How do I homeschool my preschoolers at home? Ages 2 and 4.?

Question

How many times a week should I do activities? What kind of activities? How do I get started? Please, any advice would be great!

Answer 1

I am a stay home dad. I have a 2 year old and a 6 month old. I am interested in finding out more about homeschooling myself... the actual curriculum and schedules others use, as well as where my child should be intellectually, (at what ages).

I know my children are young, but my 2 y.o. is ready. By 2 I mean just turned 2 a week ago. He can count by himself to 20, knows his ABC's in order verbally and knows each letter in any order. He knows animals by site and knows "what they say". He stands in a chair to help do dishes, he can get the specific colored towel I ask him to get when we fold laundry. He identifies colors correctly. He can draw some letters, circles, and squares. He can also identify circle, square, triangle, and many many other things. I having site word cards I use with him and he loves them. Those cards alone have created other "Teachable Moments" just from him recognizing something. Remember teaching and learning are perpetual. My son will learn to read before he attends school (if he attends), but only because he chooses to learn how.

When he was a 1 y.o.  we were in a rug store and he was playing with a bright pink sign that said "SALE 50%". I took the sign and told him what it said. Six months later in another rug store my son stood in front of a similar colored sign that read, "SALE 50%", and I heard him say, "SALE"! I did not beleive my ears, so I asked him what he said and he repeated it and again for his mother. For ten minutes I was flabbergasted. I asked the lady who worked there if she had mentioned anything out loud and she said no. It finally dawned on me that he remembered it.

My sister and her 2 y.o. old were riding in her car the other day and my sis told her son to look at the "Mack truck" and he said,"not Mack truck", she insisted, "yes Mack truck", and he again, "not mack truck". She being a mother could not believe her son was sassing her, so she firmly repeated herself,"Jackson yes that is a Mack truck!", but Jack being the smart kid he is said back firmly,"No mommy not Mack truck, FUEL TRUCK!" She was flabbergasted and embarassed, but Jack got praised and apologized to when she discovered is reasononig. He has a book at home with all types of machinery and trucks. He can tell you when he sees an excavator (yes he can say it), bull dozer, dump truck, others as well as a fuel truck. Mainly because she used his interest to teach him... Teachable Moments.

The key to teaching any young children is remembering, "TEACHABLE MOMENTS". These for my son are when he ask to color, ask to read (me reading, LOL), is curious, starts counting, etc. Keeping a child's attention is how you teach no matter what the age. I am teaching my 6 month old how to make sounds, to push and pull, to hold her bottle, to crawl, to sit up, but all these things are things she WANTS to do on her own... I am helping or teaching.

There was a comment mentioned about kid's don't remember at 3 or before 4... I am 30 years old and can tell you many many things about my life at 2 years old. I can also remember specific times that I was taught something. I learn to ride a bike without training wheels at 3, yes 3. Why? because my father took advantage of a "teachable moment", when his son wanted to ride with the big kids. I remember knowing my ABC's, 1-100, my address, phone number, full name, as well as my birthday when I started kinder.

If you are asking the question, "how", then you already know your kid's are ready. Many people will tell you 2 year olds are not ready to be schooled, but they are ready to be taught.

I think the main answer to your question isn't "How" but "When do I homeschool my preschoolers?". I say use the teachable moments. Make if fun, let them ask for flash cards, coloring, numbers games. Give them choices. Allow them to learn structure by choosing structure. Structure your day limiting TV and the time your children entertain themselves. Self entertainment is great, but time is better spent if you have involvement. My son will grab his books and sit on the floor in his room and just look at the pictures and pretend to read... that is great, but I can better use that time if I sit with him and teach him about the pictures and let him pick out letters.

To me the key is simple, "Teachable Moments".

I know I am not a pro and am not "educated" in this field, but as a parent and someone who was once a child, I had to post my thoughts here. I sincerely hope that no one is offended, and I truly hope I helped a little.

Now how do you potty train? LOL

Answer 2

I would focus on the 4 year old, and just let the 2 year old be a baby still! I  home schooled our 4 year old for pre-k and we had a daily schedule that was pretty easy-going. We would start with the Pledge of Allegiance so she would know it when she went off to Kindergarten. We did approx. 10 minutes of some sort of workbook activities (she loved doing that!), about 10 minutes of a hands-on math activity, and then we did some other activity that involved the alphabet/reading. We also practiced such things as opening her lunch box and all the items inside, raising our hand, etc... so she would be better prepared for Kindergarten. There are a TON of websites out there on homeschooling. Just google homeschooling and you will be able to go from there! Again though, I would let the little one be for now and just let him/her learn through play and exploration!

Answer 3

When a child is this young, they need lots of time to play and be a child, however, there are still things you can do.  I have homeschooled 3 children through preschool, and still have two preschoolers.  What I did with all of mine was to buy the books "Everything for Early Learning" from Wal-Mart.  If your 4-year-old, wants to sit down and do the work, you can start that, but otherwise, you can just discuss the pages.  Children need adult conversation to build their vocabularies.  I would just flip through the book and then think of activities you would normally do with your child where you can talk about these preschool skills.  You can put a little check on the corner of the pages the child has mastered.

Reading to the child daily is very important.  A lot of infants are not able to sit on your without grabbing the book, but keep trying a little each day until they are able to read with you.  With a four-year-old, you can start pointing to the words, but they may not be able to distinguish individual words for a while.  Just use large print and read the same books over and over.  We acted out some of the stories and this has helped my children to be able to read with a lot more expression.

If you don't have a toy, or a video with the alphabet song, try to find one, or you can make a tape or recording on your computer.  After they have mastered the song, you can begin to point out individual letters and telling them the names.  Just do 1-3 per day and repeat the same ones several days for review and reinforcement.   These lessons should be pretty short, maybe 5-10 minutes.  Try to make it into a game, and they will be able to focus on it a little longer.  After the child knows all the names of the upper and lowercase letters, start teaching the sounds each letter makes.  You can do it the same way you taught the names of each letter.

Don't worry if they don't get beyond the alphabet song before they turn five.  That is about how far they get in head start.

My last preschooler was reading about 30 words when she turned 5.  Over the summer she doubled this.  She was able to read her Bible to herself in kindergarten.  By the end of kindergarten she was reading 3-5th grade books.    I mostly just let her read when and what she wanted, but I wrote down the amount of time for my records.  I feel that any child less than 8-10 years should not be forced to read or write beyond their attention span.  Try to make it fun and go crazy about their progress and their attention span should improve little by little.

                                -Carrie

Answer 4

1 have 3 children, 5, 3 and 18 mo. Yes we all need to do what u are doing.  I focus on numbers, colors, shapes, letters and prewritting , pre reading.  Make your lessons for your older child and water them down as needed. It all depends on your 4 year old,.  I have notebooks for each child and they scribble and write and we do lessons of whatever is intereresting at the time for a while it was science so we did some easy sci projects. for a while it was insets so we went to the library and got a ton of books about insects. I'd take them to bed time an hour before they fall asleep turn off the tv and just read touch and lok at the books.

Follow your instinct its best.

Answer 5

I started working with my daughter when she was about two...then I started babysitting my neice and a neighbor about a year later...Mine was three, my neice was four and my neighbor's son was three.

I have an aunt that is an aide in a school district in SC...she sent me the four year old objectives they use in her school...I downloaded the preschool and 1st grade objectives for Illinois where I live off the internet....(turns out SC has more demanding objectives than Illinois or Michiagan where more relatives live...surprise)

Anyway, I sat down with each of them and determined what they already knew.  And then I started surfing the net for preschool sites.  I started with the alphabet (finding sheets that taught sounds, how to write the letters, and ones that taught words that begin with that letter).  We also worked on numbers and all the other concepts my aunt gave me like identifying patterns, picking out things from a group that are different and so on.

The first thing I did was look for preschool materials and activities online.  I found more sites than I could ever imagine that I could download activities off of for free.

I tried a magazine called Family Fun because I was offered a years subscription for $2...that turned out to be  blessing.  We do activities out of there every month.  It is a great resource.

I kept my eye open for activity books and workbooks when I was out and about.  I found stuff at Walmart, Used book stores, Thrift shops and so on.  

At least four days a week we work on our activities.  I have a folder for each child with printed acitivities in them.  I pull out five or so from each folder and then we sit down at the table with a box full of crayons and pencils.  We talk about each sheet while they are working.  

We also do art activities in which I can teach other concepts from science and social studies...We have made a George Washington puppet from toilet paper rolls, we have made clay flower paper weights in spring, we have made artwork from fallen leaves in the fall, we made sugar crystals, we cook regularly and talk about fractions, we also do things for each holiday learning about the holiday at the same time.

We read stories and sometimes make up our own stories.

I also found a Hooked on the Bible kit by the Hooked on Phonics people....I also have an older Hooked on Phonics kit that some teachers were getting rid of.  We read the stories, I ask them questions about the story, we learn Bible versus, and we do artwork that coordinates with the stories.

The kids love to do their activities.  When we fill a folder I send it home with the other kids and then I give them a fresh folder to decorate.

During the summer we slowed down because we did more outside at parks and at the local pond.  I thought being outside and discovering nature was more important.  

Now it's winter and we are back inside.  The oldest is now in all day kindergarten.  I was told she missed me and wanted to come learn at my house for about two weeks but then made friends and was fine.  Her teachers are impressed with her abilities.

In the past year we have done almost the entire alphabet learning how to write each of them, learning the sounds they make and being able to make a list of words that begin with each letter. We have learned all our numbers up to 20..being able to write them and recognize them.  They can count by fives, do simple addition and subtraction problems involving numbers 1 - 10, tell basic time, count money involving pennies and nickels, and much, much more....their little brains are like sponges and they are able to grasp concepts I would have never though possible.  There really is something to be said for working with children one-on-one rather than large groups.

Even my two year old caught on when I didn't think she was even paying attention. She's three now and recognizes most of her alphabet and numbers up to 10, can count to 20 only missing one or two numbers, recite most of her letters and numbers in spanish, and so on....She can also write an M, V, O, C and probably more if she would perform for mommy on command.  

I keep three ring binders for different subjects and pull from them when we need to start a new notebook.  At night when the kids are in bed I'll surf the net for new materials and resources to put in my notebooks.

I also need to add that I have lots of educational toys around for them to play with like the Leap Frog leappad, the Leapster TV, LeapFrog magnetic letters, puzzles, Go Fish cards, and we go on-line to Nick Jr to play games there on the computer.

I take them to the library once a week in spring, summer and fall.  They pick out movies to check out...most of which are educational like Signing Time, Popular Mechanics for kids, Leap Frog DVD's, and so on.  We read books while we are there and sometimes pick up activities that they will have available each month.

The resources you can find are endless...the idea is to get organized.  First find out what the objectives for preschool age children are in your state, then determine where your children are, then research materials for what they need to know, organize what you find, keep track of what they are learning and always repeat concepts as a review with new materials (repitition is very important to learning), and take breaks from time to time (or do something fun to break things up).

Make everything you do a learning experience...count in Spanish when you climb stairs, talk about the food they eat and what parts of the body it helps, stop and smell the flowers and talk about the insects, sing songs in the bathtub, let them help you cook and talk to them about measuring and how ingredients interact, sit with them when they watch tv and talk about what they are watching (don't do more than two hours a day of this...studies show it's terrible for their brain development, creativity, and ability to concentrate or pay attention to real life.)

Have fun!!!

PS...please don't pay any attention to those that would tell you kids don't need to be homeschooled.  Do you know how many children start public school and they don't know anything?  They can't tell you their full name, their parents names, how the cow goes, they can't recognize any colors, any numbers.....anything....

Don't force your children to sit down and sit still for long periods.  Break things up.  Make it fun.  Let them work at their own pace.  They will soak up more than you will realize.  And they will be so much better off for it.

There is nothing sadder than a five year old that has no skills.  They know how to play....but they are dumb as dirt.  They look cute in their expensive coordinated little outfits, but they look like deer in headlights when you start talking about the alphabet or how to spell their own name.  They haven't even held a pencil before and they still scribble like a baby when coloring.  Why do parents today believe they have no role in the education of their children and leave it up to over-worked teachers that have to try to teach a room full of kids everything from reading, writing, and arithematic to manners and morals.  Parents really are missing the boat these days.

I commend you on your desire to start early with your kids.

Answer 6

read to them and play with them. you may teach them a lot of stuff,, but eventually all their classmates are going to be on the same level as them anyway after preschool. all my parents did was read to me before bed and let me play. they took me to the library, but never sat down (that i can remember) and taught me ABCs and 123s. I learned that all in school, and i'm 4th in my senior class with 4 AP classes so i don't think the time i learned has anything to do with how i turned out. just get them playing on their own. don't push it. kids can't remember anything before they turn 3 anyway.. and what do you actually remember learning when you were 4??

Answer 7

i would have them read a easy book and then ask them what it was about  and for the little on speend time with them and do things like play ball color thing like that

Answer 8

You DON'T. Children that age don't need to be "schooled", just played with, read to, taken to interesting places that engage them and be allowed to socialize with other children their age. It's not called home schooling, it's called being a mom.