Staying motivated when homeschooling preschool is not easy.
So, let go of the expectation that homeschooling preschool is always a wonderful, Instagram-worthy experience.
It is, in fact, hard, messy, and somedays it’s overwhelming.
Take a deep breath, roll back those shoulders, and be gentle with yourself.
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Usually, there is no structured curriculum that you follow when homeschooling preschool.
You are covering the basics, but how can you keep motivated and also help your child stay engaged with the activities?
Here are some tricks to help you stay motivated when homeschooling preschool.
Staying Motivated = Changing Things
Clean Up and Rotate
It is important to keep your environment clean and decluttered.
If there are too many toys and activities it is easier for your child to be overstimulated and not able to concentrate on what they are doing.
It can also be difficult for you to feel comfortable in the space and focus!
Cleaning things up and rotating the activities and toys can help you and your child stay motivated in what you are doing.
Keep Things Fresh
It is also important for you to keep things fresh so look at the activities, role play set-ups, and the things you do with your little one and keep things fresh.
Don’t always stick with the same ideas as this is where things can feel repetitive and boredom strikes.
Keeping things fresh means rotating things and trying different activities or ways to learn the same skill.
Focus On the Senses
A great way to help you stay motivated and to keep your child engaged in what you are doing is to focus on the senses.
Encouraging things like new tastes, smells, hearing, touch, and sight can help a child to engage with different skills and things they are learning in a different way.
It helps you to stay motivated as you can think outside of the box to help your child, especially if you find they are more engaged with activities when you do different things.
One of our favorite things when homeschooling has been to introduce “Weird Food Wednesday.” Every Wednesday we’d try different fruit, vegetable, or packaged food that we had never tried before.
Although my kids are older now, it’s still one of their favorite sensory activity memories!
Changing Your Environment
You can also stay motivated when homeschooling by changing your environment.
Instead of focusing all of your learning inside, you could also take the learning outside instead?
This helps you to focus on the senses as well as try to find different ways to learn skills.
Changing your environment can help you to stay motivated when things are feeling a little flat or you are deflated.
Fresh air and an activity that gets the heart pumping is good for the soul.
Be Child Led
Staying motivated is hard when it feels like you are forcing activities on your child and they are not responsive to what you are trying to teach them.
So a great way to stay motivated and upbeat is to be led by your child and what they show interest in.
It can help you to figure out ways that your child responds to different learning which can help you to plan days and activities in the future.
Embrace Play
Finally, the easiest way to help you stay motivated is remembering the power of play.
Staying motivated also means having fun, and learning can be done through puzzles, reading, playdough, and role play at this age.
Take the pressure off and play with your little one.
You will be surprised by how much they are learning along the way.!