Stay At Home STEM: The Sorting Challenge

Change is stressful for everyone, especially children. If you are new to homeschooling, you might be a bit overwhelmed and confused as you look for options and information. Having a homeschooling routine in place will bring a sense of security, comfort and consistency to a child’s life.

Why Is Routine so Important?

A routine is the way families organize themselves to get things done, spend time together, learn and have fun.

Children thrive in a predictable environment where they know what to expect. It makes them feel safe, secure and looked after, especially in stressful times like this. If you build a routine around having fun and spending time together, it will also strengthen family relationships. Having an important job to do in the family routine (like setting the table) helps children develop a sense of responsibility which is an important life skill. Routines for children with development delays or disabilities are even more important because they find it hard to understand or cope with change. It takes a little bit of time for children to get used to a routine, but when they do, you can give fewer instructions as they get better at following a schedule.

Having a routine is beneficial for parents too even though it takes some effort to create a good routine. But when you have one in place, it helps you get through your daily tasks and free up time for other things. A routine can help you feel organized and in control and this is very important for reducing stress levels. You will also feel a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day because you followed a certain structure.

Homeschooling Preschool and Kindergarten Daily Routine

In early education the entire homeschooling routine should be based on creating opportunities for your child to learn through play. The most natural way of creating relevant opportunities is to start with observation. Take a day and spend it casually with your child. Observe what they play with the most, what interests them at this moment, is there something they need help with (maybe work on speech or vocabulary more). When you know what your child likes and shows affinity for, then you can build on that and learning will be more fun and efficient. For example if your child loves dinosaurs, use that interest and incorporate dinosaurs into literacy, math, science and art.

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There are many themed activities and resources available for you to use on this theme and your child will enjoy this and learn much faster.

It’s important that you make your routine work for your family. Here is an example of a homeschooling routine we use and you can use it as a base and then adjust according to your needs.

07:00 am – Wake up/Get dressed/Breakfast

08:00 am – Storytime

We sit on the floor in a relaxing atmosphere, talk about what day it is, what the weather is like that day and they choose a story for me to read to them.

We spend a bit of time talking about the story – What is their favorite part/ characters? Did we learn a new word today? If they really like the story and we have materials, like relevant figurines or plush toys, we reenact the story together or they do it on their own. If they engage in free play, I will let them play while I tidy up or plan the next activity.

09:00 am – Songs/ Dance/ Movement

After they were playing quietly for a while, we have a loud activity like singing nursery rhymes, dancing to children’s songs or do some yoga for kids.

09:30 am – Literacy or Math

Now that they are fresh and awake from moving around, I like to do a short activity involving letters, numbers, shapes, or measurement. You can use printable worksheets, activity pads or play a game like letter hunt or sorting by size and working on patterns.

10:00 am – Snack time (fruit and nuts for healthy body and mind)

10:30 am- Free Play

It is very important to provide time for them to learn through independent play. All you need to do is offer open ended toys and resources like play food, old boxes, animal figurines, building blocks and similar.

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12:00 pm- Lunch/ Family Time

1:00 pm- Outdoor Play (playground, backyard or patio)

If we can’t go out due to weather, then they either play on their own.

2:00 pm- Art/ Science

If we didn’t go out, I'd try to do more activities where they need to move or stand so we paint on the big art easel or do science experiments and they help prepare materials and clean up later.

2:30 pm- Snack Time

3:00 pm – Free Play

Most of the time kids are very good at finding opportunities to learn on their own but if you see they need a bit of direction, you can encourage some dramatic play. Give them some bandages, old syringes and let them be doctors and heal their dolls or maybe set up a grocery shop from an old cardboard box and food containers.

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4:30 pm- Dinner Time

5:30 pm – Family Time

Playing board games is a fun way of learning and strengthening family relationships. Money Bags^™ Coin Value Game is always a hit!

We laugh, tell jokes and try to have as much fun as we can together. Sometimes we also have a movie night at this time. If you choose to watch a movie, just make sure it’s short and appropriate for your child’s age.

6:30 pm – Bath time/ Getting dressed for bed

7:00 pm- Read a Bedtime story/ Sleep

Being flexible is the key to creating a good routine. Flexibility let's us take advantage of those moments when children discover something that sparks their interest. This allows us to extend a play period so they can gain maximum satisfaction from their play and we can do our own thing in the meanwhile.

When you are creating a schedule, it is important to provide a good balance between quiet and noisy activities, solitary time and family/sibling play and outdoor/indoor play. And also don’t forget to allow enough time for a transition from one activity to another to avoid stressful situations. Warn them once in advance before a change in activity. For example, if you are planning to go out, give them a 15 minute warning so they can finish their play and prepare for what’s next.

Homeschooling should be fun and relaxing above all. Enjoy the time spent with your kids, be present and sneak little lessons while you cook and play together. If you keep the wake up/ sleep time and feeding time the same everyday, this alone will provide enough structure so that everything else can be flexible and enjoyable.

Fall is here! Which means I get to put together one of my most favorite sensory bins of the year.  Who can resist the smell of apple cinnamon and pine cones mixed with the texture of corn kernels, right!?

Every year I try to add in components that align with the developmental stage my daughter is in.  Being almost 3, she is refining her fine and visual motor skills every day, so we added in lots of fine motor challenges and visual perceptual options this year. Toddlers also seek independence in everything they do, so sensory bins are always a great task to get them involved when putting it together.

Sensory Bin Materials

First, we gathered all of our goodies.  For this bin, we are using corn kernels, play apples, pine cones, flat marbles, and play leaves as our main “ingredients”.  You can control the amount of scent you include in your bin by sprinkling apple pie spice, or adding cinnamon sticks.  My daughter does not have any aversions to scent, so we went with pre-scented apples and pine cones (you can often find these in the fall section of your local craft store!).

Next, I had her scoop and pour the corn kernels into her bin, and add in all of the goodies.  I let her play for a while and explore the different scents and textures.  She loves to explore using kitchen utensils (spoons, bowls, funnels, cups, etc) – she made our whole family some apple soup with a side of leaves and pine cones for dinner!  All of this is working on their imagination skills which is fantastic for this age.

Then, the fun begins for me! Here are some fun challenges I incorporated into our purposeful play!

Fine Motor

Corn kernels are awesome because when a toddler plays with it, they are naturally practicing their pincer skills just picking them up and moving them around!  I also love to incorporate various tongs, tweezers, and clothespins for her to use while she picks up apples or “catches” leaves.

Visual Motor

Sorting tasks are always a big hit.  I had her sort out red apples, green apples, yellow leaves, and green leaves.  You can also work on patterning or visual model copying.  For my daughter, I lined up a couple objects (red apple, green leaf, pine cone) and had her find the matching objects in the bin and line them up in the same order.

Stereognosis

This is a high-level perceptual skill that I love to throw in when planning activities.  Stereognosis is the ability to perceive an object from touch – sensory bins are perfect for this because you can hide a pine cone underneath the corn kernels, have them dig in, and see if they can find the pine cone only by touch. I can’t tell you how intrinsically motivating and fun this is for them, all while working on some amazing developmental skills.

The thing I really love about sensory bins is that they are easily adaptable to any age group.  If your little one is younger, try adding the corn kernels to a clear bottle with some leaves and pom poms and have them roll it all around.  Watch them in awe as they see the goodies move all around inside the bottle and hear the sounds of the kernels as they slide!

Save it for later!