From activity ideas to strategies, I want to give you lots of helpful tips and ideas for how to homeschool an older child while caring for a toddler.
Keep A Toddler Busy While Homeschooling
Successfully homeschooling can be quite the adventure… throw in caring for a younger child (or two! or three!) WHILE homeschooling and you’ve got a full-on challenge afoot!
We have had a toddler around every single year of the six years we have been homeschooling. It has always been very important for me to include our toddler in our homeschool experience. I don’t want to miss out on these precious toddler years of one of my children because I’m hyper-focused on homeschooling my student aged child(ren).
That being said, it takes a lot of intention and planning on my part to maintain order and a learning environment. Because homeschooling with a toddler (or two) around can easily slip into chaos. I have found that by planning ahead and trying different strategies, we can do it. We can successfully homeschool with a busy toddler (or two) around!
Keeping a toddler busy while you are homeschooling is such a big task! So let’s talk strategy and ideas.
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Here are the 3 strategies I have used, and continue to use, to homeschool my student(s) with younger siblings!
#1. Plan Activities
There are many activities that could keep your toddler or your homeschool student’s younger siblings engaged and occupied! The sky is pretty much the limit. But it may take some planning and preparation work ahead of time on your part.
Here are a few of the favorite activities for toddlers at our house:
Puzzles – It is helpful to choose puzzles that are age and developmentally appropriate. Doing so ensures that your toddler can work the puzzle independently and clean it up when finished. There are so many fun and beautiful puzzle options out there! You can find durable wooden puzzles with few pieces, crepe rubber puzzles that offer a delightful textile experience, and huge floor puzzle that easily fit together… along with everything in between!
Coloring Books, Paper and Crayons – These simple art supplies are excellent materials to keep on hand and have available for your toddler to use to create his or her own masterpiece. These uncomplicated materials are amazing tools that can assist in the development and growth of your toddler. Drawing is an wonderful activity that can help your toddler develop hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, gross motor skills, observation, creativity and confidence.
Water Wow – My toddler feels like he is painting when playing with the water wow activity books, and I love the easy clean up! There are several themes to choose from, so I’m sure you can find something that your toddler is interested in. I usually keep an eye on my toddlers when they play with this though… for some odd reason they enjoy sucking the water out of the paintbrush pen?!?!
Special Pen & Paper – If you have a tiny budding artist and you are desperate to keep messes to a minimum, you can also check into the Crayola Wonder Mess Free pads and markers. In the video I mention this “magic pen” activity to try if you want to avoid messes with little artists.
Wipe Clean Dry Erase Books – One of the wipe-clean books my toddler has is the Pre-K Wipe Clean Workbook. But the possibilities and options for wipe clean books are almost endless! In fact, you could even laminate coloring pages or activity sheets and use those for your toddler!
You may want to check into the CraZart Super Washable Markers. We have found that those markers work really well for our dry erase wipe-clean books. I found them to be a little less expensive than dry erase markers. So if the lid gets accidentally left off, and the marker dries out it, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.
Books – Beyond the classic board books, I also like to find interesting and visually delightful books that I have available for my toddler to look through. Some of our favorite board book titles are I’m As Quick As A Cricket, I Am A Bunny, and The Napping House. Some other books that are NOT board books, that my toddler is enjoying right now, are A Child’s Book of Art, The Beginner’s Bible, and Old Hat New Hat.
Trains – Our kids have loved playing with our wooden train set. I found our train set used, at a consignment sale, when my oldest kids were small, and our trains has been much-loved and played with. However, these days you can find many affordable wooden train set options online.
Audio Books, radio drama, music – Last year my then three-year-old really enjoyed Adventures in Odyssey and Patch the Pirate episodes during our school time. I had to really plan ahead to make sure he was in a different room. Otherwise it was very distracting to his older siblings while they were trying to do school. We also own a few audio books that are recordings of picture books stories. These make wonderfully fun activity times for the toddler!
Toddler Games – We have a toddler wooden memory game, pattern blocks, and play food. All of these games provide excellent opportunities for creative and imaginative play. Learning pattern and shape recognition, sorting, color identification, and basic word skills, the learning options with these games are numerous!
Wooden Blocks – These classic wooden blocks are well-loved at my house. My toddler really enjoys stacking and knocking down the wooden blocks. He uses them to make all sorts of buildings and towers.
Montessori Work Stations – I have a Pinterest board where I have started collecting ideas for work stations for my toddler. You can check out my board here. Creating a Montessori work station is a great way to encourage independent time for your toddler. Creating work stations should allow your toddler to engage in the world around him. You want to enable him to pursue activities that he or she finds enjoyable. A simple tray with appropriate items thoughtfully placed on it can encourage your toddler to cultivating basic life skills.
Building Blocks – So my last suggestion is probably one of my top three recommendations for toddler activities! We have the LEGO (R) Duplo (R) blocks, and those building blocks are are definitely a favorite activity around here! ALL of my children, from the almost ten-year-old down to the two-year-old, LOVE playing with these blocks. These blocks have facilitated hours and hours of imaginative and creative play.
A word of caution:
Be sure that the activities that you plan and prepare for your toddler don’t require too much assistance or oversight. If you have to constantly monitor the activity, you might unintentionally defeat the purpose of planning activities for your toddler.
Also note, depending on the age and developmental stage of the toddler, sometimes his, or her, attention span is very short! At that stage, lots of snuggles, hugs, and patience can go a long way. Also, snacks. Food has been the key to many a happy school day at our house.
#2. Capitalize On Naptime
This may or may not be an option for you right now. If your toddler still naps consider utilizing that time to get some focused homeschool time in! You may have to adjust your school schedule. Sometimes it may also be an option to adjust your toddler’s naptime to better suit your family needs. Just remember you will have to be flexible! Some times the best laid (naptime) plans go awry.
The toddler years feel like such a short and long time all rolled up into one beautiful stage. This stage represents such a short time in life overall!
#3. Ask For Help
You might find it helpful to find someone who can play with your toddler so you can focus all of your attention on you homeschool student. Even if it is just for a small amount of time, you may find that focused time helps to breathe life into the rest of your homeschool time.
This assistance or assistant (see what I did there?!?) could be a sibling, depending on the ages and stages of your kids, or your spouse.
You may also be able to find a friend, a neighbor, or family member that you trust who could play with, entertain, and otherwise care for, your toddler so that you are free to get some focused teaching time with your homeschool student.
This wouldn’t have to be a daily occurrence for you to find it extremely beneficial to your homeschool. A focused time weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly may also be helpful for you. Especially if you are feeling frazzled and overwhelmed with caring for your precious little person while homeschooling.
If you find someone who can help you on regular basis, be sure to have a plan for that time. Having a plan detailing what you want to accomplish will help you to maximize your uninterrupted time!
This always seems to be a mental exercise of trying to balance accepting SOME toddler bred chaos and getting good learning time in WHILE still trying to maintain a semblance of order so your entire home and mental health aren’t wrecked just to get homeschool done!
Loving these little people is such a precious gift. It is my goal to try to stay focused on the incredible blessing this time is. At the same time, I want to be a faithful steward of the heart and life of this tiny person who is so full of life!
Solidarity Mama, we can do this!
