Homeschool Tips For a Great Day - 5 Perfect Ways to Occupy Toddlers During Teaching Time

Ready to get your younger kids ready for a day of homeschool? Here are five amazing tips that will revolutionize your school day for younger students as well as your pre-schoolers who have mastered the art of disruption.

#1 - First, have a routine. If you are educating older brothers or sisters, younger children often want to be included. So include them. Treat them like the others as you begin your instruction time. Have them go through the motions of settling in to do some work. They will excuse themselves when they have had enough, which takes us to point number two.

#2 - Second, have activities prepared for younger children to occupy them. It seems so simple, but the act of preparing an activity in a special location for a younger child gets them in the habit of going to their place. You can easily arrange ahead of time a special coloring page, a special collection of small toys reserved for play during older siblings' teaching time, or other self-guided craft activities such as Play-Doh. Training very small children to go to their place during instruction time removes the incentive to disrupt.

#3 - Third, get rid of the TV. Don't use television or video games as a baby sitter for toddlers while older children are receiving instruction. The disruption of switching on entertainment takes older children out of the realm of imagination and interaction. Use more engaging activities to keep everyone's eyes and minds on higher things.

#4 - Fourth, pull younger children back into the teaching time for activities with a strong tactile component. If you are taking a child or children through a science lesson and you are going to peel an orange and observe the structure of the fruit, that's a great activity to pull younger ones into. With an extra orange, the simple act of controlling the times that they are allowed to "join in" keeps you in the drivers' seat.

#5 - Fifth, stick to your lesson plan for the day and get it done. Smaller children are masters at sensing weakness. Give them something to avoid - an energized execution of a well-planned day. They will sense that you are in the teaching zone and will show more respect for your strong presence as you work through your plan.

Smaller children are one of the hardest factors to handle in homeschooling. But you can do it if you stay in the lead with each student as well as each future student.