If you’re homeschooling young children during the COVID-19 pandemic, coming up with lessons and ideas can be difficult. It’s difficult even for licensed teachers, and they spent years in college learning educational techniques. When you’re teaching from home, on your own, it can feel a bit overwhelming when you know you need some new ideas, but can’t find any.
Fortunately, ideas are all around you! Here are some sources you can turn to when you need suggestions for homeschooling young children.
Four Sources Of Inspiration When Homeschooling Preschoolers:
1 – Pinterest (and Etsy)
Social media is great for getting new ideas, and in particular, Pinterest is full of people sharing their experiences and successes. There’s probably no better single source for teaching ideas. Along the same lines, it’s also worth checking out the online independent arts shop Etsy. Many of the crafts and projects their vendors are selling are things you could recreate for yourself!
2 – Children’s Books
Take ideas from your children’s favorite books! Children’s books are deliberately written to be stimulating and encourage creativity, and that can work for you as well. Do a close read on some of the books you have around, looking specifically for teachable moments and opportunities. You might be surprised at how many ideas you pick up.
3 – Games and movies
Don’t overlook other children’s media either. Your children undoubtedly have favorite games and movies, and those can be great sources of inspiration as well. Moreover, you could end up teaching them an even more valuable skill – how to be aware of – and critical of – the media they’re consuming. If you make it a regular occurrence of questioning children about the movies and games they consume, they’ll start doing it for themselves over time.
4 – Nature
No matter where you live, there is natural life around you that can be examined and used for inspiration. This might seem challenging if you’re in an urban environment, but it would also challenge you – and your children – to see and understand how the circle of life never entirely goes away. Or, create your own natural area with gardens or insect collections!
5 – Cooking
Make the daily chore of cooking dinner a teachable moment. Stop and notice the shapes and colors of the fruits and vegetables you are using to prepare dinner. Does your child know all of them? How about introducing a new food or flavor? Look for recipes with ingredients with fun shapes, colors and names. If your child helps you prepare dinner they will also be learning while feeling included and useful.
If you need a little help homeschooling young children, Playgarden Prep is here. We offer excellent online preschool classes that can supplement your own teaching, with book reading, DIY science experiments and cooking/nutrition classes, while helping your child learn to interact with others – even under quarantine. Click here to learn more!
