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.

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.

Glass pebble number activity

          

I found mathematics quite boring as a child so I really want to make it more fun for my children. We have done a few creative maths activities before such as this one but I'm always trying to think of new ideas. Glass pebbles are a great resource. They are cheap and the children find them fun to play with. They are very versatile and can be used in many play activities in different ways.

This activity is simple to set up and uses few supplies. First, I cut 10 small rectangles out of card and wrote a number from 1 to 10 on each one. Next, I placed a tub of glass pebbles on the table next to an A4 piece of paper. I placed one of the number cards down and asked D to make the shape of the number with the pebbles on the paper. You can ask your child to chose the next number once they've finished the first one.

                       

Here they are getting stuck in to this activity.

                  

D creates a number 2.

                 

I gave R the number 1 to try and create as I thought it would be easy for him to copy a straight line.

             

Not entirely sure what R was trying to make here!




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Numeracy with buttons

                 

My children have developed a love for buttons. They love to sort through them and look at all the different shapes, sizes and colours. Sometimes they stow a few away - for safe keeping I'm sure. They place them in pockets and tell me they are treasure! It's a wonder they can find such excitement in playing with such a simple object!

                 

First we tried a sorting activity. I placed a dish with compartments on a tray and placed a bowl of buttons next to it. I purchased this mixed bag of buttons from Hobby craft for just £1 and the kids have had so much fun with the buttons. This activity was set up for R, who is 2.5 years old, as it's more for his age group, but D came over to look at the buttons too. It is a great activity for toddlers and preschoolers but remember to watch them carefully if they are still at the stage of putting everything in their mouth. 

               

Sorting is a good way of developing early maths skills. It will encourage a child to think about the different properties of objects and learn to distinguish between objects that are the same or different. It can teach children to separate things into different groups by size, colour, shape etc. 

               

Next, I got D involved and asked the children to count the buttons in each group. We spoke about the groups; which group is biggest, which group is smallest, are any of the groups the same size? Then the groups were sorted in order from biggest to smallest. 

                         

You could even do this with a group of buttons, as we did, if you have a mixed bag like these. Ask your child to take all the blue buttons for example and line them up in order from biggest to smallest. 

            

We spoke about the holes in the buttons. How many holes does each one have - one, two, three or four? Who would have thought there would be so many possibilities with just a simple bag of buttons?!

Gingerbread men number activity

                   

The gingerbread man is a favourite story of ours. The children love me to read it to them and they join in with the familiar phrases. We also enjoy making our own homemade gingerbread men biscuits to eat. They are absolutely delicious. I will share the pictures next time we make them.

I decided to set up a numeracy activity for the children with the gingerbread man theme in mind. I cut out some gingerbread man shapes from some brown paper envelopes and asked D to help me draw the faces on them. As you can see below, she loves drawing long eye lashes on her pictures at the moment!

Then, I wrote numbers on rectangles of white paper and gave the children a bowl filled with buttons. They spent a long time exploring the buttons before moving onto the activity.

                              

D chose a number and picked out the correct number of buttons. Then she placed them on her gingerbread man. This is a great activity for children to learn to associate the written number with an amount of objects. They can practice counting as they go. 

                             

R, being a bit younger, did not match the written numbers and buttons. Instead, he placed the buttons on his gingerbread man in patterns. He did try counting in his own little way as he went.

Coloured shapes gross motor activity

                              

Gross motor activities are an important part of childhood as they allow children to develop crucial gross motor skills such as running, jumping, climbing etc. I try to get the children doing gross motor activities as much as possible. When the weather is fine they can go and run and play outside but weather its rainy sometimes you just want to stay inside. However, just because you are indoors, it doesn't mean your children cannot still do some physical activity you may just have to be a bit more creative!



                               

I cut some shapes from coloured paper and had the children help me blu tac them to the floor. Then I asked them to follow some simple instructions e.g. hop on the red shapes, jump on the circles. They giggled with glee as they moved across the floor jumping, hopping and skipping on certain shapes and colours.

Not only is this an excellent gross motor activity, it is also educational as it teaches them the colours and shapes. Also, it is good practice at following instructions, something that needs a lot of practice in our house!

Make this into a bilingual activity by teaching your child the words for shapes, colours and actions in a different language!

Sorting pattern blocks

                    

Sorting is a great activity for toddlers. It teaches them skills that are a precursor for mathematical skills later on. Pattern blocks are a wonderful resource and can be used in a variety of ways. They teach children about shapes, colours and patterns. They can be used to create pictures or can be drawn around or simply used for sorting.


                         

I set up a tray, Montessori style, with a pot of pattern blocks and a sectioned bowl for the blocks to be sorted into. I placed a different block on each section of the bowl as an example for R to follow. Of course, you can set it up without putting any blocks in the bowl and see what the children do.

               

R immediately started to put like blocks together in the individual sections. Then he began to place blocks together on the floor creating his own shapes. "Look Mummy!" he kept saying, thoroughly pleased with his achievements.

Fish bathtime game

Find the fish pairs

                 

Having just received our new Fun Fish Counters, the children were eager to use them. I filled the bath and chose pairs of fish (there are 5 of each type of fish) to throw in. To top it off, a splash of blue Liquid Watercolour made the water all the more inviting. R was ecstatic to see the bathwater his favourite colour and impatiently began to scoop around in the water before he even got in.

The children enjoyed scooping around the bottom of the bathtub trying to catch the fish. They placed their caught fish on the side of the bath and began to excitedly match the pairs. The vibrant colours of the fish are eye-grabbing and really brightened up the bathroom. With the wide array of colours and shapes as well as the learning potential (matching pairs, grouping into sets, counting), these fish are bound to be a firm favourite for a long time to come!

                  

Patterns with beads

              

Threading beads is a great activity that will keep children as young as toddlers happily entertained. We have these wooden beads which both children love to play with. D loves to make necklaces and bracelets and R, at 25 months old, is just satisfied to get a few beads on the string!

              

We often use pipe cleaners to thread the beads onto rather than the laces that come with the set as this is easier for younger children to achieve. Today I decided to use the beads to make a pattern matching activity. I put rows of beads on pipe cleaners, and then invited D to replicate the pattern on another pipe cleaner.

               


Copying a patterns is a great way of introducing children to early maths skills. It helps them to recognise order in the world and is the basis of later skills such as multiplication.


               

D really enjoyed this activity and managed to reproduce the patterns quicker than I thought! I will have to give her a few more to do next time.