3 goals for homeschool preschool + a special giveaway!! [Part 2 of COVID Educational Inequality Series]

do the paper decorations look familiar? we just recycled them from Silly Bean's birthday decor!

Welcome to Little Mouse's Colors Homeschool! We decided to call our preschool year "homeschooling" and Silly Bean even decided on this cute little name for it, but we are basically doing what we've been doing and not necessarily doing any lesson planning or anything, just more of the same 😅

Here are 3 goals we are going to be focusing on this year, and most things we'll be doing will likely fall into one or more of these categories!

1. Cultivate curiosity, wonder, and a love for learning: aka asking questions about anything and everything, figuring out how to research to find out the answers (whether it's the library or asking a friend who knows a lot about it, etc.), noticing things in the world around us.
2. Read tons: whether it's me reading books out loud, audio books, story podcasts, or Silly Bean practicing his reading, whether it's in English or in Chinese, or telling our own stories.
3. Create opportunities for social interactions: meeting up with friends (socially distanced, outdoors), talking to new neighbors, trying to talk to some kids we see at the playground, etc.

As I've been talking with friends with similar aged kids, I also wanted to share 3 things to keep in mind if you're trying to "homeschool" your preschooler this year:

1. Homeschool doesn't have to be fancy like what you see on Pinterest. Truly. I'm a part of a few homeschool and toddler groups on Facebook, and I keep seeing posts from some parents who do really amazing things with their learning spaces, learning activities, etc. but to be honest, you don't need all of that to do a great job with your child. What I think matters the most is your presence and your interaction with your kid(s)!
2. Don't take our "schedule" as the authority of what a preschool schedule "should" look like! While routine is important for kids to feel secure and know what's coming, every kid is just so different. You are the one who knows your child best, what their ups and downs are throughout the day, when they get hangry (it's really a thing!). There really isn't a right or wrong schedule, whatever works best for your family. Plus at this age, they should be playing the majority of the time! Apparently "teaching time" for preschool aged kids should only be 15 to 30 minutes a day anyway so if you are planning lessons, make them short and don't get too frustrated if your kid's attention span is short! (the activities I shared above only lasted about 15 minutes tops before Silly Bean got disinterested and walked away!).
3. It's totally okay if your kid wants to do the same thing every day. Yes, they are still learning, and yes it's totally fine! Silly Bean got an Africa puzzle for his birthday a few weeks ago, and has still been doing the puzzle at least 20 times a day since then, and always says he is looking forward to playing the puzzle again tomorrow. You don't need to force your child to do all these other activities because you think they are supposed to be doing it. You can use that as an opportunity to extend their learning with that particular interest. So for example, we asked Silly Bean which African countries he was interested in learning about, and borrowed some books from the library about them. We thought about what friends we have who have been to Africa or who have lived there or currently live there, and are planning to do mini "interviews" with them (still trying to figure out what that looks like for a 3-year-old!). 

I'm not much of a systematic planner when it comes to all of this so you won't see any spreadsheets or worksheets here, just some activities we come up with here and there. Again, with COVID, I think a lot of inequalities are being exposed with the whole homeschooling/schooling from home bit. Some families may not have access to materials or toys that you see on other blog posts or articles about homeschool or learning-from-home ideas, or don't have the time to search Pinterest or prep an activity because they are working one or two jobs, or maybe are raising multiple kids and just don't have the time. We want to share some ideas in this post that should be easy, low or no prep, and the materials should be easy to come by.

The other day, Silly Bean refused to go outside. I really try to get him out for at least an hour a day, so I quickly came up with this idea that we should go collect sticks to make Little Mouse a house. Silly Bean loved the idea so much we were out the door in a jiffy! Little Mouse is this little finger puppet that Nanny and Grampy gave Silly Bean a while ago but he has recently liked it a lot. This was the end result!

I just glued the sticks together in a triangular prism shape (it was supposed to be more cube-like but we ran out of sticks, oh well), glued a bunch of leaves on the top and the front to make a door, found a little rock outside and stuck it on, and voila! It only took about 15 minutes or so to put it together, and now it sits on our little table.

Another quick and easy activity that we introduced today as a part of "choice time" is beading.

I guess this is what you'd call our learning time--I give Silly Bean a choice of 2 activities where I assist him in practicing a skill; so far I've come up with beading and cutting practice (just cut up some strips of scrap paper and put it in a jar with scissors). I think the materials should be accessible for most--I just got a bag of pipe cleaners and a bag of pony beads from a local craft store across the street, but I'd imagine they'd have it at the dollar store as well!

Lastly, we wanted to do a special giveaway of a mini preschool kit to either parents/caregivers in need (however you define that)-- whether that's for yourself, a neighbor or friend you know who could be blessed by this, or maybe a friend faraway who you're thinking about! To enter the giveaway:

• share this post (either by sharing the Facebook post or by copying and pasting the post link) to your social media and tag a friend who could be encouraged by this blog post
• and subscribe to the blog (on the main page, there is a sidebar on the right where you can enter your e-mail address)

Silly Bean will pick a number at random and we'll announce the winners on Friday!