How to Create a Homeschool Routine

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With an almost 3.5 and 2-year-old, our homeschool “routine” is still very organic. I do my best to “plan” activities but 9 times out of 10 those plans change because the work wasn’t quite what my sons had in mind.

And that is okay.

I figure this transition to homeschooling is going to take some adjustment for all of us and will most likely take years. So, we might as well get started down the path. Here are a few things we’ve been “working on” this week:

Language Development

We continue to read many books out loud daily and spend quite a bit of time with our objects Sound Boxes. I empty the box out so that we can fill it up again. Then we focus on the letter/sound of the week, which this week is “H”. Tomorrow I am going to get out a small moveable alphabet to begin the journey toward spelling.

What is amazing to me is to see their differences in the means to this end. My older never mimicked us. He basically came up with his own “original” content from a very young age probably because I was able to spend so much one on one time with him. Our younger son is doing really well saying lots of new words every day.

He repeats everything any of us says generally (not even to him), which is good for his development and quite entertaining for all of us. Our older son takes great pride in asking Y to repeat things back to him, “Y, this is a ‘crocodile’. can you say ‘crocodile’?”

What I find truly amusing about the interaction is that our 3.5-year-old is in practice using Montessori’s three-period approach (this is…can you show me the…what is this…). Maybe he has picked that up from school but it seems very natural. When speaking to our younger son, our older also emphasizes the sounds at the beginning of the words. I guess our approach has rubbed off on him and couldn’t have been that annoying!

Science

My older son is fascinated with the human body. Even a year ago he was fixated on the human skeleton and pretend doctor play and medicine. He couldn’t get enough of these human X-rays we found on Amazon. I am so happy that he is so interested in learning about the body because learning how it all works will help him lead a better, healthier life.

I have been obsessed with Gentle Revolution’s Bit of Intelligence Cards generally ever since seeing them on how we montessori. We have the Transportation and Endangered Species cards but quite frankly I want ALL of them. My latest purchase is the gorgeous Organs of the Body.

These cards are great because not only are they beautiful and detailed, but beyond those great qualities of a learning tool, the cards come with tidbits on the back that truly solidify the learning for a child (and adults!).

Sensorial & Practical Life

Not a new idea by any means but a great one! I think I first read about Golf Tee Pumpkin Pounding on I Can Teach My Child but my son’s Co-Op also set up an area for this work.

Wonderful because it works fine motor and hand-eye coordination development and also lends to a wonderful sensorial experience as children create designs and begin to see things that we never imagined My sons loved the activity.

A little peek into our days. I hope that we inspired you.

Marnie