I am a homeschool mother of 6. I don't have everything figured out, but I can help you with the experience I do have.Please join me as Christian mothers who seek answers through prayer in study in raising our children in a Godly way.
In my last post I mentioned that my husband and I welcomed to boys from foster care into our home. Up until this point, I have never tried to do homeschooling with more than one girl toddler aged child. When my baby girl was a toddler, I brought all my older kids home and started to teach them. That was hard enough. For just her I had some different things I bought that worked very well. Those included things like:
I was thinking when we got the boys we’d take a week off school and let everyone get to know each other. After that, I figured we’d pull out my daughter’s old homeschool toys and things would just go great. The results were so far from what I expected. My new little two year old was constantly into everything and wanted no part of sitting still playing with toys. My older kids and I joked that his birthday should be printer themed because he wouldn’t leave the printer alone. My four year old did really good with chilling and playing with toys. However, he didn’t do good with not getting attention all day while I was working with the other kids. Sad to say we’re still working all of this out.
“Enjoy these days because they don’t last forever. One day your baby will be taller than you.”
Me
The boys are getting more used to their and our new schedule. I still have them take turns with different toys or workbooks. I have alot of these same things that I used for my daughter, but the boys definitely need more things to get their energy out.
One thing that I did buy that has been a huge help with these toddler boys is an indoor trampoline. That has been a wise purchase and more than paid for itself with my sanity. I have took advantage of pbs kids on the amazon fire tablets too in the morning when we’re trying to get more school done.
My friends and things I have read online say to start your day with your youngest children and fill up their buckets first. If they have been given attention and love your day will go so much better. I think this is especially true if you have foster babies or other kiddos with difficult circumstances that really need those extra loves. I wish I could say I followed this advice more than I do.
Don’t feel like a terrible mom if you lose your cool. It is really hard to homeschool and have toddlers some days. If you start to feel overwhelmed, it is ok to pause everything. Leave the room, say a prayer, and do some short meditation exercises. You and your kids will both function better if you don’t turn into a raging crazy person.
The last thing that really helps is a longer lunch break. We really try to buckle down and get most of our school done before lunch break. Lunch break then goes for several hours and involves the kids getting pushed outside to get much needed wiggles out. That really helps the toddler boys. When it is time to come back in, they can actually sit still. Having a long lunch break doesn’t work during soccer season when we have a long drive to town everyday. It also doesn’t work on days when we have to go to the doctor. However, most of the time it is our preferred schedule.
If you have any advice on things that you have tried that have worked good for you with your toddlers I would appreciate it.
