Homeschooling a 2-Year-Old || Our Early Preschool Daily Flow

**UPDATE**
Since first writing this post, the materials we use have shifted. She absorbed most of the information quicker than I expected, so I did a follow-up over on the NEW blog (geared specifically toward homeschool, parenting, and simplifying family life). Check it out HERE!

Homeschooling a 2-year-old *may* sound like overkill.

But our little Arwyn LOVES to learn. At first, Dave and Ava videos on YouTube were enough to satiate her thirst. But as time went on (and my urge to homeschool grew), it was clear that a more structured daily learning flow would be a good fit for us. If your little one loves to learn, this may be a good route for you too!

Watch this video from our channel, Smith Party of 6, to see some of the activities we do in our early preschool!

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. It’s a win, win!

Our Daily Tot School Flow

Here’s a general breakdown of our homeschooling time:

Calendar

Our day starts out with calendar time. This usually happens during breakfast before the big kids leave for public school. Every day, we review what month we’re in, the date, and the year. We also go over the days of the week and talk about which day it is. Then we talk about seasons, the temperature, and the weather. Finally, we get specific about any holidays that may be close, activities that we’ll be doing for the day, and how the kids are feeling.

ALL of that is included on our Melissa and Doug calendar. To see a closeup of all the pieces, be sure to watch the YouTube video I’ve linked above. You can purchase the calendar from Amazon here:

Bible

Next we’ll do Bible. We have a verse each week that goes with the stories we’re reading. We use the book below as our guide. I love it because while it doesn’t follow what the Bible says word for word, it says things in such a way that it really paints a picture for little minds. You can hear me read a snippet of it in our YouTube video!

After Bible, we quickly go over the Water for Our Growing Hearts. Don’t know what that is? Check out this post where I talk about it:

Toddler Learning Folder

Next, we get into the meat of her daily work. By this point, we’ve taken the older kids to school, so this is our one-on-one time. We use a learning folder that I purchased and downloaded from Jady Alvarez, a fellow homeschooling mom on Teachers Pay Teachers. In the video, I detail some of the activities we do in the binder and do a quick flip-through.

Purchase the binder from Jady A HERE

*I was in no way paid to sponsor this product. We just love it!!

I try to break up the activities we do throughout the week. So while we do letters every day, we alternate the other pages we work on like numbers, colors, shapes, and continents.

Hands-On Activity/Craft

After working through her binder activities, she usually needs something that requires a little less acute focus. We take this time to either do a craft, a coloring page, a painting activity or something similar. Some days we’ll also do a fine motor activity to help her start gaining the skills she needs for handwriting.

Flashcards

For some reason unknown to me, all my kids LOVE flashcards. For Arwyn, we’ve been focusing on animals so far this year. We have a fairly large deck of different classes of animals, and I’ve divided them into 3 sections:

• ones she knows
• ones we’re working on
• and ones we haven’t started yet

During this time, we also use her name packet that I made (and you can see in the video) to help her start recognizing which letters make up her name.

Something messy outside

I try to switch gears with her as much as I can to keep her engaged. Homeschool is something I want her to enjoy, not dread! So after flash cards and her name, we go outside and play. This usually entails side walk chalk, our water table, bubbles, or a messy sensory activity. If you need some sensory ideas, check out my Homeschool board on Pinterest.

And that’s a wrap! After that, were usually done for the day.

Other Things I Incorporate

Books

Reading is a big thing in our house. The kids have always loved books, and Arwyn seems especially inclined toward them. So reading is a part of every day for us, whether it’s during our school time or dispersed throughout the day.

While she’s a little young for worksheets, she does enjoy a wipe clean workbook that I got from Amazon. It’s nice because she can practice her writing and tracing skills over and over again without using up paper. We just wipe it clean, and she can do it again! You can find it here:

Songs

As I mention in the video, Arwyn is a big music kid, and songs help her learn. Our family is big on music too (that’s actually part of the story of how my husband and I got together), so we sing pretty much all day, every day. From random tunes about what we’re doing and silly songs at play time to worship songs or showtunes, our house is constantly full of music. So we use a lot of songs for school time too. Some are even songs we’ve just made up to help teach whatever it is we’re talking about.

Like I mentioned above, she’s enjoyed Dave and Ava videos on YouTube since before she was even a year old. If you’ve never seen them, they’re vividly-colored videos set to revamped nursery rhymes or learning songs. I recommend them for anyone with small kiddos.

That’s a Wrap

And that’s it! Do you have anything else that you do to teach your 2-year-old?

Until next time,

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