Yesterday I had a really nice talk with a younger homeschool mom who was heading to one of our local conventions for the weekend. She said that she wished there was a speaker there who would address one of her most pressing issues...
What to do with the baby/toddler while homeschooling?
I think that the issue is rarely brought up at convention/co-op etc. because the speaker is often older and busy touring conventions, often DONE homeschooling or has a husband who is HOME and helping on a daily basis. Young moms with babies who are in the thick of it are rarely ever the guest speakers! So, that's where you come in! What advice do you have for this young mom? And if you're not a homeschooler, don't worry! You can also chime in if you're a mom... coz ALL moms have their own helpful methods for keeping those littles under control and happily occupied while you're busy doing something else.
OK, so, Fire away!
The best idea is to assign each older child to have time with the toddler at a certain time each day. But that only works if you have more than 1 older child to homeschool. Other than that, you gotta go in supermom mode and do what I've seen suggested before. Figure out 10 - 20 different activities for the toddler and pull out one activity each day during intense school time (math or language arts or whatever is crunchy). One day toddler plays with dry beans and a jar and a funnel on a towel; one day he strings pasta on yarn; one day he does something else.... The theory is that if the child only gets to do that activity once every 2-4 weeks, it will be fascinating enough to hold his attention. I was never quite industrious enough to do this idea, but I should have.
ReplyDeleteHow do you feel about a playpen?
ReplyDeleteI ran into this problem last year because my kids are aged 9, 4, 3, 2, newborn. I told the younger children that they can sit *quietly* and play with blocks, color, play with playdough, etc. while I read but if they chose not to be quiet, they would have to go upstairs and play in their rooms. They were almost never quiet though. Go figure! So, then I was running into the problem that I was seeing very little of them because by the time school was done it was lunch time then nap time. So I asked a friend (JEN!) and she saw that I was spending too much time doing things FOR him that he could be doing himself! Once I lightened my load a little bit I had more time to spend with the others doing special activities. This coming year should be interesting since I'll have three that I'll be trying to teach in some way! I'd love to hear other suggestions from moms.
ReplyDelete