In our society the common stay-at-home mom is becoming less and less common. As children near the age of five there is a push to teach them as much as possible before they walk through the doors for their first day of kindergarten. This means that more children are attending preschool or daycare to get first hand knowledge of how this whole school thing really works. While this option is becoming more popular, it is not the only choice. You can still keep your child home with you, and have them ready for Kindergarten. Here are a few tips for teaching your child at home.
Procedures: The first thing you should understand is, while daycares and preschools do teach a set curriculum, it is not the main focus of your child’s early education. Daycares and preschools are the places where your child will first learn procedures that will help them be successful for the rest of their education. Perhaps for the first time in their lives it will be required that they stand in a line of their peers, eat their lunch at a lunch table, follow the teacher from one activity to the next, and learn to raise their hand if they have a question.
Yes, learning ABCs and numbers is an important aspect of preschool, but these procedures are even more important for this age group. If your child starts kindergarten already understanding these routines and procedures, it will make the teacher’s job of teaching content a lot easier. Imagine a class with 18 five-year-olds who do not understand what a line is. It could take the first couple of weeks to teach that. So, when teaching your child at home, do not forget that these lessons need to be addressed.
Social Skills: I cannot say enough about the importance of social skills at this age. If your child spends every waking minute alone with you, their experience going to kindergarten could be traumatizing. Being around children their age is fun and educational for children. Even if you are teaching your preschooler at home, make sure to plan fun activities with other children. This could mean play dates with friends, joining gymnastics, dance, t-ball, or another group activity. Even if your child has siblings or other close family members, this is not a true testament of how they will act around other children.
Stability: Once your child starts school, they will be on a very strict schedule. It is important for children to have stability and to know what they should expect next. In a kindergarten classroom they will expect to have recess after lunch, or a snack after nap. Get them used to a stable schedule now and it will make learning a lot easier. Decide what time you will wake up and how long you will spend teaching skills. Select a time for lunch, nap, and play. Your child will come to expect these things. Sometimes the slightest change can upset a child and make things difficult for them. Here is an example of a schedule that one parent follows with her four-year-old.
7:00 AM: Wake Up Get Ready for the Day
7:30: Have Breakfast
8:00: Hands on Activities
9:00: Outdoor Play (or something active inside)
10:00: Work on Letter of the Week
10:20: Work on Number of the Week
10:40: Work on Color of the Week
11:00: Have Lunch
11:20: Educational Video or Story Time
11:30: Nap
1:00 PM: Outdoor Play (or something active inside)
1:30: Themed Activities
2:30: Free Play/Educational Computer Game
3:00: Spanish Word of the Day
This schedule is followed three days and on the other two days she either takes her child to an activity with other children, or they go on a fun trip somewhere like the zoo. This schedule may not fit your needs, so plan something that will. If you form the learning day around your life, it will be much easier for you to stick to your plan.
Small Motor Skills: Small motor skills really begin to develop at this age and it is important that you encourage growth. Your child should begin learning things like how to hold a pencil and how to cut the proper way with scissors. Practice these skills by working them into the things you are teaching your child. If they are going to do a coloring worksheet of an apple, have them first write their name on the paper, or at least try. Once they have finished coloring the apple, let them cut it out. Make sure to use kid friendly materials such as safety scissors and pencil grips.
Hands-on Activities: You child will learn so much more from hands on activities than they could ever learn from a worksheet. Using this type of learning is fun and educational. Hands on activities can be playing with play-do, making play-do, creating pasta necklaces, puzzles, sorting games, painting, making puppets, putting on a puppet show, or other fun activities that you and your child can do together.
Physical Activity: Taking breaks from learning to get physical activity is important for children of all ages. It gives your child a break and helps them to remain focused when learning is taking place. Try to space physical activity through out the day. If the weather does not permit you to go outside, there are many things you can do together. Turn on some music and dance together! Also, there are many exercise videos made by kids, for kids. These are fun and encourage your child to get up and be active.
Learning Materials: The two most important things your child can learn between the ages of three and five is the alphabet, colors, and number system. You do not need a large set of curriculum or fancy materials in order to teach this. Look for educational coloring books and use materials in your home as teaching tools. Alphabet cereal is educational and tasty! Write the number they are learning on a piece of blank paper and let them glue that many pieces of macaroni to the paper. There are so many activities that you can do. Try to reinforce a letter, number, and color every week, reviewing each every day. Be creative!
Themes: Themed lessons means that you would spend one week learning about farms, another week learning about doctors, another week on fire safety, etc. Having your week revolve around a theme teaches your child about the world that surrounds them. There are many ideas available on the internet for themes that you can do with your child. Do a Google search for “preschool theme ideas” and you will find more resources than you know what to do with. Most of these ideas have been put together by parents and educators who have already used them with success. With everything outlined, you simply have to follow along and make sure that you have the supplies needed.
Field Trips: As I mentioned before, it is important that your child is able to socialize with children his or her age. Getting out of the house is just as important. Field trips can really break up the week and be educational. Here are a few educational field trips that you might want to consider.
The Library
A farm
A nature walk
The Zoo
A Kid’s Museum
Educational Videos: While these can be very entertaining for your child, and provide some learning experience, you should not rely on these. Limit the amount of television your child watches and do activities together instead. They will learn more from spending time with you than a television screen could ever teach them.
Local Schools: When a child starts kindergarten they are required to take a test before the year starts. Contact your local school district to find out if you can get a copy of this test. It will tell you exactly what your child should be working on. It should also break the test into three different parts: what a child should know before kindergarten, where they should be in the middle of the year, and what they should know by the end of the year. Focus only on the things that your child should know before entering kindergarten and build the learning experience around that. You will be preparing your child to enter the public education system by doing so.
Keeping your child at home with you can be a rewarding experience if you take the time to plan and really encourage education in the home. In this day in age, you simply have to turn on the computer and thousands of educators are there to help you with resources and ideas to make the process successful. Remember that while learning their alphabet is important, it is only a fraction of the education they need to receive. Learning school procedures, social skills, the importance of physical activity and about the world around them completes the package.
