24
It’s Your Life
is an activity like early math counting games,
learning the names of letters with an alphabet
puzzle, doing a fingerplay, etc.
As the child gets older, more schoolwork
is gradually added, including kindergarten
workbooks and coloring pages.
The child becomes more independent in
his work, and usually takes very little time to
complete it. He has Mom quickly check his work,
and is then usually content to occupy himself with
his own activities.
Because we have a large family of
closely-spaced children (nine children, mostly two
years apart), we have always had a sibling close
to the young child’s age who is finished with
schoolwork part-way through the morning, and
then wants to play with the younger brother/sister.
So, besides having a structured play activity with
a much older sibling, the young child also plays
freely with a sibling close to his/her age.
Each year I make plans for each child’s school
activities, including the youngest members of the
family. Because my older children’s needs may
seem more pressing, it can be easy to forget
about planning for the younger ones, but they are
important, too!
I remember one year when I had a lot of older
children to plan for (six kids in various stages of
elementary, middle and high school). I had made
detailed plans and had purchased curriculum for
the older ones. I knew I didn’t need to plan much
for the baby, but had neglected to consider my
preschooler. When curriculum began arriving and
my tot saw all the materials for her siblings, she
asked, “What am I going to do?” Well, that was
a good question! I hadn’t even thought about it!
Realizing my mistake, I told her, “Your things are
coming later,” and hastily went shopping for a few
materials for her. It wasn’t that she needed a lot
of curriculum materials at her young age. But she
did need something to do, and she needed to feel
that she was a part of what the family was doing.
After that I always tried to make sure my young
children had something coming for them in the
new curriculum we purchased.
Young children do vary in their readiness
for academic tasks. But when you are
It’s Your Life Magazine • Issue 1
homeschooling you can tailor the activities
to fit their needs. This is one way that
homeschooling has an advantage over
group preschool and kindergarten programs,
where everyone is supposed to do the same
thing. For example, we have a daughter who
learned to write all the capital letters and
loved to color with painstaking care at age
four. Her brother, at the same age, lacked the
coordination to write a curving line and was
more interested in cutting than in coloring.
We modified our son’s assignments so that
he would write only straight-line letters and
he was encouraged to cut out his colored
pictures.
To provide some ideas and examples of
the types of things that preschoolers can do
for their “schoolwork”, here is a list of some
of the materials we’ve enjoyed using with our
young children:
Number Tiles
These are tiles—often made of plastic,
but could be made from wood or heavy
cardboard—with numbers one to ten and
zero. It’s a good idea to have at least four of
each number.
Young children like to handle small
objects such as number tiles, and they are
especially helpful for children who aren’t
adept at writing. Just because writing
numbers can be difficult for preschoolers,
that doesn’t mean they can’t do math!
Young preschoolers can count objects in
flashcard pictures and put a number tile next
to each card. Older preschoolers can add or
subtract, using easy one-digit math problems
that are written out for them, and use number
tiles for the answers.
Ten Bead Abacus
I made my own ten bead abacus by
opening up a coat hanger and putting ten
large wooden beads on the wire, and closing
it back up again. (I also closed the “hook”
at the top, making it into a loop.) It’s best if
there are two colors of beads—five of one
color, then five of another color. That makes
it easier to quickly see what the numbers are