a group, and we may need to make adjustments when my children get older. But, for now, this is what works for us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

loved reading this! I am always curious whats going on behind the scenes so to speak! I think that them working and learning together from such a young age will help them to learn better around each other later.. but just my opinion :-)

Prudence Arcadia said...

Hi! I followed this from the Homeschool Classroom. I also have a 4 and a 8 month old, and have been (not very successfully) trying to work with my oldest daughter. They are not as close as your lovely children, but I notice as time goes on, my DD is warming up to her brother, who adores her. I have been going about this wrong, I love your suggestions, I am going to try them out! Thank you!