Homeschoolers, help please...

[mommysammi]

DS is 4. While he attends preschool, he is at home most of the time. Preschool is only three days a week, three hours a day. I try not to let him watch too much tv, no more than two hours a day but not all in one sitting (I know, that's too much as it is).

I need help keeping him occupied throughout the day, especially on those rainy days. I have little projects for him here and there but those last only a few minutes. I want to have a daily routine of things for him to do but don't know where to start. He doesn't like to play with his toys unless I play with him. So, free play for him doesn't mean much. Are there any guides or books out there that plan daily activities to the hour or every few hours? I have activity suggestion books but I'm not good at planning and picking activities for each day. Please help. TIA.

[AngelaS]

You could look into the book "Before Five in a Row". Basically, you read the same classic children's book every day for a week and every day pick different activites out of the book to go along with it.

I like to set up mini stations around the house for my girls at that age, so that they have things they can move between and play with. One has the Brio set up in her room, her sister has Playmobil out currently, I might put puzzles on the dining room table, there's a Little People set open and waiting on the the family room floor and then a Montessori type fine motor activity on the kitchen counter.

To build attention span, when she sits down at an activity the first few times, I will tell her that I'm going to set the time for several minutes and she needs to work at that activity until the timer goes off. (Honestly, a silent flip over timer that goes for about 5 minutes would be PERFECT for this). She knows then to stay on her chair until time's up. Generally I give her 5 to 10 minutes but when we're getting back into school after a break, I have to retrain her to focus on things for a bit longer. This is also a good way to encourage playing alone---if I'm going to move laundry, I will tell her to continue working at her task until I come back.

Don't forget that working alongside you is something else that kids enjoy and it helps them feel needed. Mine wipe down the bottom of the windows while I do the top. They help throw laundry into the washer and pull the socks from the waaay back of the dryer. They help sort clean laundry and wipe up spots on the floor. Even cleaning up a room can be fun if you make it. Put away the things with wheels, then the things you wear, then the things with red and so on.

As for tv time, give him 2 30 minute coupons in the morning and tell him that those are all the tv time he gets. When they're gone, the tv is off for the day. If you combine teaching him to play for longer time frames vs. sitting in front of the tv, it'll really cut down on how much he asks. :)

[brittone2]

ITA w/ including your kids with what you are doing. Sorting socks, wiping windows, sweeping the floor...very Montessori LOL ;)

Books on CD instead of TV maybe? We like Greathall CDs. There are also some great web resources for audio recordings for kids. Two that we've used are:
www.storynory.com
http://www.kiddierecords.com/

activity bags:
http://chasingcheerios.blogspot.com/2008/06/toddler-activity-bags.html
http://www.redshift.com/~bonajo/preschool_activities.htm

The woman who runs this site is a wonderful asset at contributer over at MDC. Her HS'd son is now in college (or maybe even graduated by now?)
http://www.besthomeschooling.org/articles/lillian_jones_ps_kdgtn.html

Halfway down this page there are tons of links with ideas of things you can do at home:
http://www.besthomeschooling.org/gateway/inted16.html

We don't really schedule our day. Learning happens but we don't schedule it. We keep a bird identification book on the kitchen table, which overlooks the birdfeeder. DS got into that by age 3 and was great at finding the birds he was seeing in the feeder. At 3, I would sometimes take glue and make the shape of a letter on construction paper for DS and give him beans, lentils, cotton balls, popcorn, whatever and let him glue those onto the glue letter. If that becomes too easy you can introduce a small set of kid-safe tweezers to use to move the cottonballs, lentils, etc. Make playdoh. Include DS in your cooking. Let him slice up a banana with a plastic knife, or make his own sandwich. Go for walks. There are a lot of fun things you can do. Fieldtrips to a museum? Bookstore? Petstore to look at fish?

If you are looking more for a schedule, I can't really help because we don't really follow anything specific. You could look for books at your library about Montessori in the Home...if you set up your home so that there are materials he can freely access and use that might help?