How do you occupy the younger children while schooling the older ones? (part 5)

This is the number one question I get asked most often, by homeschoolers and non-homeschoolers alike. The short answer, for those who don't really want to know the details and are just trying to make conversation, is "oh, we find ways to include them in our activities throughout the day." Spoken with a big smile. :-)

The long answer, for those who DO wish to know the details, follows.

Before sharing the details of what we do with our babies, toddlers, and preschoolers, I want to share my personal feelings on this topic in general. Children are a blessing from the Lord. All children, at every age. Blessings are just that. Blessings! Not interruptions. Not annoyances. Think of other blessings in your life. Don't you rejoice over each blessing, big and little, that God allows into your life or your day? I know we all love our children, but when we have a plan in place to school older children, and curriculum that we are trying to get through in a specified amount of time, the temptation is very great at times to see our younger ones as interrupting the great things we are trying to do with our olders. At the very least, we can feel pulled in a hundred different directions. Distracted. Ask me how I know. :-) I still struggle with this at times!

It is so important to remember that even when the baby starts crying right in the middle of a really good reading lesson, or needs to be nursed at the same time your 2 year old just pee'd on the carpet, your 4 and 5 year olds are getting into a fist fight in the toyroom, and your 7 year old is crying over her math lesson, that THEY are the lesson. The curriculum you just researched and prayerfully purchased is not the real lesson. The stack of fantastic books waiting to be read is not the lesson. Your children are the lesson. And they are teaching you plenty while they themselves are learning from your response to them. And yes, the first sentence in this paragraph is a real life example. What did I do you ask? I laid the baby carefully on the floor, closed the math book and told the 7 year old she could take a break, ran downstairs to the toyroom and stopped the fight, popped in a video, threw a towel on the wet spot on the carpet, put a pullup on the 2 year old, and then sat down to nurse and enjoy the baby. I probably also either laughed or cried, I don't remember which!

You all know how fast your children are growing! Babies are babies for such a short time. Don't let the pressure of having to "perform" as a homeschooler rob you of the joy you should fully experience each time the Lord blesses your family with a new little person. Each child in the family needs to know that they are an integral part of the family, that you delight in them, that they bring you joy simply by being their little self, and that you are not looking for ways to get rid of them for a while, or shuffling them off to play by themselves while you do the important work of grammar and math and history. THEY ARE YOUR MOST IMPORTANT WORK!!!!!!

Okay, now that we have that settled I'll move on to the nitty gritty. :-)

We have had many different daily routines, depending on the ages of our children. I will gladly share what has worked for us at different stages, but there is no magic "formula" (oh, how I have often wished there were!). You will have to pray and adjust your routine for the ages and unique personalities of each of your children.

In my part 2 post I shared quite a bit about how we managed our day when we first started homeschooling for kindergarten. At that time we had a 5 year old, 3 year old, 2 year old, and infant. Let me just add here that someone gave me a great piece of advice way back then that I have always kept in mind, and that is to spend some time early in the day with the youngest of your children so that their little "emotional tanks" are full and they can more easily share you with their older siblings. When we had babies, they naturally got my full attention first thing in the morning during their morning nursing. I treasured these times with each of my babies! Not only did I love nursing, it also gave me a chance to pray over the day. After everyone else had eaten breakfast, we started our day with booktime. I would read books to all the kids who couldn't read for themselves (yes, even little tiny babies), while those who could read on their own or were interested in looking at pictures of other books were free to do so. In fact, we still start our school day this way!

At that time everyone still napped except the kindergartner. So we would have book time altogether, nature walks outside altogether, fun Laura Ingalls hands on type things altogether, our oldest would do math while the boys were doing table time (explained further down). And then when the younger ones were napping, the K'er and I would work on reading and phonics. This still gave her time for a rest period in her room, while I usually napped on the couch for 30 minutes.

All of our babies, from birth until about 18 or 20 months old, had what we called "playpen time". This was time that they spent in the playpen, with age appropriate toys. They were within earshot of me, but had to learn to entertain themselves with what was in the playpen. As they grew older and learned to throw things out of the playpen, that was to their detriment because then there was nothing to play with for the rest of playpen time! I did not play that game with our kids. So later, when we had 2 or 3 that were school age, the current baby would have playpen time while the older kids and I moved to the table for school.

Generally speaking, I moved our babies from my lap, to the playpen, to the swing, to the bouncy seat, back to my lap, to the floor, etc, in roughly 30 minute increments, with naps and eating in between. I tried to always give them tummy time on the floor so they could develop upper body strength. They also had time on their back. I vividly remember our now 5 year old, when he was a baby, lying on the family room floor mesmerized by the ceiling fan! Somewhere between 6 and 12 months it was fun to put the baby in the high chair and move them right to the table where we were schooling. They could try to grasp cheerios or play with a few teething toys and feel like they were a part of everything we were doing. All in all it was exceedingly easy to homeschool with a young baby. It got more challenging when the baby became mobile.

From 18-20 months on, we would graduate the babies from play pen time to room time. This was essentially the same thing only with a bigger space to play in. I made sure their room was baby proofed and entirely safe for them (furniture bolted to the wall, etc) and would rotate toys about once a week to keep it interesting. This was not something we did to "get rid of" the toddler for awhile so we could do school. This was an important part of the toddler's development, learning how to keep himself entertained without needing constant input from others. I would put on a music CD for them to listen to during roomtime, and tell them that "when the music stops mommy will come to get you." When I returned to their room I made sure to stay in there for a few minutes and ask what they did during roomtime, what they built or what they played with ("show me the line of cars you made....can you show me the red one?") so that I wasn't just "rescuing" them but showing interest in what they had done during my absence.

Group snack, play time outside, something fine motor, and more reading of books, with afternoon naps or rest times for everyone were also important elements of our daily routine.

Other things that have worked well:

The buddy system. Having older children spend time with younger ones, also in roughly 30 minute increments. This helps develop strong sibling bonds, and lets each child develop their "own" relationship with the baby or toddler. It also frees mom to work with one of the other children individually for a few minutes on reading or phonics.

Table time. Put 3 or 4 preschool-ish type activities in the middle of the table, start a 30 minute classical music CD, and tell everyone they have to stay at the table and do one of the activities as long as the music is playing. This helps develop the ability to focus on one thing at a time, even with distractions in the room. What kindergarten teacher wouldn't love to have incoming students who all had that ability!

I did and do utilize videos, but my personal rule for when they were all toddlers/preschoolers was no more than 30 minutes a day of screen time. Our current preschooler can go for days without any screen time, since he has 4 older siblings to entertain him! We did lots of pbs shows (Bob the Builder, Mr. Rogers neighborhood), VeggieTales videos, and educational videos such as The Letter Factory and The Word Factory by LeapFrog. In fact, I credit the Letter Factory with FINALLY teaching our third child his letter sounds!

Our routine has changed considerably since we don't have any babies or toddlers in the family any longer. Our youngest is 3 and is solidly a preschooler. He calls himself a "big boy" all the time. He spends his day right with us, doing age appropriate activities, or enjoying the buddy system with an older sibling. So the rest of this very long post will describe activities that a preschooler can do mostly independently.

PLEASE keep in mind that I have had years to make or acquire preschool activities. I often asked for specific things as Christmas or birthday gifts, and I made alot of our early activities for very little money. I would encourage those of you with young ones to spend time during the summers preparing activities for them to do during the school year. Start with things you know they would enjoy, but don't be afraid to stretch a little and try something "out there" too.

Here is my preschool cupboard. It's the end of the school year so it's just about time for its annual summer clean out. I pull one activity out of this cupboard every day for our Little Man to do at his very own school table (Little Tikes) next to our kitchen table where the rest of us are doing schoolwork. He does this for anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes.


One of his favorites is beading. We have several sizes of beads for various ages and abilites. The large chunky beads are great when you still have younger babies and are concerned about choking hazards. I found that stringing them onto string was often frustrating as the string wouldn't always "push" through the entire bead. So we also use plastic straws and pipe cleaners as "string" for these beads.

For older children, pony beads on coffee stir sticks work well. I don't know why pony beads are called pony beads, but you can find a big tub of them at Michael's for cheap. I put masking tape on one end so the beads don't fall off. For 4's and 5's learning to recognize patterns is an important skill, so I made a few permanent patterns on some of the stir sticks and put masking tape on both ends. Our 3 year old cannot copy these patterns yet, he just has fun putting pony beads on the sticks. And that's a great strength building exercise for his little fingers!

Our third kind of bead is a jug of alphabet beads. These are super fun for older preschoolers or school aged children to practice making actual words on their necklaces.

I made a couple of beginning consonant sound games using file folders as game boards. We have one game that is for the sounds G, B, D, and L, and another game for the sounds S, F, T, M. There are several cards with pictures on them of things that begin with one of these sounds. The child draws a card and then moves his place holder to a square that has that letter sound on it. I made sure to draw both upper case and lower case letters on the game board, so the child would learn to recognize both. This is a great activity for an older sibling to do with a younger one! Our Little Man does not do this one yet, but our 5 year old played them last year in preschool and this year in kindergarten.

We have a few dozen puzzles, for various ages and abilites. The wooden ones with chunky handles on each piece are great for little hands. This is the puzzle shelf in my preschool cupboard.

I was very happy when our Little Man learned to do the foam Laurie puzzles on his own ~ I learned through trial and error that our children needed to be about 3 or 4 before they could do these with a minimum of frustration, but our Little Man loves these now! They are great for him to do while I am reading our history and literature outloud because they are completely quiet.

Last summer one of the school districts near us was throwing out a bunch of stuff that I was able to nab for our own use. One of the things they were throwing out was a large book full of laminated real life pictures of food. We punched all the food shapes out of the book, made 2 large "plates" out of posterboard, and have enjoyed building nutritious (or not) meals! During this same public school garbage day we were able to retrieve a working microscope. It's not super good quality, but it works and it came with a bunch of prepared slides and some blank slides. We couldn't figure out why the public school was getting rid of some of this stuff, but their loss is our gain! (my hubby said finally we get something for our tax dollars!)

Another favorite activity of ALL the kiddos is pegs and pegboards. This can keep them busy for hours. I purchased these from Discount School Supply. The pegboards came in a pack of 10, so a friend and I split the cost and we each got 5. Perfect!

Sorting is another great preschool activity. You can do this very easily by just using empty egg cartons as sorting trays and almost any small object can be sorted. Some of our choices are, from left to right, cuisenaire rods, pattern blocks, and plastic fish. Our Little Man is not a great sorter yet, he just has fun putting things into the egg receptacles and then pouring them out again!

I love Discovery Toys, and one of my favorite products that has seen years of use already in our home is "Playful Patterns". These are 6 different colored foam pieces that can be placed on top of cards with various pictures on them. Some are quite easy to cover, while others are hard. Even our older children still love this activity! I am happy to say that Discovery Toys still sells this product. You can find it here.





A lap sized white board with a variety of colored markers is also a happy activity for our Little Man. I only let him do this one when the rest of us are using the other lapboards too, so that I can easily monitor his use of the markers. :-) We have 3 of these small whiteboards and we use them ALL the time ~ great for spelling and dictation!




Feltboard and felt shapes are pretty self-explanatory.


We love wrap ups! These are neat little self correcting cards, where you match various things on the top and bottom of cards by wrapping a string around them. The string fits into little notches above or below each picture or word or letter. They are made for a variety of skills and levels. You can find them at most teacher supply stores or online such as here.



Whenever you're at WalMart, Target, children's consignment stores, or perhaps a more specialized store such as a teacher supply store, look for preschool activities that may be on sale. I always look for things that are colorful, self correcting, easy to manipulate, and look like they will last. We really like this "things that go together" activity. Little Man can do this all by himself!

Another activity from the Laurie company. Love their products!

One of my new acquisitions for this coming fall was a package of large buttons. We will use these for sorting, counting, and perhaps stringing.




I also really like these dot to dot lace ups because instead of numbers, they have the letters of the alphabet on them. You start at A, find B, then C, and so on.

Other activities we do regularly that are not pictured:

Paint with water books
Magnets on cookie sheets
Sidewalk chalk on the patio
Dominos (we have a set that has different colored dots for each number ~ we use these for color matching, number matching, lining up, and just generally playing with!)
Play Dough (we do this with everyone ~ when the older kids are having a break)
Alphabet Bingo

Small stickers inside a circle that I draw on a piece of paper. I tell the child to fill up the whole circle with stickers. I draw small circles for younger children and large circles for older ones.

Cutting practice ~ draw zig zag lines on a piece of paper and have your preschooler practice cutting on the lines.

I hope something here can stimulate your own ideas and encourage you that it IS possible to include your younger ones in your homeschooling experience in a way that is positive for your whole family!