When your preschooler is one of the younger learners in your home, it is SUPER HELPFUL to have some things to keep them busy while you home school the older kids. Here are some quick tips for keeping 3-4 year old “busy” while you home school older kids…. 

• Take a DEEP BREATH and remember that even though it seems like everyone is distracted and no one is learning anything, at the end of the day, they are ALL learning more than you think or realize that they are! It took a few YEARS of homeschooling for me to believe this LOL

• Special school-time only toys to pull out for the younger ones can be a real life saver. If you need some ideas, visit Rainbow Resources – they have already done the work of finding quality education toys. 
• Train the little ones that just because older ones are doing school, doesn’t mean they get “screen time”. Train them instead that they get “special toy time” or maybe even “sensory bin time” – however, quick caveat – I do plan to incorporate a little bit of screen time for my 4 year old in a desperate situation – I just don’t want to set it up as the expectation. 

• Before school starts create 4-8 sensory bins – I keep these under my bed, and put a table cloth on the ground and let Josiah play in my master bedroom. Since my room is carpeted, and some of the bins are full of rice, this does mean extra vacuuming over a small area, but for 30 min. of uninterrupted time where he is having so much fun…it is worth it! 
• Most of the time, the 3-4 year old crowd wants to be with the rest of the family, even if they are doing school! I have found that dot markers and dot marker activity sheets are a great way to keep the littler ones busy. 

• Another popular activity was a small white board and dry erase markers at the table we were learning at. However, “being quiet” was always a struggle for us, one we are still working on….
• Start them young listening to books! When each of my kids stopped napping consistently, they were allowed to listen to books on Audible during quiet time. This is a super fun and easy way for them to fall in love with reading. Josiah has already learned so much listening to the Magic Tree House books. 

• This age group is also REALLY interested in having their siblings play with them. So I often will work with one kid, and send another kid over into the play room to play with the preschooler. It is a great break for the older student, and obviously the preschooler appreciates this time! Also, anytime there is a chance to go outside to play, or go on a nature walk, or do a science experiment outside, that is also a highlight of the day for the preschooler. 
• Often, I found myself spending a bit more one-on-one time with my older girls than with my preschooler, so often I would let him be the one to “help” me with stuff around the house…getting the mail, cooking, watering the garden, etc.  For my preschooler, Josiah, he just wants me to sit in the play room and play trucks or other games with him. So just a few minutes of doing this in the morning before school or during a school break really fills up his love tank. These are just easy ideas to show the preschooler that they are important too.

After trying a variety of things, my absolute favorite resource is actually a quick easy to read book called The Homegrown Preschooler: Teaching Your Kids in the Places They Live. 

This book reveals that most preschool classrooms are actually designed to mimic a home! There’s the kitchen area, the dress up area, the reading area, and comfy places to sit. The two authors are both experts in young child development and also home school moms so I found their advice informative and practical. They discuss different areas that preschoolers should be growing in (for example: gross motor, fine motor, reading readiness, social/emotional, etc.) and give tips and ideas for how to help them grow and develop in these area. This book by itself is really all you need. But I personally wanted a little more hand holding. So I purchased the curriculum that they made called A Year of Playing Skillfully. This curriculum takes the ideas laid out in the book and creates monthly themes with books to read and multiple fun engaging ideas for each of the areas of growth they discuss in their book. Each month probably has about 30 activities based around a theme, and you can pick and choose at the beginning of the month which activities you want to do. Last year with Josiah, we probably did 1 or 2 preschool activities for him a week. Even though I had wanted to do more, he appreciated it so much every time I had a “fun activity!” for him to do that day. And many times, we could leave the activity out and he could do it more than one day. Most of the time, my older girls were eager to join in on his activities too. 

This podcast with one of the creators really summarizes the “why” behind the curriculum. The Mason Jar #27: Lesli Richards of The Homegrown Preschooler.

I admit that doing the Year of Playing Skillfully requires the parent to do some creative and sometimes “messy” stuff with their kids. Some of our best memories involve the “messier” projects. If you need some convincing, the book teaches that messy activities are actually hugely beneficial for this age group! But I also know that that’s not for everyone. If not, another AWESOME resource is The Busy Toddler. I found her on Instagram and just visiting her page there will probably give you enough ideas for a whole year home with your preschooler. But she recently made: Playing Preschool, a complete two year preschool program that you can buy a year at a time. We used this some with Josiah last year too and really enjoyed most of the activities. With both this and Playing Skillfully, I would recommend planning in advance either weekly or monthly so that you have the materials and books you need to do the activities you want to do. I make hold lists at the library in advance of the school year so that requesting the books as we go along is easier. 

When your child is 4 years old, they may be ready for learning their alphabet, numbers, and very beginning reading. My favorite resources so far have been…. 

• Get Ready for the Code 
• Get Set for the Code
• Go for the Code
• Mathematical Reasoning Level 2 (check out all their preschool resources – they have a ton at this site) 

These activities only take a few minutes a day and they will definitely need you to sit beside them to read instructions but they are a great and easy way to introduce school topics. You can still do the fun stuff listed above at other times in the day. 

At any age, younger kids often like to join along with what the older kids are doing. For us, this has meant for Bible stories, Bible verses, Classical Conversations memory work practice, poetry, read-alouds, History, and Science – Josiah has been invited to join us. If he decides to be with us doing these times, he is required to be quiet and listen and participate – or go to another room to play. For History and Science, I normally have a coloring page for all of the kids and that has kept their hands busy during the reading time (which honestly normally only takes 15 min.) Sometimes it is hard for him to pay attention, but other times he blows me away with what he picks up on, he even memorized quite a few of the poems from last year.