Homeschooling Preschool - 5 Ways to Make Learning Simple and Fun

Homeschooling Preschool - 5 Ways to Make Learning Simple and Fun

Homeschooling preschool gives you an opportunity to encourage your child to love learning and exploration. You don't need an early education degree to teach your preschooler. Here are some simple ways to homeschool preschool:


1. Your child can learn basic math and reading skills by acting as your little assistant. Involve your preschooler in your errands and activities. Have your child assist you as you measure ingredients for dinner, count the number of apples to put in the grocery sack, and keep track of the time until your next appointment. Helping with household chores is a great way to strengthen small motor skills. Chores also help your preschooler develop responsibility and feel like part of the team.

2.Talk to your child throughout the day. Read labels and signs to your preschooler, and explain why you do things a certain way. Remember that you are primarily a parent, not a teacher. You don't need to prepare fancy lessons on community helpers, health and safety. Simply go about daily life with your child and answer any questions he or she has along the way.

3.Reduce television and computer time to less than an hour each day. Spend afternoons playing at the park or taking nature walks around your neighborhood. By staying physically active, you are establishing a foundation of health and fitness, and helping your child develop gross motor skills.

4.Create a learning environment in your home by providing your child with materials that encourage imagination, creativity and open-ended play. Stock an area of your home with different types of paper, paint, markers and other art supplies. Stock another area with blocks, cars, trucks, trains and miniature people. Fill a box with various clothing items, pots and pans, toy food and other materials for pretend play. Then set up a quiet area with math manipulatives, puzzles and books. You now have a preschool in your home!

5.When you begin formal lessons, keep them short and simple. End the lessons before your child is ready to stop. If you notice your child becoming frustrated, end the activity for the day. One of the best ways to teach your budding student is to read to him or her daily.

Your preschooler has plenty of time to learn the details of reading, writing and arithmetic. Take time during these early years to focus on the basics and make learning fun!


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The Importance Of Preschool Teachers

The Importance Of Preschool Teachers

Preschool is an optional school experience designed for children at least two and a half years old, up until the age of five when they enter kindergarten. While some preschool programs are offered through the public school system, most are offered through private or religious institutions. Such programs generally offer a play-based curriculum that prepares children for the school environment. Preschool teachers facilitate this experience for children in their classroom.

Preschool teachers are crucial to a successful preschool experience. For many children, preschool colors the way that they forever look at school; it is this first experience that should foster a lifelong love of learning and an overall sense of comfort and achievement within the preschool environment. Preschool teachers will often take basic concepts and incorporate them into play. Children at this age learn through play concepts that incorporate all of their senses. While they are having fun and practicing essential social concepts – being respectful of each other, taking turns, etc. – they are unaware that they are even absorbing educational concepts. Effective preschool teachers are able to engage the preschooler and offer lessons through these playful avenues.

Physical activities, such as ball play, foster hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills, writing games sharpen fine motor skills, card games help to encourage memory retention, and games focused on books instill a love of reading and language. Preschool teachers, in many cases, are extremely involved in the development of the curriculum – incorporating ABC’s, math, social sciences, and history through learning games. Today’s modern preschool teachers also have the computer at their disposal; computer games designed for preschoolers teach a variety of fun-filled lessons through the use of color, sound, and interactive games.

Qualifications for preschool teachers vary according to state however accreditation in some capacity is unilaterally required. State regulations dictate the level of education preschool teachers must have. But ultimately, the most important qualification for preschool teachers is the ability to instill a joy of learning that stays with their young students for a lifetime.

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Preschool Fitness Tips

Preschool Fitness Tips

10 Ways to Help Preschool Children Learn Healthy Lifestyle Habits

Children as young as age two are already being affected by adult illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, obesity and stress disorders. Give them an early boost at developing healthy habits with these 10 tips.

1. Choose activities that come naturally. Abilities that come easy to your child will offer many rewards. Stay away from skills that are frustrating or that your child dislikes.

2. Make sure activities always have an element of "fun". Whether you structure the activity or a teacher, it should always leave your child wanting more. Preschoolers love acting silly and animated. If it isn't fun, they won't want to do it.

3. Make it a habit. Strive to make exercise another healthy habit practiced daily. Just like brushing teeth, combing hair and bathing, doing something physically demanding everyday helps make exercise a routine part of life.

4. Rewards and Incentives. Offer a reward chart for a special treat (other than food) when your child exercises each day for the entire month. On a daily basis, give an occasional unexpected sticker, hand stamp or hug.

5. De-emphasize weight loss benefits. Accentuate how good exercise feels and how good it is in keeping us healthy. Preschool children do not need to be reminded that it will help them lose weight and it should never be used as a way to make them lose weight. Once exercise becomes work, it stops being fun and children will not want to do it.

6. Include a healthy diet. Eating healthy foods provides energy to fuel activity. When preschoolers eat too much fat, sugar and salt, they won't feel as good. Endurance, strength, and motivation will all be affected. Don't let a poor diet sabotage a good exercise routine.

7. Try new things. Experiment with different sports, games, activities and other forms of movement. No doubt your child will find other activities he/she enjoys. Having the courage to try new things also builds confidence and self-esteem.

8. Rest is important. Your preschool child needs at least 8 hours of sound rest each night. Lack of sleep can affect energy, levels, coordination, concentration, learning and the immune system. Keep track of sleep time and make bedtime fun.

9. Include variety. Sports skills, dancing, hiking or running. Encourage movement that can be done alone as well as in a group. Balance team activities with solo ones.

10. Be active with your preschool child several times each week. Nothing speaks louder than your actions or implies value more than your personal habits. Exercise daily, with and without your child.

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Teaching Preschoolers How To Choose Healthy Food

Teaching Preschoolers How To Choose Healthy Food

Preschool nutritional programs emphasize the importance of healthy eating by combining all food groups in a daily menu plan. Teaching children the importance of a healthy eating plan as a child will guarantee that they acquire good eating habits that will last a entire life.
Establishing healthy eating habits for children includes modeling their eating habits at home so that when they enter the school environment, they can make healthy selections.

The guidelines for teaching kids a healthy eating plan should include:
*Children should ingest a variety of foods. Each of the 5 major food groups contributes specific nutrients that are necessary for children’s growth and development.

* Teach little ones to balance the kinds of food they eat to maintain a healthy weight and a healthy body

*Teach children moderation in the amounts and kinds of foods they consume. Eating foods high in fat content or consuming too many sugary snacks should be limited.

You can determine the amount of food from each food group that is right for little ones depending on their age. The USDA has specific guidelines for little ones from the age of 2-8.

Finding a healthy eating plan for your child will include selections from each of the five food groups. These recommendations are based on the guidelines from the USDA food pyramid.

1) Bread and Grains: 6 servings a day

These foods provide energy for activity and growth. Little ones should ingest some whole grain items. At least half of the grains eaten should be in the form of whole-grain cereals and sandwiches prepared with whole wheat bread. Check the ingredients on the product label to make sure that the product is in fact made with "whole wheat."

2) Milk & Milk Products: 3-4 servings a day

These products provide needed calcium for stong teeth and bones. Little ones from 2 to 8 years of age should ingest 2 cups per day of fat-free or low-fat milk or its equivalent in milk products.

3) Fruits - 2 servings per day

The amount of fruits little ones should eat is determined by their calorie needs. But the base requirement as outlined in the food pyramid for this age group is a minimum of 2 fruit servings per day.

4) Vegetables – 3 servings a day
Veggies provide the vital nutrients and minerals to protect eyesight and the body's immune system.

5) Meats, Beans & Nuts: 2 servings per day

Meats, beans & nuts provide protein and iron to form muscles.

After the age of two, the little one's diet should limit the types of fat and salt they consume. Caregivers should limit the consumption of high saturated fats or salt (sodium) in the diet to reduce the risk of high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Total fat intake should be limited to 30 and 35 percent of calories for children ages 2 to 3 years, and between 25 and 35 percent of calories for children and adolescents from the age of 4 to 18.

Most fats should come from sources of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids, such as fish, nuts, and vegetable oils.

Limit the number and amount of sugary snacks your child is eating. Sugary snacks containweight problems and cavities.

Replace sugary snacks with healthy snacks like fruits, veggies, and whole grains which are all good choices.


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Preschool: Toddler Innocence Or Wisdom

Preschool: Toddler Innocence Or Wisdom
Innocence: It is an absence of guilt; harmless; freedom from evil; lack of worldly experience; not recognizing the harmful intentions of other. This is the definition of innocence according to the Encarta Dictionary. These days it's difficult to find true innocence in the world, but if you have ever watched a month-old puppy sleeping or gazed into the eyes of a toddler-aged child you can still see it. At that age, everything is new and exciting, not routine and boring such as for the rest of us who have become jaded over the years.

Little kids, especially barely verbal kids, watch and listen to everything. All kinds of things fascinate them; the graceful motion of goldfish, the gentle waving of tall grasses, the color yellow, and the bouncing of a beach ball. All the things adults take for granted, toddlers find endlessly amazing. They believe everything we tell them; they have no concept of lying, or even fanciful jest. Myths, childhood legends, make-believe, wonderful fantasies of all sorts and even bogeymen that lurk in their closets at night are all real to them. Kids believe it just because we say it. Like the sleeping puppy, their total absence of guile seems to last such a short time! This innocence seems to vanish within the first few years of their lives, never to be reclaimed.

the ways of the world, this knowledge can sometimes be disappointing. There's no such thing as Santa Claus or Superman. The tiny puppy grew into a big dog that bites if its ears are yanked. Grandmother died - she isn't "sleeping." And there are monsters, but they don't live in the closet at night; they are teachers and babysitters and the nice man next door who has some strange pictures of naked kids.

As their innocence is depleted, little kids simply accept the world as it is, not as it should be as adults often do. This is another example of a child's wisdom; things are what they are. A hurricane blew our house away. Some people who live far away don't like us, and they hurt a lot of people in New York. Many people, even kids, get really sick and they go to live with God where they won't be sick anymore. My Mommy and Daddy don't live in the same house.

Strange, isn't it? Even when they know the truth, little kids still have the wisdom to tell it like it is and cope with it, whatever "it" may be. They don't have ulcers, drink too much alcohol, or brood about ways to take revenge on someone who hurt them. They trust that they'll have food to eat and clothes to wear. They don't worry about paying the mortgage; they just put their toys away before bed like Mommy said. As adults, it seems incredible that we too were once as innocent as our youngest children are now. Then life happened - so did divorce, addiction, unemployment, war and illness.

Only a foolish and cynical adult would carelessly shrug and say, "That's just how it will be for them, too." We hope our children will inherit a better world, but we know they probably won't. As they gracefully surrender the innocence of youth, they inherit the wisdom of the years. If our toddlers can do this without becoming jaded, angry and bitter, then this is wisdom indeed. In the end, perhaps they are still innocent.

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