Using play to teach your toddler

Often when we talk about homeschooling we think of children of school age who receive their education at home instead of in a school. But we often forget that even before children are old enough to go to school, they are still being educated through the games and toys they play with, and the activities they do with their parents and siblings. So even though not everyone ascribes to home schooling for older children, you still need to provide a certain kind of education to those too young to start school. This article will delineate the main areas of development, and some ideas for activities and toys for each.


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The keyword for children this age is creativity. Have you noticed how at Christmas or a birthday, toddlers tend to enjoy boxes more than the thing it contained? It’s because toddlers are able to use their imagination to pretend that the box is something else -- and the box enables them to change the scenario as many times as they like. Toddlers like to move and be active, so make sure that the play area and the toys are free of sharp edges, and that they are safe to be in contact with the body (as children up to 4 still put things in their mouths). Make sure to supervise at all times, and especially closely when they play with crayons, chalk and paint.


So one area to develop is their body coordination. Big toys such as tricycles, playhouses and activities involving music and mime are perfect for this. For the younger ones, stacking games are especially good. You also want to help develop their fine hand coordination with games involving manipulation of pieces like bead puzzles and other toys. Drawing on a chalkboard or on paper also helps with this, and as they grow older they can hold smaller and smaller pencils and crayons.

Children this age love to play make-believe or pretend games, otherwise known to us as roleplay. Make sure that you give them grow-up clothes (as long as they are not dangerous) and do not impose gender roles on them. Boys can dress like mom, and girls can dress like dad; this is important for their understanding of the gendered world around them. Provide costumes and opportunities to play pretend as much as possible. Help them put on plays or their own TV show, play mommy along with them. You’ll see them come up with ideas you never imagined! This is part of their creativity development.

The last but not least part of their development is their literacy development. When your toddler asks you for a definition, give it as simply and honestly as you can. Read them stories and show them that words can be written down as well. You will see them try to write words down in their own language: that is a sign that they understand the concept of the written word. Encourage them to learn letters and numbers. Quiz them during the reading of their favourite book. Tell them to tell you a story and write it down as they go, so that you can read it back to them later.

As you can see, there are many possibilities to teach your toddler and to prepare them for school life (home or otherwise). Online toy stores are good if you can’t find what you need at your local toy store.

Homeschooling Without Homework

Today, an ever-increasing number of families are involved in homeschooling, which has emerged as a novel method to teach and impart education to children at home. Home schooling provides many benefits to the parents as well as children. In the early years, homeschooling was the only method to teach children, as there were no schools.


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Homeschooling does not lay any kind of pressure on the child. He/she does not have to prove to show their abilities. Parents too get the opportunity to understand their child better with homeschooling. They can plan accordingly after due consideration of their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, an individual child could be given more time to complete work, if he/she is slow in performance. A homeschooling child shows a positive attitude towards life.


Is it possible to homeschooling to do without homework? Usually the time is not the factor in homeschooling, but what matters is how much the child is able to grasp from the lessons. If there were a pressure of homework to be done, your child would not study in a comfortable and relaxed way. One of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is that your child is learning not under any kind of threat. So, to apply any kind of pressure to do his homework in a better way would confuse the child. Homework may be necessary in a formal school. Homeschooling by itself does not require any homework to be allotted, since the fact is the child is already homeschooling. What is necessary is to find out what is lacking in the child and how much knowledge does he have. Instead, you could design such a curriculum, which would contribute to your child's productivity.

Parents have the freedom to incorporate the child's interest in religious learning, but at the same time, one should not avoid to teach the curriculum subjects. In the school the children may waste time simply by waiting for others to finish their work or the recess time could be a waste. All this is avoided, while
homeschooling.

A child also feels more comfortable studying at home without the pressure of any homework to do. It may happen, sometime that a child is scared about a particular teacher and is unable to express his views or point, which he would otherwise freely do at home or in any given friendly environment. Sometimes, the child may loose confidence, when he notices that he is not as smart as other pupils are in a formal school. In these perspectives, homeschooling is better than to go to school.

As far as homework is concerned, you have to focus on the process of learning rather than expect homework to be the fast and effective output from your child's end. Since your child is not going to school, you have to understand what is going in his heart, while doing the assigned task. Sometimes it does happen that your child may seem to be happy just to finish his tasks and offload the burden to finish his homework quickly. But this may just be a fact to express his views and disgust by doing the homework. This may inculcate a head strong personality in him. So you have to go for a slow process to understand his psychology and take the right step accordingly.

But, sometimes you need to assign your child with homework, which he should do happily and without fear of pressure. So, a child who is homeschooling should grow with a positive attitude towards life with an in depth knowledge, because he should take his studies not as a burden, but to enjoy it and have fun with his family too.

As said above homework in itself is inherent in homeschooling. There is nothing like homeschooling without homework.

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Today, an ever-increasing number of families are involved in homeschooling, which has emerged as a novel method to teach and impart education to children at home. Home schooling provides many benefits to the parents as well as children.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Home Schooling

Education is an important matter for the existence of a human being. He should know about his fellows, nature, Culture of nations and lifestyle and health related matters. All of these can be achieved only through education. So it's one of the important matters to be considered with. There are many ways for gaining knowledge. You can get knowledge from reading books, from their own experience and many more ways. You can approach a teacher so that you can get the answers of all the questions you have in your mind. For this you will have to go to school. However, many of us do not prefer to send their children to schools. They prefer to give home schooling with the help of a tuition master.


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Home schooling is not easy as you believe. So in order to make it easier they do it with the help of some schooling groups. When the entire schooling groups meet together they get better schooling with the children and make parents satisfied. Therefore homeschooling groups should do some public relations for developing their community relations.


So if you are in place where there are no schools nearby then you will have to develop your own schooling details for schooling curriculum. You can gain knowledge from lots of books and resources available. You can get these from a local library and from online shops. Once you have selected a curriculum pattern, then you will have to decide the leeway you require for following that curriculum. Home schooling has some advantage in which one of them is to make your child interested in some topics and help them to increase their curiosity to know.

Besides conventional methods, you can make use of homeschooling by online programs. Many of the schools are offering these facilities. This has some advantage because the school will check the benefits your child is getting from the scheme. There will be a monitoring in every single path of your child. They also provide the correct study materials for gaining knowledge. Your children can learn things in which they have the interest. Furthermore, they can grow their own skills and abilities.

In the past years home schooling has a wide spread popularity. This is because of some of the advantage factors of home schooling. Closer relationship in family is also possible by home schooling. It has become legal in many of the nations around the world. However, still there is some opposition against home schooling. If a debate is being conducted, then there will have points against and supporting home schooling.

Parents will have to think about the disadvantages of a program while considering about the benefits. There are some factors of social relationships and behavioral patterns that should be taught to children. How this could be possible if the children do not interact with friends. Hence, sometimes parents make their child dummies ignoring the fact that they will have to learn more with the interaction with the world.

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