Totschool Yearend Review

Since we are wrapping up our 2019/2020 school year, I thought I'd take some time to review some of our academic experiences. I've always done some form of preschool, which I prefer to call 'totschool'. For our family, it's just a part of our day where the younger children learn basic academics. I prefer to call it totschool, so as to include some of my middle age children who enjoy that time of our day too; but may not want to participate if I called it 'preschool'. This year our totschool included my children who were two, three, five, and seven. 

In years past I have used a variety of different preschool (totschool) systems, most of which included 'calendar books'. These books went over a multitude of different facts. But over time these little notebooks ended up taking upwards of thirty minutes to complete with each child. Now that I'm educating eight children, my time is stretched thin. Even though we lean towards unschooling, I still like to do some form of learning with each of my children each day. After much prayer and research last year I decided to drop our daily calendar books and create a totschool board.

In an effort to explain our tot school program in it's entirety I did a post at the start of this school year; you can fin it here. I titled that post Homeschool Preschool because that's what most people would call that specific type of lessons. Today I'm going to elaborate on what exactly was a success in our totschool program that I custom designed to meet our younger children's academic needs. 

The most important key component was my planner. Y'all that planner was a LIFESAVER!! I've always planned our school years, but this year I went into detail overdrive and planned every single minute detail of our lessons. Since I'm pulled in so many different directions each day it was a huge asset to just open my planner and plug and chug! It was also was great for the few times when I was out of commissions and my husband or one of my older children stepped in to facilitate our totschool lessons.

My favorite part of our totshool was the totschool board. I loved this board so much that I've decided to expound on our board next year ~ well actually I'm going to do two boards. This year's board covered: calendar, counting, shapes, color, letters, alphabet, seasonal song, months, days of the week, and the weather. Next year I'm going to add: skip counting 2s, 5s, and 10s, sight words, number words, seasons, and personal facts like address and phone number. I plan to continue to use our totschool board with the same four children, but Abby Lou will be added to the bunch; yes, even a baby can participate. 

Honestly, there isn't anything I plan to drop from our totschool lesson plan. I feel like after 15 years of homeschooling, I have finally figured out a younger children's academic program that works for our family. If there's one homeschooling truth that I've learned over the years, it's that what works for one family may or may not work for another family. Keep trying new programs or styles and continue tweaking until you can figure out what best fits the needs of your family. 

There was a few components to our totschool program that I hope to improve upon. The first being our table time totschool activities. I have educational toys boxed up which I had planned to rotate each day, unfortunately this did not happen consistently. Second, I was not committed to assembling our weekly sensory boxes. And third was our educational game time, or rather lack thereof ~ sigh. As you can see our totschool wasn't perfect, but we had a goal we were working towards, and I'm confident next year we will further refine our totschool .  

The good thing about homeschooling is it's a never-ending learning process for everyone involved, especially the parents. Sometimes the lesson plans do not go accordingly, but sometimes they do, and that my friends is a really good feeling. There are plenty of extended seasons of homeschooling when nothing goes right. But, when we do experience those rare unicorn moments of success, its those sweet little victories that are at the core of what encourages me to keep on doing whatever it takes to create the best learning opportunities for my children. 

 With another year of homeschooling under my belt, I can say without a shadow of a doubt: I wouldn't change a thing. I'm so grateful for the gift of homeschooling. It truly is a blessing to get to watch my children learn and grow in wisdom and truth. I especially cherish the fun we get to have learning together, whether it's with my younger crew of totschoolers or my older children of highschoolers ~  its all a gift from the Lord.   

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer

Winter/Snow Totschool Week

I planned our winter/snow tot school week to fall at the end of January, just when we were beginning to all wear thin of being cooped up from the rainy, cold weather down here in the Deep South. Yes, we still have a couple more months of winter, but thankfully we will start to see some warmer days sprinkled into the weeks as we get loser to spring. My people do not do well being trapped inside for days on end ~ we need the fresh air to stay sane, lol.

I planned for five winter/snow activities for the week including one snactivity. The above picture was our 'melted snowman' snactivity. The children placed large marshmallows on graham crackers, then I melted them in the oven on broil and smashed the marshmallows down with a spatula. Then they made faces with candy corn and chocolate chips. It was a HUGE mess, but the children seemed to like it so I'm calling it a win, even if some had to go straight to the tub for a bath to get unstickified.

Our next project was to make snow paintings with clothes pins hooked to cotton balls and white paint. Super easy and super fun for my kiddos who love to paint.

Always major drama trying to get the tot school pics {{sigh}}.

Then we made paper plate penguins. I cut a heart out of white construction paper that they glued on to the paper plate. Then I used one of my circle punches for the eye pieces and my heart punch for the feet. Next I cut an orange nose and last I gave the children a pile of torn black construction paper for them to glue on the plates for the body.

Another winter/snow project was q-tip painted snow flakes. A super easy craft ~ I cut narrow rectangle strips of blue construction paper and then glued them like a snowflake, then the kiddos just painted white dots with a q-tip on the snow flakes.

Painting and glueing, if you haven't noticed are my go-to crafts for my kiddos.

We also made paper melted snowman. I used my circle punches to cut out eyes and a mouth. Then I cut out an orange nose and used my square punch for the 'body'. And last I cut long narrow rectangles for the arm pieces.

With instructions the children then glued all the pieces down onto their paper. I give the pieces out in sections so they didn't get glued in the wrong place.

Our last winter/snow activity was to make 'snow'. We used 1/2 cup regular white shampoo and 3 cups baking soda to make our 'snow'. The littles had a blast playing with their little animals in the homemade 'snow'.

As always I am so thankful to have planned our school year down to every last detail. Because I'm not going to lie, with a new baby and a house full of children and a bazillion other responsibilities, I highly doubt this fun themed tot school week would have happened. None of these winter/snow themed activities were complicated, but they do take a little bit of time to plan and coordinate. There's always a time and palace for spontaneity, but planning ahead has its benefits too!

With Love & Hope,

Jennifer