everybody under three feet tall down for a nap. Then take that time to work with the older children on the subjects that require one-on-one attention or pull out the science equipment marked Use Caution or Not For Use By Children Under X Years of Age and conduct the experiments that you wanted to do for the past two months.
Institute quiet time for the entire household. You don’t have to jump up from the kitchen table and rush back to the schoolroom or computer. Sometimes, marking that hour or two after lunch as quiet time puts a little sanity back into your day. Put the tiniest family member down for a nap and distribute books to everybody who is both too old and too young to take a nap — when they reach college age, they’ll appreciate naptime once again. You’re allowed to lie down with a book, too! After everyone catches some well-deserved rest, then continue with your day. You may even find that your littlest ones (or you) face the rest of the afternoon with a better attitude.
Although your neighbors may not be doing it, life still continues if you take a month or two off in February — or whenever your bundle arrives at your house. Then teach through the summer days to make up for “lost” time. Even if your house lacks air conditioning, learning outside under the trees creates memories that your students keep alive forever. They treasure the memories or laugh over them — depending whether they recall the warm breeze flowing over them as they read Lorna Doone aloud or the ant hill they mistakenly sat on.
You can also plan ahead and take two days off through the winter holidays instead of two weeks. That gives you eight days to play with when you need to take time off later. Drop those days into your planning schedule when you suddenly need time off or incorporate them into the infant arrival period. Those eight days give you almost two “free” weeks that you don’t have to make up for later because the children already did the work.
Surviving Life with a Toddler
After a couple years, your “new arrival” is no longer quite so new. He looks a little tarnished, in fact, from the bruises and dings sustained from running through the house at full speed and occasionally into a wall or piece of furniture. (Ouch! That one hurt.) But few things are more lovable than a toddler’s face. So you grab him and kiss all those boo-boos away as you wonder how in the world you’re supposed to teach with this bundle of energy in tow. Not quite old enough for preschool stuff, toddlers spend most of their time getting into things and trying to elicit yet another “No” from the overseeing parental unit. Toddlerhood ranges from just walking through the terrible twos.
Grab some hot chocolate, take a deep breath, and hold on for the ride. Although the toddler years aren’t the time to begin that far-reaching toothpick project you promised to your 8-year-old child, you can still keep enough hold on your schedule and your sanity to make it through the year and know that everyone came close to meeting their educational goals. Who knows? You may even surpass your wildest expectations.
Teaching with a toddler
Teaching a group of other children (or even one or two) with a toddler in the mix guarantees some interesting days for the whole group, but it can be done. Many homeschooling families survive toddlerhood each time and even go on to teach that youngest person at home when she becomes ready.
Use videos for those times when you must have 24½ uninterrupted minutes with an older child. If your toddler loves Blue’s Clues or Winnie the Pooh, those are the videos to keep back from general family usage for the sacred teaching hour. Pop one of the most-loved videos into the player and work with the other children to the sound of the Winnie the Pooh theme song.
Keep a stash of special toys in your school area. Maintaining a small crate of “school time only” toddler toys gives your little person something to play with that he doesn’t generally have in his hands. When my kids were toddlers, I rotated toys every couple of months; with a box on the floor and a box in the closet, the kids thought they got “new” toys quite often.
Use naptime to its fullest. Most toddlers still need to nap. If you resist the urge to crash along with her, the toddler naptime can function as your main teaching time with the other children. You can get a good one-on-one instruction period into each day if you concentrate on teaching new skills while the toddler happily snoozes. Then, when your recharged ball of energy reenters the scene, you can work on memorization skills, reading time, or other tasks that require less interactive attention.
Play “pass the toddler.” This may make your school days longer, but if everybody takes a turn playing with the toddler until naptime, you can work with the students who are left. Taking turns gives your other children a break from school time, and it keeps the toddler occupied.
Hold and cuddle if you have a lovey dove. Some babies and toddlers love to be cuddled. Nothing says you can’t hold your toddler on your lap while you teach. A little bounce once in a while and a nice warm hug may be enough to keep them occupied as they watch the siblings do their thing from the comfort of a parent’s arms.
Go to bed early once in a while. No one will report you to the Stay Up Late Police if you turn in at 8:30 every now and then. Putting the toddler to bed and leaving the other children in the care of Parent Number Two makes total sense if you’re exhausted or simply need an hour or two by yourself.
Teaching your toddler
If you have more than one child, you know how much younger siblings pick up from their older counterparts. Much of it, thankfully, is even positive! Wonder what you can teach your first toddling homeschooler? You’re probably doing just fine already.
Toddlers learn best as they bounce around their world. Exploring life, getting into the mud after a rain, hiding stuffed animals in your best plants, and crashing for a nap after a hard morning’s play — these are the things toddlers do best. They play hard, learn a great deal, and generally sleep pretty well (as long as you’re willing to scoot over in your bed in the wee morning hours once in a while).
Incorporating your toddler into your day provides some of the best pre-homeschooling training she could receive. Talking to a little person increases her vocabulary when she’s ready to use it. Letting a toddler watch you spread peanut butter onto crackers or pour the daily apple juice shows him how the world works. You teach things like beginning cause and effect (what happens to the empty glass when we tip the apple juice jar over it?) simply by living through your day.
Announce the colors of clothing and objects as you come across them. Not too many months will pass before your toddler knows the difference between the red jacket and the blue one.
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