Asking advice for my 2yr old school addict!

[msuk2girl]

At this point, I'm preparing almost everything I can. Once January comes and I'm not providing care for other children, I will be doing more.

We do tot school activities from 1plus1plus1=1 every weekday and some Saturdays (she begs). We have 3-4 printables, and usually a tot tray/tactile activity.

DD has always protested when school is "over", but this week she has been truly upset. She wants more things to do. I'm feeling like maybe I'm not doing enough.

Any suggestions? Should I just tell her to deal with it? Should I do my best to plan more activities every day? I'm still not feeling overly confident in what I'm doing.

[tallanvor]

I would encourage her to do more imaginative play. Put together a box of art stuff that she can do on her own. Puzzles and other toys that will help stimulate her. As important as it is that she be able to explore, she also needs to learn that sometimes Mommy can't do it all for her. It's a hard age, but with some encouragement from you, she'll figure out how to do stuff more on her own to explore.

[msuk2girl]

Originally Posted by tallanvor I would encourage her to do more imaginative play. Put together a box of art stuff that she can do on her own. Puzzles and other toys that will help stimulate her. As important as it is that she be able to explore, she also needs to learn that sometimes Mommy can't do it all for her. It's a hard age, but with some encouragement from you, she'll figure out how to do stuff more on her own to explore.

She's actually amazing at independent play! We have mainly imaginative toys, and she loves playing.

It's just when "school" is done, she isn't having it. She doesn't want school time to be over.

[msuk2girl]

It's also making me feel like prepping for real school work will be such a daunting task, if all I can do now is prep for 30-60 minutes of tot school. Sigh.

[R055ANA]

Hi there Shannon!

It's great you have such an interested little girl. How nice she loves doing her printable worksheets and her tactile tray.

Is it that she loves the actual activities or your undivided attention and your enthusiasm during this time? If it her loving the activities what about having some easy worksheets she can work on on her own? What about saying you can now continue by looking through books or drawing pictures. She could also continue by working w/ her dolls or stuffed animals.

It might help not to call a specific time of day as school time. Everything you do w/ your DD is educational and maybe because she feels school time is so special she doesn't want it to end.

Don't worry about it being a challenge to prep for school work when she gets older because she may either lose interest in so much academics or will be able to find challenging work on her own.

Keep having fun w/ her and enjoy this time together.

Best wishes!

[tallanvor]

Ahhh, I see. In that case, I agree with Rossana. Maybe break things up instead of calling them school so she looses the idea that only those specific things are school.

[SamanthaSews]

Hi I always wondered if there were other tot schoolers in this forum! I have the opposite issue though-my tot isn't interested in "school" activities much. But he does like his little notebook I put together with laminated printables.

Maybe your dd would like that?

Sent from my iPhone using DS Forum

[msuk2girl]

Originally Posted by SamanthaSews Hi I always wondered if there were other tot schoolers in this forum! I have the opposite issue though-my tot isn't interested in "school" activities much. But he does like his little notebook I put together with laminated printables. Maybe your dd would like that? Sent from my iPhone using DS Forum

I was hoping to put some of those together starting next year. I do the tot school for my 2yr old and another just 2 year old right now, so I have found the printables and trays to be the best way to do two at the same time. I will only have DD starting in January, so this is one of the things I'd like to do. I will say I'm a bit intimidated by the lapbooks!

Thanks ladies above! I'll have to try some of those things. Also thinking I should allow more time for school activities if she just wants to keep playing with what we have out. Right now we really need to get to lunch right afterwards and nap.

[ACSNMama]

I have used $1 workbooks for my daughter when she wanted to do "school" and told her she can do them as she wishes if I needed to do other things around the house. Also, I used a lot of those workbooks that have coloring pages that tells you what color to color each area of the picture. They have a dot of what color is to be used, so it's very easy for young ones to choose the appropriate color and just taught her, color this section orange, like the dot shows, orange. They part is blue, and so on. She could do these independently.

There are times that my kids beg to do school work, and I tell them to wait. Maybe just tell her that all the activities she does is "school." Also, maybe take her to the library to select her own "school books" and "school videos" that she can do as "school." Tell her, "now it's reading time, look at this book of animals" or "it's time to watch this video about animals, tell mommy what you learned" etc. My kids LOVE to tell me about the animals, or other things they learn when watching educational videos! They are amazed by how much elephants weigh, what they eat, etc. They love learning about space, about planets, etc.

You could download the funnix reading program (I believe it's free right now) and show her how to use it, she can click the green button "continue" and it will help her practice phonics, or have her use starfall! She is young and will need guidance, but this may allow for you to not have to continually provide worksheets, etc!

[msuk2girl]

Just downloaded the free funnix programs! Thanks for the heads up.