Homeschooling in Peace

Keeping Toddler Busy so Older Kids Can Learn in Peace

           

One of the biggest hurdles we have encountered in the two years we’ve been homeschooling is keeping Lovebug entertained or busy while we try to do lessons. The boys are at the age now where they are able to work independently, but there are still many times when they need me there with them. When she was a small baby, it wasn’t so bad, I would just put her in her carrier or swing or sit her on my lap.

            

But as she’s gotten older and she learns more, she wants to be involved in everything we do. She’s not ready to read from textbooks or cut and paste yet, but she is getting very close. Here are a few things I threw together one afternoon, which have managed to successfully keep her amused and happy so I can teach the boys without constant interruptions.

          

      First is the pretend paint. This is the easiest thing we’ve ever done and whoever first came up with this (I got the idea from Pinterest) should be given a Noble Peace Prize. Lovebug is very good at not making a mess, when she wants to be. She loves painting and especially eating the “paint” off the brush. 

      

     Since it’s only water, I don’t have to worry and she doesn’t have any meltdowns because of being told “no”. Just a lid with a little bit of water, I reused an old peanut butter jar lid. I got a pack of 20 paintbrushes at the dollar store so no shortage of those.

   I’ve tried to get creative with things she can “paint” on. Of course there’s colorful construction paper. I also framed a piece of cardboard with fuzzy yarn and when she paints on it with the water, it’s visible. I found an old wooden crafting plaque and she enjoys coloring on it as well. This is her most favorite activity.

          

      Next is stringing beads on pipe cleaners. I wasn’t sure if she would have the dexterity yet to string the cleaners through the beads but she did very well. And she enjoys it. Inevitably the beads will get thrown on the floor, or at her brothers, but for a while she enjoys it. This activity is one of her favorites, along with sorting Q-Tips into a recycled Parmesan cheese container through the holes in the lid. 

        

In a variation of this, I cut a hole in the top of an old formula can (I still have a bunch stored away from when Lovebug drank it) and collected water bottle lids that she could put inside. 

    

I searched for tiny cookie stickers, I was going to make the can look like Cookie Monster and put the stickers on the lids. She could then “feed” the cookies to Cookie Monster. I haven’t been able to find any yet, so this idea is sitting on the back burner. 

I did find these adorable little kitty and doggy stickers at the dollar store, though and she loves to say their names, “dog” and her current word for cats “meow”, as she puts them into the container one by one. The container isn’t pretty right now, but she enjoys it, even with its lack of aesthetic appeal.

I’m always trying to come up with new, fun, creative things for my daughter to do so she can be included in homeschooling. It’s not easy having such a large age gap between my children, but with a little inspiration and a lot of grit, we’ve been able to make it work.

Do you have a toddler in your homeschool classroom? How do you find time for everyone? How do you keep your younger ones occupied while you’re helping your older kids with lessons? I’m always looking for new advice, tips and inspiration! Thanks!

Wolves Unit in Homeschool

      

 I’ve only had my blog back up and going for a couple months now, and I haven’t been the best about posting. Fortunately it is because I’ve been busy doing stuff.

I haven’t really been posting anything about school because I am constantly so busy planning, printing, copying, prepping, teaching, organizing and grading that I get lost in the rush to get it done and don’t take the time to step back and go “hey, look what we did in homeschool!”

So, I would like to do that now, and show off the unit study we did on wolves. We did a lapbook full of activities that covered all areas of homeschooling, plus art projects and a literature and language arts unit on White Fang.

I got the printable pdf file for the lapbook from homeschoolshare.com, you don’t have to sign up or pay any fees. They have so many different lapbookunits and printable pdf files, it has been one of my favorite websites this year! 

We use a regular manila folder, folded in onto itself so that the cover opens down the middle. I always tell the boys to cut everything out and arrange it so it will fit before they glue it down. Sometimes we don’t check first and things get crammed in where they’ll fit, but that’s part of the creative process.

For language arts, we did White Fang. I picked up two copies of a kid-friendly abridged version at Goodwill for $.49 each. This version is much easier for my 6^th grade readers to absorb than the original full-length novel.

Then I found a printable White Fang activity book that I downloaded for free. It’s 24 pages long, with two activity pages per page. When it was completed, we cut them in half and stapled them into a 48-page booklet.

The boys colored and cut out these printable wolf pup masks. They went up onto our art wall. They gave their wolves their own personalities and back-stories.

red wolves

There were other little things I found, like a red wolves worksheet that I downloaded for free at education.com, grey wolves fast facts and a wolf dot to dot coloring page.

gray wolf facts

We read various books about the wolves, some National Geographics, some early reader books. The lapbook printable from homeschoolshare.com also comes with information and instructions, which were very helpful.

It was a really fun unit, and the boys really enjoyed it. I'm going to hang on to this unit for when Lovebug gets older, so I can do another study on wolves with her!