Encouraging a Younger Learner

  

Asalaam ‘Alaikum:

I’m sure you’ve heard me ask - time and again it seems - how to keep my youngest from absolute boredom and from constantly disrupting our lessons with my oldest daughter.  It has not been easy - I have tried everything - from playdough, coloring, her own “workbook” etc., but she constantly disrupts in order to get attention.  She whines that coloring is too hard and she needs my help or that she can’t do something that she does everyday without trouble unless we are having lessons.  I have also tried allowing her to be a part of our lessons and she gets bored and starts to disrupt us with bad behavior.  What fun it has been trying to find something that will occupy her mind and keep her happy at the same time!

On one of the homeschooling groups, someone shared an excellent link that has helped us in our search:

http://wondertime.go.com/create-and-play/craft/special/sandwich/

Essentially, at this age my daughter just loves to color, cut and paste things.  So, I have these types of activities printed out for her when we start a lesson and it has helped.  Here are a few other sites that have similar activities:

http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/miscellaneous/scissor_skills.htm

http://www.tlsbooks.com/buildahousecutandpaste.pdf

http://www.tlsbooks.com/bigbiggerbiggest.pdf

Here are a few other activities that my daughter enjoyed:

http://www.do2learn.com/activities/learn/finemotorskills.html

http://www.tlsbooks.com/tracingpractice.pdf

http://www.kizclub.com/  Browse this whole site - lots of neat stuff!

Another thing that my youngest absolutely loved was when I gave her a few magazines and some paper.  We created a color booklet together.  Essentially I put together a little booklet (folding papers in half and stapling - but you could also make scrapbook pages this way without the fold).  I had her scribble on the page with the color we were working on and I wrote out the name of the color for her next to it.  Then, she had to go through the magazine and find pictures that had that color.  I would have her cut the picture and then paste it into her booklet.  Her sister liked the idea so much that she has been begging to make her own collage book.

Today we decided to include her in our Math lesson plan.  We are currently using Saxon Math for Kindergarten and at least at this point - we are learning basic skills that would not be too much for a preschooler (I don’t know about the rest of the book though).  Anyway, today we were introduced to making patterns with pattern blocks.  I cannot tell you how surprised I am about how much my youngest enjoyed this activity.  We not only made patterns ourselves, but we also worked on a pattern sheet that already had a pattern and you had to place the shapes in the correct place (what I can’t believe is that my youngest always finished before her older sister!  She seems to have a knack with puzzles.)

During our lesson I also talked to them about how you can actually make a shape out of other shapes - I just mentioned it off-hand because it wasn’t something in the book.  However, I just placed a diamond on our workmat and then showed them how you can put two triangles together to make a diamond as well.  First of all, after we were done with our lesson, my youngest refused to finish - she wanted to keep making designs.  Then, much to my surprise, at one point she actually laid out shapes and then placed upon then other shapes in order to make that shape.  If that doesn’t make sense, look at what she did (on her own, mind you):

So, I guess there’s no harm at this point in including her in our Math lesson - she gets bored with most of our other lessons but if I find something she is interested in, I guess I will give it a try.  I am just amazed at how much she absorbs from daily life and especially from her sister, masha’Allah.
So, if some of you out there are having some difficulty keeping your younger child busy during lessons - give some of these ideas a try and let me know if they work for you.

Asalaam ‘Alaikum,
Sumayyah Umm Sadiqah wa Asma

Excellent Lesson Plan Resource for Younger Children

 

Asalaam ‘Alaikum:

Well, as you know by now, our favorite place to spend time is in the library.  During the same time I found those excellent books on science experiments, I also found Word Book’s Childcraft - The How and Why Library.  This encyclopedia set is published by World Book.  Out of curiosity, I took out two of their volumes - “About You” and “the World of Animals”.  I cannot say how wonderful these books are.  While I have found out since then that a lot of people have fond memories for these encyclopedias, I actually have never read them before (as a child or adult).

What makes them so great?  On exactly two pages the book talks about different topics related to a certain subject.  So, in ”The World of Animals” volume, the first two pages discuss what is an animal.  On the next two pages it discusses how different animals move.  You probably need to see it to understand - but it sparked my interest as a great way to create lesson plans or lap books on each subject discussed.  I think this book is a great starting point - it is well written and understandable for the younger crowd.  The minute I opened the book I just realized that it would really help us to delve in further to these different topics (in fun ways) but serves as a nice guide of what exactly should I teach my child about animals (for instance). 

Now, the bad news.  They are expensive if you want the latest edition (all 15 volumes) - around $350.00.  No, I’m not kidding - wish I were.  However, you can find older volumes online (Ebay), at resale shops and at thrift stores.  The only problem - and I am going to have to check it out - is how dated the information is in the older volumes.  I really love the 2000 edition because it has excellent pictures, but try to find that edition for a good price - anywhere!  I think I will probably try to get my hands on an older version to make comparrisons.  I have a friend who has an older set and she just loves them.

Another thought:  Just wanted to also say that I probably wouldn’t want to purchase the entire set because some of the topics are not useable for us as a Muslim family.  They have an entire volume just discussing western holidays and the like.  I don’t see any use for that information (at least not right now).  However, most of the volumes have very useful information.

For those of you with younger children - who are struggling about what to teach your child - this might be a nice starting point.  You don’t even have to extend the activities - but can just use these books as “reading time” material for you and your child.  I am sure they will learn a lot from it.  However, if you do want to find a useful starting point for developing lesson plans or creating extra activities for learning - I highly recommend these books.  Insha’Allah you will find them useful too. 

Asalaam ‘Alaikum,
Sumayyah Umm Sadiqah wa Asma