Ideas for homeschooling preschoolers when you have other things to do.

Easter for 2020, right? If you would have told me on New Years Day that I’d add  Teacher to my resume I would have laughed in your face! And yet, here I am. On April Fools Day – a teacher to my two little people who are home on quarantine due to the COVID-19 outbreak. I’ve learned quite a lot in the past two weeks about keeping my children’s brains and bodies active while they are home for the foreseeable future and wanted to share to help spark some new ideas in your home.

Some parents are lucky enough to have a full-time online structured class room where your student’s teacher is teaching your child during the day. For the rest of us, it’s a struggle to provide our children structure and keep up with our adulting responsibilities. I wanted to share the homeschooling techniques that have worked for me to keep our kids away from the TV and into a classroom setting – at home.

Keep your kids focused while homeschooling during the COVID-19 stay home order by providing them structure and variety. I’ll reveal my secrets to you- grab your notebooks friends, class is in session!

Start with a plan. I’m a wedding and corporate event planner and…well I’m going to tell you like my momma told me growing up, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. It not only holds true with why you need a professional to help you devise the best plan for your wedding planning or corporate event planning but also for planning out this new found quality time with your kids. Keep them active and engaged by planning out what you want to do. Ask your school or preschool for suggestions, a copy of the schedule they use during the day as an outline or use Google to keyword search ‘sample school day schedule’

Incorporate things you want your kids to learn. I’m African American and my husband is Jamaican. When I thought about things I wanted them to learn that they may not get to do at school I knew I wanted to incorporate the Negro National Anthem and the Jamaican National Song into the beginning of their day. With our days so full all of the time- I may not have ever thought to do this if we weren’t forced into this Stay Home Order. What are some of the things you want your kids to learn? Planting flowers?

Keep them entertained. Learning should be fun. It helps the days go by faster. In addition to the basics of Reading, Writing, Math, Science (and for us, Site Words), keep your kids entertained at homeschool with blocks of instruction that will work on their self-improvement. This past week worked on Organization skills. They learned what organization is, why it’s important and now they can apply it from here on out to cleaning their toy room

Keep them active. So this quarantine business is necessary but really cramping my fitness routine. I’m a workout nut. I go to 24hr fitness,  Burn Boot Camp, enjoy HIIT classes, Hot Yoga, Pilates, and on and on….but Quarantine AND learning how to homeschool preschoolers combined have made it pretty challenging to be able to squeeze in some me-time. But making sure my kids are active is JUST as important. So we’ve started doing things like taking advantage of my daughter’s dance class that has posted sessions on Zoom and going outside to ride our bikes and even for an aerobics session. I gave both my children a set of 12oz water bottles for dumbbells and mini basketballs to do ball slams and split my Aerobic Step up so that we could all do some circuits together. We have an active block of instruction during the day and we end the ‘school’ day at 3PM to head out for a bike ride or to have fun in the toy room.

Now as for me getting my work done…well, that has been a challenge because it isn’t exactly in keeping with homeschooling preschoolers. Thankfully my husband and I both work from home so we can occasionally switch out but I tend to get most of my work done after 4PM and again after dinner.

I know this time isn’t easy for all of us but we can appreciate this new found quality time with our children. Make a plan, Keep them entertained, active and engaged and I promise the days will go by faster. We’ll be back to normal in no time.

What are some of the ways you are keeping your children engaged during this time? I’d love to hear your suggestions!