Teach Preschool Children

Where to Begin?

Before you begin teaching preschool children, you must ask yourself this question: Am I really committed to teaching a preschool child? Teaching is not like the new game that you buy for the preschool child and you play the game for a short while and then forget about it. Although, teaching this age group is really fun and exciting. Teaching is a discipline and the one that has to be the most disciplined is the teacher! If you are not willing to discipline yourself then how could you possibly discipline preschool children? So, commitment is the first step. Be strong, be determined, you can do this!

Next, you want to recruit the help and approval of your spouse. There is nothing worse than trying to preschool your child without the help and support of your beloved. When you get dad on board this makes for more fun and excitement for the child. These little ones are so excited to show dad what they have learned to do. The attention that they get from dad is priceless. It encourages them to learn more and thus makes the learning process easier on mom. Ninety percent of the time it is the mother who is doing the teaching, so please excuse me during this article if I refer to only moms. However, if you are a father who wants to teach preschool children, these ideas will help you as well.

Some husbands think that home schooling your children is some sort of underground movement, sort of a "mother earth" fad. This could not be further from the truth. Many families have successfully home schooled their children. Many of these home educated children have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, business men, and other professionals. Even if you don't go on to teach your children completely from home, preschooling your children gives them such a solid base for their beginning and sets them up to be self confident in their knowledge. By the way, don't listen to well-meaning relatives who think that the children will suffer "academically" if they do not attend a "regular" school. Many home educated children have proved this to be bunk.

Before you start, you want to put down in writing your goals. List all the reasons why you want to educate your children from home. Try to express yourself clearly, as this will strengthen your thinking and your resolve. You need to understand yourself and those reasons for making this decision to educate your children from home. Be sure to discuss this thoroughly with your spouse so that he completely understands your perspective. After all, you may have to defend yourself from relatives, in-laws, neighbors, and friends. So, it is good to be prepared, and have clear, concise reasoning for your decision to home educate the kids.

Once you have established your "reasons" for home schooling, write them down and, post this in a prominent place in your home. You need this forever before your eyes so that you can refer to it when you are having one of those "trying days" when the going gets rough. Also, this will remind everyone in the house as to why you are home educating the children.

Be sure to list specific goals and objectives. Some of your goals might be to make sure the children learn to say "please" and "thank you", at least once a week certain activities can relate to an event or the calendar holidays and seasons, once a day you might have reading hour where the children just listen to a story. There could also be behavioral and academic goals as well. One goal could be that the children finish the entire nine months of coursework. Another goal could be with a child that is a little slower than the others, you could specifically work on making sure he or she can write their alphabet.

Having specific goals keeps you and your children on course. Even if you do not accomplish these goals exactly as planned, unless you have specific goals, you will never reach any goals. There are more and more parents that are homeschooling, but there are too many who let things fall through the cracks. Unless you write down your goals, you can easily get off track. To do this correctly, you need to take small baby steps every day to reach the goal. At the end of nine months, these small baby steps become that giant leap forward that will give your children that head start; that solid base; that is necessary for a lifelong love of learning.