As a mother of three and one on the way, I am in the thick of homeschooling my older two while finding ways to keep my toddler busy. Here I will share 10 ways to entertain your toddler while homeschooling. I hope this encourages you and gives you some creative ideas!
For context, I have a 6.5 year old, 4.5 year old and almost 2 year old (and am about to have my fourth baby in a month!). We have been homeschooling for almost a year now – I can’t believe it!
While I only homeschool my eldest daughter, my younger daughter (who is preschool age) is very keen to get involved. So I have started teaching her to read and she does all sorts of book work, like handwriting, drawing and nature studies.
I am the sole homeschool teacher in our family, so I try to be organised and have things on hand for all of my children, the toddler especially.
My toddler is an active boy and loves being outside. However, he has moments where he will sit at the table with us and draw or play. So, if your toddler is as active and curious as mine, then keep reading!
What I will cover in this post
- 10 ways to entertain your toddler while homeschooling
- Materials/items to have on hand (with links)
- What to do when the day does not go as planned
10 ways to entertain your toddler while homeschooling
Now, over the year, I have experimented with activities that are ideal for my son. It does alternate and evolve as he grows older, but I can attest that I usually rotate activities for him throughout the week.
Please hear me out that I am not some super organised mama, who has perfectly neat and tidy rotation baskets on hand. I just try to keep several activities on hand and will often give my son a choice as to which he would like to engage in.
Here are some ideal activities for toddlers aged 1-3:
- Playing with playdoh (yes, this might be an obvious one, but it’s a good one!). I bring out a Montessori chopping board, a few playdoh accessories and two or three different colours of playdoh and that will entertain my son for about 10-15 minutes.
- Stickers and a note pad. At this age, toddlers love to stick things onto other things. So why not let them have some fun with it? I will link the stickers I use below, but I usually give him about 20 stickers from the roll and he loves to stick them onto a plain note pad.
- Building blocks (another one that might seem obvious), but a great way to keep your toddler busy, especially if you let them roam free and make mess (if you’re okay with it). My son will play with blocks or duplo blocks for at least 15 minutes. Keeping them all in one box makes for an easier clean up.
- Drawing pad. There’s an awesome drawing pad from Amazon that is mess-free and can be erased by the click of a button. My son absolutely loves his drawing pad. He will sit there for about 10-20 minutes drawing scribbles (I’ll link it below).
- Sensory boards/books. We have a sensory book where my son can tie a shoelace or zip up a zipper or match shapes with velcro stickers. This is an awesome activity that will keep a toddler busy for a while (link below).
- Magnet tiles. Once again, it seems obvious, but magnet tiles are a great option for busy hands and can be packed away in the one box.
- Water table. Sometimes we do our homeschooling outside for a change of scenery and this is a great opportunity to bring out a water table or some sort of water activity for your toddler to engage in. If it’s a warm day, just keep the toddler in his nappy, so you don’t have to worry about getting his clothes wet. We have a water table that I will link below. You can have so many sensory options with it, like sand, kinetic sand, water and bubbles and plain old dirt.
- Books. You can’t go wrong with a bunch of toddler-friendly books. Sometimes if I really need my daughter to concentrate on her work, I will put my son in his crib with a bunch of books and he will sit there and read for about 10 minutes or so.
- Let your toddler join the activity. This is dependent on what kind of homeschooling activity, but if it involves sensory items or craft, then you can give your toddler some of the materials and they can play with it. I find that my son often wants to get involved with what my daughters are doing, so this is a great opportunity for him to be a part of their learning.
- Sidewalk chalk. This is an outdoor activity, so best kept for if you occasionally homeschool outdoors, but a great option for your toddler to be entertained by while you are focused on homeschool work.
Materials/items to have on hand (with links)
- Montessori chopping board/kitchen set (for playing with playdoh)
- Kids sticker roll (for stickers and note pad activity)
- Kids drawing pad
- Sensory/busy board
- Toddler water table
- Sidewalk chalk
- Washable markers
- Toddler notepad
What to do when the day does not go as planned
There are going to be days when the day turns sour. Whether it be due to sickness, lack of sleep, cranky toddlers, disheveled schedules etc.
I find that homeschooling is the last thing we all want to be doing and that’s more than okay (I talk more about this in my post How to overcome challenging homeschool days).
If I go ahead with forcing our usual routine onto a sour day, it does more harm than good.
Some things I find will help make our day more enjoyable is going out to the park, taking the kids for a walk, popping them all in the bath, playing outside, doing a craft or letting them play throughout the day.
I have learnt not to feel guilty about these kinds of days, because they will happen no matter how much you try to control it.
If things settle in the morning, then by all means start your homeschooling a little later in the day. We have done this plenty of times too.
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