Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Homeschooling Preschool Activities Ideas

Even if you don't intend to start homeschooling your child until the age 4 or 5, you could still consider some educational preschool activities. Scientific tests have shown that the first 3-4 years of life are extremely important in a child's future development as this is the period when the most brain cell connections are formed. A child that is neglected during this stage may end up by having speech troubles or attention deficit disorders. 

Homeschooling preschool activities have the aim of stimulating the child's brain, thus preparing it for acquiring new skills. No activity is silly at this age, so you can develop a huge list of crazy game and activity ideas. One such silly idea is, filling the bath tub and tossing ducks into it which will help the toddler understand and improve eye-hand coordination.


Art and crafts activities are welcome, as they will stimulate the child's creativity and sense of beauty. You can combine unusual materials such as pasta, rice, beads, buttons or paper clips, and have the child create 3D craft paintings which you can then organize into an exhibition on a wall in your home. Make sure that all materials used are non-toxic, including the glue, the watercolors and the paints. During this kind of activity it is strongly advised to closely watch the child, because of choking hazards. Small children will always attempt to put small objects into their mouths, so if you can't supervise them well, forget about this kind of activity.  This is definitely a 'hands on' activity.

Counting games can be very enjoyable for small children. Buy your kid a bed cover with some birds or animals designs in a repetitive pattern and have him count them repeatedly. Celebrate progress when it occurs. If today he can count up to six and tomorrow he remembers up to seven, that's a good reason for outlining his performance by showering praise on him. This will boost his self-confidence and make the learning experience more enjoyable.

The Zoo can be a great place for lots of entertaining homeschooling educational games such as naming the animals, comparing them so see which one is taller, or fatter, or uglier. You can ask the kids to indicate to you only the birds, then, at a second tour, you could ask them to show you the monkeys or you could have him try to count the stripes on a zebra, or anything else that may pop into your mind on the spot. This could be an excellent opportunity to teach them about different habitats of various species, thus emphasizing the idea of unity in diversity on the planet. This is an example of how to use physical things to demonstrate abstract concepts.

As you can see, almost anything has educative potential as long as the child enjoys it.

My Homeschool Software is a site dedicated to providing information about homeschooling your children. There are many homeschool software options and we want to help you by providing the best practices when it comes to choosing your own homeschooling products.

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