The preschool years are a time of wonder and exploration for children. It is a time when mental development is high and new skills are constantly being learned. As a parent you want to set your child up with a strong foundation in preparation for the formal school years. But how is that accomplished? What should you be teaching them? How long should you spend each day working on learning activities?What is too much work at this age? These are just some of the questions I will answer for you. In this post you will find out how to teach preschool at home and build a strong relationship with your child in the process.
How To Homeschool Preschool
Great news! If you live in the United States, there are currently no compulsory school laws for preschool. That means all you need to do is jump right in and start. What you should research, though, is when compulsory school laws begin in your state. Most states start around age five or six. To learn more about the homeschool legal requirements in your state visit HSLDA at https://hslda.org/legal .
It is never too early to research the formal homeschool requirements for your state or to find out if there are certain expectations for a child entering kindergarten in public school in your state. For example some common expectations might be that the child be fully potty trained, know the letters of the alphabet, know colors, and count to a certain number. If you intend to place your child in public school for kindergarten, this information will help you prepare them for success. If you have a child with special needs and are concerned that they may not be able to meet common expectations of students entering kindergarten, you can always go to your local school board and discuss what support they have for children with special needs.
Of course, if you are planning to homeschool, it will be up to you where you want your child to be in their education journey entering kindergarten.
Keeping records at this age is not really necessary, but it doesn’t hurt to make a list of skills that you want your child to learn by the time they start formal education.
What Should 2 To 3 Year-Old Preschoolers Be Learning?
At this age the main things you should be working on are social skills, fine motor skills, color recognition, simple counting, and personal hygiene/care skills.
Social Skills You Should Consider Teaching
Sharing
Sharing does not come naturally to children. It is common for a child to see something they want and take it. No matter whether you believe a child should have to share things that belong personally to them or not, you should understand that a child this age often sees everything as belonging to them anyways. Some children need more work in this area than others. Teaching a child to properly voice and politely ask for what they want instead of just taking it, as well responding politely if the answer is “no”, or when something is requested of them, is a good skill to work on.
Verbal Communication
Children who struggle with verbal skills and communication often will resort to using physical communication, such as hitting, biting, kicking, pitching fits, ect., to construct boundaries or to get what they want. Working on verbal communication skills will help your child become less frustrated and more able to communicate to you what they feel, want, need, or what they are afraid of.
Manners
This is a great age to start instilling manners in children. Saying please and thank you, as well as table manners, inside manners, and being polite to others, are all good things to beginning working on at this age.
Obedience
Disobedience is cute…until it isn’t. If you intend to homeschool your child or want them to be able to learn from a formal teacher, you must instill obedience and respect for authority.
This does not mean you have to raise your child to do everything every adult tells them to do. I think we can all agree that could become dangerous. However, children should began to be taught at this age who their authority figures are and what are the boundaries of that authority.
Trying to get a six year old to sit and do a reading lesson with you will be impossible if obedience and respect for authority has not been established as a foundation in that child at a younger age. Teaching reading and math is challenging enough without having to simultaneously teach obedience and respect because you failed to get that well established at a younger age.
Does that mean your child will always sit and listen patiently and do their work perfectly for you as they get older? Of course not. But a child who has never been trained in obedience will make every school day a battle and will make you reconsider your decision to homeschool.
Patience
This is another skill that does not come naturally to most children. Let’s be honest…it doesn’t come naturally to most adults either. Patience is a valuable skill to have in life and in education.
A child who lacks patience will often get angry and frustrated when work becomes difficult. However, a child who is patient will have an easier time working through what is tedious to get the reward at the end. They will often be more inclined to work thoroughly and put in extra effort to reach the goals that they have.
Listening
Children need to have good listening skills to be able to follow instructions. This is not an issue for all children, and is often gained naturally through development, but some children may need some extra help in this area.
Emotional Regulation
There are many reasons why a child might struggle to regulate their emotions, but it is definitely something you will want to work on. Some children will have meltdowns when trying to learn something because they have a fear of failing, of disappointing you, or making you mad. Many children just meltdown because they don’t get their way. Other children will get overwhelmed with a task, while others might become overstimulated, and others might meltdown because they feel out of control. Regardless the reason, you will need to work patiently with that child to find the root cause and either bring assurance that their fears are unfounded or teach them ways to work through a situation without getting upset or frustrated.
Fine Motor Skills
While you might be tempted to jump into giving your child a pencil and teaching them to write, that is not the best first step in building fine motor skills in children. A child’s hand is weak and the bones are not well developed and fused at this age. Because of this, a child who is pushed into writing early on will likely develop poor writing form and habits.
So what should you be doing early on to help your child develop fine motor skills? One great thing for children this age is playing with playdoh. Squishing it between their hands, learning to form shapes with it, even giving them some tools or safety scissors and letting them cut it or roll it out like dough builds strength and dexterity in their hands. Another thing that can help children this age are toys like wooden puzzles, large wooden beads they can thread on strings, and even having them tear up different colored construction paper in little pieces and glue it on a piece of paper to form a picture. All of these things are great for building fine motor skills in a 2-3 year old child.
Color Recognition
This one is easy! Colors are all around us. All you have to do is incorporate discussion about them in your daily life with your child. When you are getting your child dressed ask “what color is your shirt”, or while you are on a walk discuss the color of the grass, trees, flowers, sky, clouds, even the cars you may see going down the street. Color recognition is something most children pick up on rather easily just by daily discussions about colors in their environment.
Simple Counting
This is another easy one to incorporate into your daily activities. Children this age don’t need to count 100 or even 20. Of course, if they are so inclined and interested, go for it! But most children do well counting to three or five at this age.
Start by teaching them to count objects that are in groups of one, two, and three. For example: “How many feet do you have?” “How many shoes do you have on?” You can put three pieces of fruit on their plate and ask them to help you count them as you put them down. Get some crayons and put them in three stacks: a stack with one crayon, a stack with two crayons, and a stack with three crayons. Then ask your child to point to the stack with one, two, then three in random order.
Once your child can count to three with confidence you can do the same to teach them to count to five. You can even go up to ten if they are able and seem interested in counting that high.
Personal Care And Hygiene
What a child can do at this age in this category will depend on fine motor skills and their development. Below I will list some things you may want your child to learn in this category before the age of five. But remember, children develop differently, so if you are meeting resistance in an area you can always back off and try again in a few months. Some children just need longer than others to gain independence in certain areas.
- Getting dressed: this may be a progression, things like socks can be harder to put on, so take your time and celebrate each new accomplishment
- Potty Training: this often happens between the ages of two and three, but for some children readiness may happen earlier or later
- Brushing teeth: this is something that may require some supervision for awhile to be sure your child is doing a sufficient job; but, let’s be honest, at some point we want them to be doing this on their own; so we should be teaching them good brushing habits to set them up for independence in this area
- Making their bed: even young children can pull up their blanket and straighten their pillows and stuffies; some mothers even prefer to skip sheets and just use a blanket to make bed making easier
- Hand washing: this is a great age to instill proper hand washing habits into children
- Bathing: while it may take much longer for a child to learn to wash their hair, especially if it is long, bathing is something most children can learn to do themselves by age five
- Picking up after themselves: this one is hard, and some children are more compliant than others; my best tip is to keep things positive and instill in them that we take care of what we have by cleaning up when we are done – it also helps to do smaller clean up sessions throughout the day so that the child does not get overwhelmed with a whole days worth of a mess
Mistakes Not To Make When Homeschooling Preschool
So you are excited to teach your child and you decide you are going to do it all! You have a full day of activities and learning planned out – a nature walk in the morning, then letter practice and reading, afterwards you are going to learn all about the solar system, oh, and don’t forget the math! I have been there. But at this age a child’s school is playing – lots of playing.
Children of early preschool age learn best through play. You will struggle to keep the attention of a child this age for longer than a few minutes. For this reason it is best to not use workbooks to teach at this age, but rather teach through play and daily activities. Children this age need to move a lot. Not sit at a table for hours. So try to hold the reigns on all those exciting plans and opt for crafts, activities, playing, and reading books. Keep any instructed teaching time short. Five minute sessions once or twice a day are the perfect length at this age.
Most importantly, keep it fun! Nothing kills the joy of learning more than you or your child getting frustrated. You are not in a race. Teach at your child’s pace and always take a break if you or your child begin to get frustrated. If your child lacks interest in working on something one day, it won’t hurt to take a break and revisit it another day. Stay positive and encouraging. You are developing your child’s future attitude towards learning.
Is It Important To Read To Your Preschooler?
It has been shown that when parents read to their children at least three times a week it can double or triple that child’s likelihood of performing at grade level in reading compared to children who’s parents are not reading consistently to them. Reading to children helps develop verbal language, increases vocabulary, and strengthens the bond between parent and child.
So we have established that reading is important, but how can you use reading books to teach your child? Children learn from well written stories often better than any other you method of teaching at this age.
So all of those things you can’t wait to teach your child, find books on those topics and read to them. You can read books on colors, shapes, letters, and counting. You can read books that teach personal care and hygiene at a child’s age level. Books can expound a child’s understanding of the world around them. Through books they can learn about all kinds of animals, places, and topics all while sitting on your couch. If you can do nothing else in a day, try to read to your child.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of reading to children and need a resource for book suggestions, check out Sarah Mackenzie at https://readaloudrevival.com/ .
