With a position that requires great dedication, homeschooling parents face numerous challenges while striving to provide quality educations for their children. Even if you have surpassed those challenges of being pregnant or caring for a baby while teaching your older children at home, managing an active toddler may present your biggest obstacle yet. However, preparing and executing distraction free studies for your child is imperative to your student’s academic success. Therefore, it is recommended to take some creative approaches to homeschooling when there are toddlers and preschool aged children at home.
Keep your homeschool organized. If the day becomes chaotic, it will be even more difficult without a structured lesson plan and fall back activities.
Utilize your toddler’s nap time to teach the more intense learning objectives of the day.
Keep your toddler busy with special activities that are only to be done during school time. These are best done with your child placed in a high chair to ensure they stay put. Crayons, finger paint, books on tape, and special toys can be included in a box set aside for class time.
If possible, use your toddlers meal time or bath time for reading out loud. Bath time can be beneficial if you have your student read to you from right outside the bathroom door.
Homeschool co-op – Swap school/toddler time with another homeschooling parent.
Higher a sitter to play with the toddler for a small amount of time each week.
Schedule time to play with your toddler, while your student works independently.
Use the help of your spouse to teach certain subjects, or teach part of your school day in the evening when they are home to help.
Use smaller blocks of time during the day for school. This will help with the attention span of your toddler and student.
Use Saturday to catch up work that was interrupted during the week.
Reduce the number of homeschool subjects you teach each day, only focusing on 1 or 2 of them at a time.
Above all, go easy on yourself. Teaching homeschool with toddlers in the home is not an easy task. For a short period of time, your classroom hours may not occur in 4 hour blocks of uninterrupted concentration. However, it will be okay. During this season of your family’s life, it is imperative that you are flexible and manage a system of time that works for everyone. Remember that toddlers will only be at this stage for a couple of years, and it is important that they are tended to without being made to feel like an interruption.
