Parents are the first and most important teacher your child will encounter. One important piece of advice is to start teaching your child from the day he is born. Investigate the countless ways you can create a stimulating nursery environment for your baby to optimize cognitive development. Talk to your baby often, if not constantly, during her waking hours. Stop talking like a baby and encourage your baby’s development by using gestures, tonal variations and body language whenever possible.
By the time your child is a toddler, you should already have established play areas and work stations at home. It would be preferable to have a spare room available long term to store all your homeschooling resources.
Outdoor education is vitally important, so it is advisable to make a designated safe area with a sandbox and water table as soon as the baby can sit up without help. If you are homeschooling your children, then every activity becomes a learning activity and an opportunity to stimulate your toddler’s curiosity. You don’t need to spend a fortune on sandboxes and water toys. Use plastic kitchen containers, pitchers, salad spoons and the like to dig and make outdoor mud pies with your child. Your home is a perfect source of free homeschooling resources.
Workstations should simply be a neat table and chairs for young children. Make sure there is a storage area near the workstation. Organize your storage area to promote ease of access to your resources. Use cardboard shoe boxes or storage units from hardware stores to keep paper, scissors, glue, art supplies, etc. together. An important tip is to make sure that from day one this cabinet is a gift and a treasure for young people. Every time you sit down at your child’s table and play, give your child 100% of your attention.
If your project for the day for your one-year-old is finger painting, set up the materials before you unleash your toddler. Let your baby enjoy the texture, the taste (paints need to be homemade and non-toxic, obviously), and the mess of her first painting experience. As soon as the baby loses interest, allow him to stop the activity. If you keep pushing your child beyond her ability or attention span, the experience will no longer be fun, and worse, it could take your child away from art work for a long time.
Be sure to display all of the final products i.e. your toddler’s artwork around the house and write your child’s name in lower case on the artwork. You must record the date on the back of the artwork to allow you to archive these masterpieces chronologically at a later stage.
A third very important piece of advice is to start early in stimulating your child’s interest or knowledge in the natural sciences. Again, you don’t need to buy expensive items like cages and animals meant to be strangled by an overzealous child. Browse your local thrift stores and find some plastic or glass aquariums. Make your display cages as attractive as possible. Adding a fluorescent light to a tank full of snails crawling on lush green leaves can serve as an attractive nightlight for your toddler’s room.
Keep changing your screens and release the bugs after a few days. As your child gets older, if his interest in living creatures persists, be sure to have containers ready for him to place the creatures he has found himself in. By the time your toddler turns three, it’s time to start revealing lessons like metamorphosis. Invest in some silkworms from your local pet store, or just access a caterpillar from your garden. Talk to your child through the process. Show her the eggs, cocoon, or chrysalis, and remember to release the resulting moth or butterfly once its wings are dry enough to fly.
An older child may benefit from aquatic pets like turtles. Make mealtime fun. Go out and hunt crickets and grasshoppers to feed the turtle and watch it eat. A visit to a nearby stream with a net could result in a catch of tadpoles. Place the tadpoles in water and feed them fish flakes or minced meat. Make sure you keep the water clean. Once the tadpoles start to grow legs, place flat rocks in the container or tank for them to sit on when they’re ready to come out of the water.
Release the frogs after a few days. The fourth tip would be to use repetition as any classroom teacher would. Reinforce the current learning experience by posting pictures of frogs in your child’s room or work space. Give your child paints and crayons to draw his own frogs. She begins reading fairy tales like the Frog Prince at bedtime and continues to cultivate a love and interest in natural sciences. If you need additional resources, simply browse the Internet sites that offer free homeschooling resources and download posters, art projects, and items featuring frogs. If your child shows an interest in amphibians, start the alphabet chart at the letter F for Frog. No one said that it is mandatory to learn the alphabet from A to Z.
If you have decided to homeschool your children, it is vital that you start as soon as possible. Don’t be discouraged by doomsayers telling you how expensive it will be. The world is a classroom, and it’s full of free homeschooling resources. The fifth and final piece of advice I have for parents who want to homeschool their children is that children learn best through loving instructions. Who could love your child more than you? Parents, you are the most important teacher your child will ever have. Step up and assume your rightful position as your child’s teacher.
