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Last updated on April 8th, 2022 at 11:11 pm
Scheduling can be tough for moms. We have so many things going on and people to keep track of, it can be easy to forget to do something. Something like taking time to actually do preschool with your preschooler.
I don’t care if you work from home, work outside the home, or stay at home. School stuff can be hard. Period.
I am truly blessed to have the opportunity to work from home. We don’t have to send our kid to child care or preschool if we don’t want to.
And we don’t want to.
After talking to a few elementary teachers, we realized there’s no extra benefit to sending our daughter to preschool other than social skills. And we do that with our community of friends and community classes.
Right now, I’m soaking up the time I get to spend with my daughter before she has to go to school.
But we want to make sure she’s still making progress so she’s not behind.
I still remember my first day of kindergarten when the teacher told us we couldn’t leave the classroom until we wrote our names on the nametags on our desks. I had absolutely no clue how to do it, so I left hoping no one would notice.
I’m going to make sure my kid doesn’t have to go through that.
I don’t have a ton of time to spend teaching all day. I have to work. But that doesn’t give my kid a free pass to sit in front of the TV watching Disney movies all day.
This school year, I’m challenging myself to get intentional with preschool. I have to build learning activities into the routine if I want to make sure it gets done. I know it’s going to be a real challenge.
I’m really going to depend on some habits strategies I’ve learned from Gretchen Rubin’s book Better Than Before.
What kinds of strategies am I using?
1 | Make it part of the routine (the strategy of pairing)
We already have the morning routine pretty set. Each morning after breakfast (and my workout) we do one of our dollar store workbooks.
We’re also investing in a preschool curriculum this year. We’ve decided to do Twenty-Six Letters to Heaven so we can start doing a little more faith-based learning.
In the cooler months, we have lunch on our patio. Then I work and she paints, plays in her sandbox, or just runs around exploring.
Reading is also part of the routine. We read before naptime and bedtime every single day.
2 | Take classes (the strategy of scheduling)
I’m the worst at hands-on activities. I really don’t have the time to prep for all that.
Wanna know what I do instead?
I sign up for classes through our community. Working mom hack for the win!
As an Obliger, I’m much more likely to follow through on activities when someone else can plan them for me. All I gotta do is show up (of course, we all know how hard even that can be).
We’ve signed up for cooking class, art classes, and gymnastics. In a few months we’ll be signing up for piano lessons. (Her music education so far has been to know who all the Beatles are and to recognize which Beatles is singing each song. That’s important, you know.)
We’ve also been taking weekly swim lessons since our girl was 7 months old. So now it’s not just a class – it’s part of the routine.
3 | Make appointments (the strategy of accountability)
Another thing I’m really bad at are playdates. So, I’ll be attempting to schedule some this year. (If you know me, please bug me about this.) If it’s just with one other mom, then obviously I have more pressure to show up and not cancel.
However, I can’t guarantee my kid won’t suddenly get sick like she does. Every. Single. Time.
4 | Make things unavoidable (the strategy of inconvenience)
One appointment I can’t avoid without consequences is the library. Every two weeks we head back to pick out new books and avoid fines.
It gets us reading new books for free and gets us out of the house without fail.
5 | Quick and easy at-home activities (the strategy of convenience)
There are some days I just can’t leave the house. I need my daughter to work independently so I can work, or we’re just plain tired.
So I have an arsenal of good learning activities to do at home:
Free play
Dollar Store workbooks
Puzzles
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood App (it doesn’t need Wifi!)
Pinterest! (seriously, so many great ideas!)
Painting supplies (this is the cutest easel and paint pallet ever)
YouTube (here’s a great list of learning videos on YouTube …I may or may not have “A is for Apple” stuck in my head right now.)
Amazon Prime Video (some days, you just gotta)
27 Stay-at-Home Activities for Girls
So that’s the plan for at least the first part of the year. Sometimes you really have to strategize with what you’re doing to get things done. And it also helps to have things written down.
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