What’s inside: A look at Charlotte Mason and preschool kids. What should you do with them if “no formal lessons before age 6?” What does a preschool homeschool look like? How can you start them on the path to becoming a self-learner?
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More on young learning
We’ve been looking at preschool read alouds and asking if they should be taught reading at an early age here on the blog lately.
I understand the pressure involved in going against public opinion on how you should school your kids – meaning you SHOULD public school your kids, according to many others. Even 20+ years ago, I felt the same pressure on preschool ideas.
Reading and preschoolers
The more I understand Charlotte Mason homeschooling methods and her philosophy of education, the more I see the flaws in the current public system.
Short story: Her recommendation is that kids should NOT be formally schooled before age 6.
I agree. But that doesn’t mean you ignore them for that time.
So what do you do with preschoolers?
6 Ideas for non-reading learning and preschoolers
1. Read alouds
Just because your kid isn’t reading, doesn’t mean they won’t hear lots of books. Pile the kids on your lap and read, read, read. Not just picture books. Read chapter books to them too. The littler they are the shorter the attention span, but they love your voice. And a good cuddle.
Little person warning: Grabby kids do like to touch books and don’t know their own strength. Get indestructible board books or non-tear chew-proof books for toddlers if you are going to let them have their own books unsupervised. Teach respect for all other books. We used the word “Gentle!” a lot.
2: Nature
Get those young learners out in nature as much as possible. Practice attention and observation. These are basic habits that if learned early will yield wonderful results later.
When in nature with little kids, stop and smell the roses a LOT. Get some ideas for nature hikes too.
When my guys were little, we joined a hiking club called “Short Hikes for Short Legs”. You can start one of your own.
Nature can mean day at a beach, going to the lake, going to skiing lessons, walking around a pond, staring at an ant hill in the backyard (unless it’s fire ants – then you need do do something else), watching a bee hive at a nature preserve, growing a flower or some microgreens, picking up an pine cone when you take the dog for a walk…
So many opportunities.
Just remember to bring snacks if you will be in nature for more than 15 minutes with preschoolers. Sometimes, snack is the highlight.
3: Games
Little kids love games. Everything can be a game, even laundry. Just keep every thing short (except nap time – isn’t that a game?) and be watching for signals that it’s time to change focus.
You can play listening games in short bursts, or visual find & seek games, like I Spy.
You can play lots of “educational” games if it makes you feel better – because face it, the pressure makes homeschooling moms feel like they are neglecting the education of their kids. But trust me, your kids will get educated even if you don’t teach them to read at age 3.
Vary your games – alternate quiet games like “I spy” with loud or movement games like “How fast can you run to that tree and back?” Games can be anything. And movement is so important to kids.
4: Field Trips & Messy Science
In our family, we did lots of “educational stuff” like going to museums which is totally fun (they always liked the water exploration table at the Boston Children’s Museum or the chick incubator at the Science Museum).
Museums are a great treat. We would invest in 1 museum (or zoo or aquarium) pass each year (preferably one with reciprocal passes to other museums) and we’d try to go once a month or so. This was good for my 5 year old twins while I was toting the toddler around, and it was still good when the twins got to be of schooling age (more than 6) and my little one was still a preschooler. We just shifted the focus sometimes to correspond with some of the twins’ lessons.
Field trips can also include reenactment villages or programs put on by your local town specifically for young people. Our town dump puts on a “recycled art” day where you can come and make something from trash.
But messy “science” is fun too. Technically, it’s not science unless you are measuring stuff, but a lot passes for science these days. Messy science can include some of our favorites:
- Shaving cream experiments in the bathtub: they need you to distribute shaving cream and also some bath toys like boats & cars and scoops.
- Water exploration (with raincoats on) at the kitchen sink: they need step stools, plastic measuring cups & spoons, bowls & pitchers, soap for bubbles, and the water sprayer.
- Homemade play dough: they help make it if they are big enough, and then they need sculpting tools and cookie cutters.
- Kitchen exploration: as they get bigger towards age 6, you can start with real measuring, pouring and snack preparation. We had a great book called DC’s Super Heroes Super Healthy Cook Book which had all kinds of recipes even little kids could make. Other kid’s cookbooks can be good too like:
- Nourishing Traditions Cookbook for Children
- Whole Foods for the Whole Family.
- And many others. Search the library for titles.
4: “Beauty”
Art, Poetry & Music. Give them lots of these too.
It’s a great time to read young people’s poetry to them, especially if you have some in school already. Include the littles (under 6) in morning basket routines and all read alouds, even if they have to be in a bouncy chair playing with something chewable.
Young people’s poetry if often short, so that works well.
For art, take them to museums if you can. Or galleries. This works well if they are still of an age to be in a stroller or backpack. As they get into the more active preschool age, look for programs designed for the very young people. We remember still one Fine Art Museum that had hand’s on activities just for little people.
Art can also be simple and done at homes when exploring with new media. I remember when I introduced finger painting to my twin toddlers. I had the foresight to do this outside, fortunately, because they decided it would be much more fun to paint each other than to paint the paper.
We discovered that mud is also a good sculpting material. And of course, sand castles from sand at the beach.
Music is often quite natural to young people. But don’t stultify them. Sing with them and it doesn’t have to be “kid’s songs”. They are completely capable of listening to classical music or singing along with hymns or folk songs or good quality children’s music. Sometimes children’s tunes can be quite sing-songy and annoying.
Here’s some children’s folk songs and titles that stood the test of time with us:
- Dance on a Moonbeam by Bill Crofut
- Animal Folk Songs for Children … And Other People by Peggy Seeger
- What Kind of Cat are You? by Billy Jonas
With music and art, don’t forget that your home atmosphere is part of the educational environment. It’s part of Charlotte Mason’s principles, too.
5. Tagging along with other siblings’ learning
I mentioned this earlier, but if you have “3 under age 3” or “5 under 5” you will inevitably come to the point where the first one (or 2 in my case) would be starting lessons and the younger(s) would be left out.
Have the younger tag along where possible.
- Morning basket
- Any field trips
- All afternoon structured free time
- Etc.
If that’s not enough and the youngest wants to “play school” too, then let them. Remember, it’s about games. Coloring, Legos, piano or recorder mini-lessons… it can all work, just keep it exceptionally short and realize that they aren’t going to spend much time at most activities.
When my youngest got to be about 5, I would make some “workboxes” for him so he was occupied while I did lessons with the older kids. He learned independence and liked having his own stuff that the big boys weren’t allowed to use. I put in Legos, or a puzzle, or markers and paper, or sometimes a snack.
Don’t force it if they aren’t interested yet.
5 Ways Summary
There you have 5 ways to engage preschoolers who are learning rapidly at that young age.
By far the most important are Reading and Nature.
Read, read, read. Then go outside and be in nature. Observe, play, spend lots of time outside. You can combine the two: read in nature. Read about nature.
I think you know my bias!
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