I taught Kindergarten for 12 years and I prepared so well for the first week/month and had great ideas and activities to transition my students to their first year at all day school. I worked long and hard and as the first day approached I felt almost prepared. Now, that I'm at home, I can see that homeschooling is completely different. Although it is still full of planning, I can't seem to just concentrate on just that. However, I thought long and hard about how I was going to teach my 3 and 5 year old at the same time. I plan to do Kindergarten with my son, but how do I teach him with the very needy 3 year old at my side constantly?
Ta-da! It's called Box Time! I cleaned my attic a few weeks ago and hit a jackpot of tons of manipulatives like plastic frogs, dominoes, dinosaurs, plastic colored fish, colored blocks and many other items. I was SO excited!! I started to think about how to use these to keep my "other" kid occupied while I worked with one. The items that I have are good for both ages.
So what I will do is make 3-5 baskets with 3 games and 3 books per basket. So each day after our circle time together, I will do one on one learning time. One child will play with the box while I work at the table with the other one. I did a "pretend" school this week to see how it will work. The trial run proved to me that it will work well.
I have read that you should work with the younger child first, but when I did, all she wanted to do was play with the box toys. So I decided since I really want to do Kindergarten with my son, is that I will work with him first and then with my daughter. I will do this for 30 minutes (15 and 15). Then we will have a break and do another 30 minutes (maybe).
So that is my bright idea for the new year. We will be starting school the first week of September! Be looking for our first day pictures soon!