Learning As We Go

The most common question people ask me when we talk about homeschooling is: What do you do with your toddler when you are teaching your other children?

Certainly I struggle with this some days, though less often than when we were starting out.  Several resources have been of incredible help and encouragement to me, the first being Preschoolers and Peace.  If you haven’t seen Kendra’s site already, go check it out.  Another is Maria Montessori.  (She doesn’t have her own site.)  The Montessori method is such a developmental method of teaching, that allows children to explore the world– the real, beautiful, useful world– at their own level.  I invested early on in good quality Montessori-style supplies (from Montessori Services and have been very grateful.  Also, Paula’s Archives has a wealth of activity suggestions for toddlers and preschoolers.

But it’s not just about the right supplies or activities, right?  It’s about including little people in our daily learning, about helping them explore their world, about loving them even when they dump an entire bottle of purple conditioner in the carpet.  Ten minutes before you’re showing your house to the realtor.  While you’re fishing your keys out of the toilet.

So.  Where to begin?

Take a deep breath, and enjoy your toddler.  Enjoy that wonder at everything around them.  This is why they get into everything– they want to know how the world works.  This is a great age for non-structured nature walks, where you spend twenty minutes looking at one roly-poly.  Your child is considering the lilies.  Let them teach you their wonder at God’s creation.  My friend Season reminded me that my two year old had only been out of the womb for seven hundred-and-some days.  No wonder everything is so fascinating her!

Teach your toddler how to sleep.  She needs to sleep, and you need her to sleep.  An average toddler sleeps about 14 hours  day, so if yours isn’t, start there. 

Invest the time to prepare activities just for him.  The hours you spend doing this will pay off just as big as the time you spend preparing your more formal school.  Have your activities handy so that you can pull one out during school.  Keep these activities special, so that they are only for school-time, and only for him.  But push your toddler to work on them a little longer each time.  Miss Mason calls this learning the Habit of Attention, and that habit is going to be crucial to your child for the rest of his life.

Teach your older children to work independently.  Certainly, I’m not recommending your ten year-old teach himself German alone for six hours a day.  But your older children should know how to get themselves started in the morning, and how to get to the next thing if you’re cleaning up twenty-five pound of oats off the floor when they finish what they’re doing now.

Cultivate your sense of humor.  Some days, it will be the only thing that keeps you sane.

Expect your children to play with each other.  Every day, each of my older children takes a 15 or 20 minute turn playing what SweetP wants to play, so that I can work independently with one of the other older children.

Finally, love your children.  I had an idea that my children would be quiet introverts, readers who could entertain themselves all day.  That’s not who God gave me.  He gave me climbers who talk all the time.  But these children are such a gift to me, and their individuality is the spice of our home.  We have such a short time to introduce them to everything around them before they’re off and running– let’s make the most of it!

Your turn.  What do you do with your little climbers during “school” time?