How do I homeschool my toddler?

How do I homeschool my toddler? 

This has got to be the most popular question I get. It is one of the reasons I created my workshops so I could go through these types of questions. Alhamdulillah it turned into something more but for now let’s leave that and look at the question.

Firstly, for the parents who decide that they want to send their child to school (usually the default option for most people in this country) what do they do? 

Ofcourse a majority of them work so they send their children to nurseries or that kind of environment. In those settings they do not do much more than you would if they were at home. Yes they have a structure because they have to maintain many children at the same time. This means there will be a level of routine involved and organised activities. So for example, painting, messy play, outdoor play, reading books, singing songs and perhaps “quiet time”.

The point is everything is centred around play and play based learning. If you were at home you would most likely set them up with something whilst you cook, you may read to them at bedtime or during the day, you may take them to the park. So essentially there is no real curriculum for young children/toddlers. It’s more about letting them experiment, develop their motor skills, understand the world around them, socialising and so on.

When children get a bit older and attend preschool/nursery from ages 2.5-4 roughly, they pretty much do the above. The main difference is that there is more structure and things like phonics, numbers are slowly introduced. Again many parents do this at home whether it’s by using screen time, books, cubes, blocks, fingers etc 

Now let’s move onto the scenario where you have decided to keep your child at home and not even send them to nursery. As you may have figured out by now, you would keep it simple until your child is ready to do focused/formal learning. This usually coincides between roughly age 5-6. Ofcourse it could be before 5 or even a bit after 6. Children are not able to sit and concentrate for prolonged periods and forcing them will only be detrimental. (Please also read my blog on misconceptions if you’re very to new to this).

What you can do when they are toddlers is what I’ve mentioned above. Let them play, let them socialise, let them be creative, read to them, encourage some phonics (Arabic/English) and recite your duā’s etc loudly so they can pick it up. When you say “bismillah” before you eat, when you pray, they are absorbing it all and you can encourage and show them. You don’t need to do worksheets with 2 year olds etc they need to strengthen their muscles in their fingers and hands by doing things like playdough. Please do not need to over complicate it sisters. 

When they are approaching 4 assess to see if they can do more and use resources to see what is suitable for that age. I didn’t start formal teaching until my daughter was 5 and even then it has been at a slow pace. We are not racing for anything, we are simply using our freedom to educate at the pace of our children, our family, our circumstances and most importantly for Allah ﷻ