How to Homeschool Multiple Age Groups

Making the decision to homeschool is not always easy. One thing that people often have to consider is whether they will be able to homeschool children of different ages at the same time. When you are homeschooling one child, it is all about them. However, if you have more than one child you will have to think about how you can meet all of their different needs.

Top 10 Books For Preschoolers

Reading aloud is a daily ritual in our house. Ever since my eldest was a baby, I have been reading aloud to her and, subsequently, my other children too. I am a huge bibliophile and, I have to confess, I have books all over the house. They are stashed in bookcases and piled up next to the bed. I just cannot get enough of reading and the joy that reading aloud brings.

Indoor Fun Review

The second of the review posts I am doing will give you an idea of all the indoor fun we have had over the last two years. Yes, two years is a very long time but I will try my best to sum it up.

Pom pom sight words

             

We have been doing more literacy activities recently as D has just turned 5. She is very interested in writing but not so interested in reading yet. Therefore, I have to come up with some fun ideas to try and get her excited about words. 

Pom poms are a favourite with the children. We often use them in fun activities like this one here but we had not used them in literacy yet. I filled up a bowl with pom poms and placed it on the table with some large tweezers. R immediately started trying the tweezers out. He practiced using his pincer grip to pick up the pom poms with the tweezers. An excellent way to develop this fine motor skill.

              


I wrote some sight words on sheets of A4 paper and placed them next to the pom poms. I asked D if she could try placing the pom poms on the letters using the tweezers. We spoke about the shapes of the letters and the letter sounds. I asked her what words she was spelling out. It took quite a while for her to cover each word but I think this was good as she spent a lot of time looking at each word and practicing it. D has a good attention span now so this was not a problem for her.

You could make this activity more difficult by asking children to spell out the words using the pom poms on plain paper rather than them having to copy the words. You could make it easier by writing single letters on paper and practicing the letter sounds. If tweezers are too difficult, ask your child to use their fingers instead. 

Make this a bilingual activity by practicing words from another language. We will be trying this with turkish words soon!

Bilingual snowballs

       

   

I have written before about the importance of bilingualism and how you can nurture bilingualism in your children. It is something I am really passionate about. There are so many advantages to being able to communicate in more than one language, especially if you are part of a multilingual family. After all, it's important to be able to communicate with your family members or the wider community when you travel abroad. 

Bilingualism is something I try to promote in my own family. My husband speaks four languages and the majority of his family members cannot speak English, so it is really important that our children learn to communicate with them. When you know another language it can open your eyes to a whole other culture which will also give you a better understanding of each other. 

Getting your child to learn another language is always a worry for bilingual families. How can you go about facilitating that? One way is to incorporate bilingualism into play, crafts or other fun activities. When children are having fun they won't even realise they are learning. Also, when learning is enjoyable, they are more likely to take it in and remember it. 

              

This activity was very simple to do. We took some paper plates and wrote words to decsribe snowballs on them. D was able to think of both adjectives and verbs that we use when talking about snowballs. It is a great activity to develop literacy skills and the different kinds of words we use; adjectives, nouns,verbs, adverbs etc. Then she stuck cotton wool around the edge of the plate to make it look more like a snowball.

              

As we thought of the words we wrote them down in both English and Turkish. So afterwards one plate had all the English words on one plate and another plate had the same words in Turkish written on it. They are now proudly displayed on the wall to remind us all of the words.

We concentrated on adjectives and verbs only but if you have an older child you could ask them to write sentences down, or how about asking them to write a poem about the snow? Afterwards ask them to translate it into the other language.  

Additional articles of interest

How to supplement your child's language classes at home

Bilingual language activity - autumn

Bilingual language activity - learning colours with play dough

Bilingual language activity - finger painting wildlife

Bilingual language activity - my family

Learning Arabic on the beach

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Mosaic salt tray

                     

I saw this activitiy on the imagination tree blog and immediately knew I had to try this with the children. I love how the coloured mosaic pieces stand out on the blanket of white salt. You can really create something spectacular with a bit of imagination.

Salt is a useful medium for a lot of play activities. It can be used to make play dough and salt dough for some modelling fun. It can be used as it is or coloured for a different sensory experience. On it's own it is a great base for mark or pattern making.

                   

I set up this activity by pouring salt on the base or a glass dish. I placed the coloured mosaic tiles in a bowl next to the dish of salt. Then I invited the children to play

                 

D got stuck in doing some mark making. She used her finger to swirl the salt around creating some lovely patterns. She also had a go at writing her name in the salt. A salt tray alone can turn into a great literacy activity.

                  

Following on with the literacy theme, D had a go at spelling out some simple words with the tiles. She said the salt looked like snow.

                  

Then the children began to make pictures and patterns in the salt with the tiles. This is R's creation.

                  

D made a beautiful butterfly.


You can get the mosaic tiles from amazon here:



This post contains amazon affiliate links.

Apple tasting

                       

Following on with the apple theme we did some apple tasting! For almost a year now I have been receiving fruit and veg boxes from the local farm. They are truly amazing and have revolutionised the way I cook by allowing us to eat seasonal, organic food. Recently we received a large fruit box containing 3 different types of apples. I've no idea which varieties they were but they were different colours which the children and I found exciting.

I cut up the apples and put them on a plate. Next I got a plain sheet of paper and drew a simple table placing the different apples at the top. Then, it was tasting time! I asked the children to describe the flavour, colour and texture of each apple and we wrote the adjectives down. After writing the adjectives in English, I then wrote them again in Turkish and finally in Zazaki (my husband's mother tongue). I wrote them in different colours to help keep the languages seperate. It was such a fun way to learn some new vocabulary. 

                      

I've stuck the table on the wall under our alphabet coconut tree. I purchased the coconut tree wall art after seeing it here. We have the book 'Chicka chicka boom boom' which tells the story of all the letters climbing up the coconut tree. It is the first alphabet book I got for D and R and they absolutely love it. D quickly learned to tell the story along with me when I'm reading it. It's so catchy! This will definitely be a favourite book for years to come.


               

Spelling with wooden letters

This activity is such a simple one. Simply write some words on a piece of paper and give your child some wooden letter. Your child can then make the words with the wooden letters. This is a great early literacy activity which introduces children to simple, short words. 

D had great fun doing this activity. I am starting to teach her to read so we talked about the sounds the letters make individually, then how they joined together to produce the words. She enjoyed sounding out the letters and producing the words. She became excited when she realised she was reading!



Make this a bilingual activity by spelling words from another language!

We used the wooden letters from this set:




I also found a set of wooden letters without the spelling boards:

Wooden letters and coloured rice sensory tub

                   

I often put together sensory play tubs for the kids to explore. For this one I used some coloured rice which we made about 6 months ago. We keep it in a plastic container and the children love to play with it. They often use spoons to scoop it up and pour it into bowls. This time I decided to add some petals and some wooden letters to encourage literacy development.

                   

Coloured rice is not difficult to make. All you need is a bag of rice and some food colouring. Put both ingredients in a zip lock bag and mix until all the rice has been coated with the food colouring. Then, thinly spread the rice on a tray and leave to dry overnight. Store in an airtight container and it will keep for months, perhaps even years! We have been using ours for at least 6 months now.

                   

I gave the children some kids size kitchen utensils to use and also our favourite Learning Resources Sorting Bowls (Set of 6). The children practiced their fine motor skills using the utensils to scoop and pour and the tweezers to pick up the objects. These actions are performed by using the vital pincer grip movement, a skill which develops between the ages of 9-12 months and is crucial for skills such as feeding oneself, holding a pencil and fastening closures on clothes and shoes.

The children began to separate all the different items, placing the petals together and pouring the rice into the sorting bowls. The letters got scattered all over the floor and did not end up being sorted by colour into the different bowls, which is what I had intended, but that's fine. With an activity like this, I like to let the children play the way they want without too many interruptions or suggestions from me. So, I set up the activity, invite them to play and sit back and watch the mess (it usually get's quite messy) occur!

                  

Colour sorting with magnetic letters

              

I often set up activities for D, my 4 year old, to do and R usually wants to join in even though it's above his age and skill level. He just loves to try and copy his big sister and do everything she does. However, sometimes I try to set up activities that are just right for him and this colour sorting activity is one of them! Although he's only just turned 24 months, he has a keen eye for colour and enjoys colour sorting.

Sorting of all kinds is the beginning of mathematical skills that are the foundations for more advanced skills such as data sorting later on. Being able to sort into different groups helps a child to to think about the different properties of objects and enables them to distinguish whether they are the same or different.

We do lots of colour sorting activities and here is our latest one; sorting magnetic letters into different coloured bowls. We use these Learning Resources Sorting Bowls (Set of 6) all the time so you will often see them cropping up in my posts. They are an extremely useful resource. To do this activity you will also need some magnetic letters such as these Magnetic Letters. This activity is also great for exposing toddlers to letters and will help to develop their literacy skills.

               

I am trying to follow a more Montessori-type approach at the moment so am trying to incorporate the use of trays into the children's learning. In the Montessori method, activities are set out on trays and I quite like this way of displaying an activity as it keeps it contained within a small and manageable area.

               

Whilst R enjoys these activities, he has quite a short attention span and soon stopped for a snack!

Homemade Alphabet Match Game

Homemade alphabet match game

Now that D has turned four years old, I have been thinking more seriously about teaching her how to read. The first step to becoming literate is learning the alphabet. I have seen many fun literacy games on the internet but this homemade game is one of my favourites. I made it a while ago now and both D and R enjoy playing with it. It is a good to start teaching the alphabet to children because it involves matching the letters by recognising the different shapes the letters make. Knowledge of the letters of the alphabet is an important pre-literacy skill. Once this skill has been mastered, the child can then move onto more complex literacy skills such as writing each letter or putting a few letters together to make a word.


               

To make the game you will need a piece of card or paper, 26 bottle tops, alphabet stickers or a pen to write on the bottle tops and a sheet of paper. Firstly, draw around the bottle tops to create 26 circles on  the paper. Then write a different letter of the alphabet in each circle. 

                

Next get your bottle tops and stick an alphabet sticker or draw the letters on them.

                

 Now you are ready to play!

              

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Felt Board

I am always looking for fun ways to work storytelling into our homeschool. A great way to do this is to make props for children to use to retell some of their favourite stories. We often use puppets to retell stories and you can see this article for details of how to make your own.

Storytelling is important for so many reasons. Here are some of the benefits.

Benefits of storytelling

Learn about the world and relationships

Storytelling is a way children can learn about the world and relationships. Stories are a way of talking about your own experiences as well as the experiences of others. Well-told stories, with the help of eye-catching pictures, are particularly engaging for younger children and if they are interesting children will no doubt learn from them. Therefore, stories are an excellent way of introducing children to new ideas and concepts.

Improves social interaction

The act of storytelling provides great opportunities for social interaction. Nowadays, with the development of new technology such as computers, opportunities for social interaction are, unfortunately, becoming rarer. People are spending more time in front of a screen and less time interacting with one another. Not only does storytelling provide an opportunity for children to interact with each other and adults, children can also learn about social relationships through hearing and understanding about the relationships the characters of the story have with each other.

Learn new skills

Storytelling can teach them many skills. When they listen to a story being told they become aware of what a narrative is and learn the skills they will need to tell a story. Also, listening and attention skills are being practised and developed when a child listens to a story being told. Literacy skills are another area of development if they are looking at a story in a book. Another advantage of storytelling is that it teaches organisation skills. Through listening to a story, children are not only learning about the structure of a narrative, but also about how to sequence events in order to produce a story themselves.

Encourages creativity and imagination

Finally, storytelling, quite simply, encourages creativity and imagination!

                              

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a wonderful story about the life cycle of a caterpillar. It teaches children how the caterpillar comes from an egg and, after eating lots of food, eventually builds a cocoon and stays there until finally emerging as a butterfly. It also teaches the days of the week, counting and vocabulary. My children love to look through the book, poking their fingers into the little holes the caterpillar makes in all the pieces of food. So, I thought this story would be perfect for a felt board.

I had a pack of felt in the cupboard which I bought from a local supermarket and cut it up to make the pieces for the caterpillar and all the goodies he eats by using the pictures in the book for inspiration. The children were so eager to play with it that they couldn't wait for me to finish before starting to arrange the pieces of felt onto the board.

They played with the board for some time and it was wonderful to hear D retelling the story to R who listened attentively. The board serves as a wonderful prop that encourages the development of storytelling and narrative skills.

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