Homeschool Diaries - Learning Time with My Preschooler

Hey guys, I wanted to share with you what my youngest kiddo is up to these days! We are using plastic drawers to store the kid's subjects and activities in, it's called the Work-box System. He really likes it and enjoys doing school work every day.He is a bit on the young side for having to do school every day, but I have learned the hard way from my two older kiddos, so having him build this routine up early has been paying off. We do about 20 minutes of work on one subject a day, about 3-4 days a week if we are lucky. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less. Sometimes he likes to do all subjects. It just depends on the day, and how his other siblings are doing.He really likes math and counting and I have him working on this fun page math printable you can find here at thisreadingmama.com. You need to be a subscriber for these fun counting and reading printables', but it's totally worth it because thisreadingmama.com is a fabulous resource for homeschoolers!Right now, we are putting their math counters (pompoms, mathlink cubes, and animal counters) in a tin box we got from Christmas time, and their markers, scissors, and crayons are kept in the buckets they kept after we decorated them after reading the book How Full is your Your Bucket. I found them at the dollar store. We have gone through many different methods for storing supplies, but we find having them in some sort of caddy or bucket works nicely.He also loves to count almost anything he can find, including the pinecones in our front yard. It reminds me of a great book we are reading with my oldest kiddo, "Make a Tree Friend." We are using RAZ Kids and this book is one of them. It talks about different moods you may be in and corresponding trees that are perfect for those moods. If you are wanting to count, a Pine Tree is a perfect friend to make. He does love counting pine cones, we counted to 86, I believe. He was going for 100. We are starting to add readers in the aa level for him, about topics he enjoys. I hope to do up more posts about RAZ-Kids for you guys in the future.

Art is one of his favorite + easiest subjects to accomplish

Drawing, coloring, painting, and clay time. He absolutely loves to do these things, along with reading and story time. We are reading my Minecraft Readers and doing our Minecraft Counting Book, as well as coloring any fun Minecraft coloring pages we can find online. We collected our coloring pages, cut them out and glued them to a poster board for even more storytelling and fun. My kids love these white Poster Boards. They are great for making any simple coloring page turn into something even more special. Playing with clay in our home is the next supply we cannot live without, that and Kraft Dinner, and don't forget to keep those hammers from toolkits you may have kicking around but do not see any action with anymore, as you can see, we love this hammer from a toolkit by Melissa and Doug. The clay we get is the air dry clay from the dollar store, and you can find it at Walmart or Amazon as well. Molding Clay Magic is also another fun addition that they love anytime, any day. It is an easy activity to add to our routine, and lessons. My youngest likes to play and tell stories while fighting the monster, and what not. He also loves for me to help make him things he likes, and I like to play with the clay too.

Exercise + Play Time

He loves climbing, swimming, and all kinds of fun playtime with his siblings. We usually make time for this on the weekends as a family, for just him and I throughout the day at home, and in the yard or at the park with his siblings. In the winter, we shoveled a ton of snow into a hill, and placed our huge slide on it! He loves this. They all did actually.Sometimes we head to the fun factory and play in the ball pit, which he can't get enough of. And then there is baking, making bread or pizza and all kinds of messes! There is no doubt, with a toddler in the house, you will always have something to do, something to smile about and something to clean. Homeschooling with him in our house has been a true pleasure and I am so grateful for these days.I am finding that he picks up a ton from the subjects we are working on with the older siblings. We weren't counting to 100 and adding with my older kiddos when they were 4, but with him, we are, because they are doing it now. That is the beauty of homeschooling. The younger kids really end up benefitting immensely from it all, even if you do not see it.And that's a wrap!Till next time,Breathe deeply and build your masterpiece,Alexandra