If you would have told me when I was 20 that I would be googling and mom blog hunting to figure out how to homeschool and help my kids learn and grow when I was 30, I probably would have laughed! There was no way I would have ever considered homeschooling. I had heard too many horror stories, had met too many weird kids growing up who were homeschooled, and the year I spent as an early education English teacher in China taught me that teaching little kids was not for me. Nevertheless, I have learned to homeschool and am loving it.

Through this process I have learned that our kids are always learning, and not just during formal homeschool hours. This makes it extremely important to be intentional about what they’re being exposed to and the ways we are interacting with them. For example, have you ever counted a number of items out loud? That is an example of how your child can learn from watching you that counting is a way to see “how much or little” of something there is, passive teaching like that is often your child’s first interaction with academic subjects such as arithmetic.

The older my firstborn got, the more I started to notice her passive learning from me and I saw how learning and teaching didn’t have to be so daunting and overwhelming. It was happening naturally even when I wasn’t formally teaching her, so I started to play with the idea of “what if I intentionally seek out ways to add to her passive learning?” Over the years, I have sought out learning tools that could help me in my quest to help my children learn, and before I knew it I was miles into the homeschool path.

Here are my top 5 learning tools that I love and why and hope they’ll help you too. Whether or not you homeschool they can be a huge boost to your kids’ development.

Cosmic Kids Yoga

One of the things that I am passionate about is getting children to dance and express themselves through movement and to “cross the midline“. I have seen how important this is to a child’s growth and development emotionally, physically and mentally, but it can be hard to know where to start! YouTube is truly a treasure trove of resources. One of my favorite YouTube channels is Cosmic Kids Yoga. The videos center around Jamie taking the kids on follow-along yoga story adventures. I love that the videos center around adventure and movement but also teach the children to relax. My kids love doing “yoga time”. It helps them get their wiggles out, improve coordination and gain control of their bodies and develop the ability to relax. The channel is also great because it offers videos of several different lengths and includes all flavors of yoga and story themes. Here is the link to the channel! https://www.youtube.com/c/CosmicKidsYoga.

Danny Go

Danny Go is an amazing YouTube channel geared towards early childhood and is full of songs, dances and videos of Danny experiencing and learning about life through the eyes of a child. My children love to dance along with his music videos and sing along while in the car with his Spotify channel, and I’m not gonna lie, his stuff is catchy and I may or may not listen to his songs on my own. His channel really speaks for itself, you should check it out! https://www.youtube.com/c/DannyGo

Reading Eggs

I love Reading Eggs! It’s is an online early learning source that can be used on your computer or smart device (I primarily use it on my iPad and iPhone). It teaches reading through phonics and also teaches math. I have used it with my children as young as 18 months up to my oldest of almost six and I love it because it tailors the learning experience to your child. My almost two year old learns colors and matching and distinguishing difference and similarity in items in such fun and simple ways that she can do it independently and loves it because it teaches in ways that feel like play. For my four and six year old, they were able to take an exam at the beginning that determined what they already knew and where they were at and then placed them in the curriculum at their correct level. My girls all love it and even ask to do Reading Eggs outside of school time. If we are on a car ride or waiting at one of my girls’ extra curricular activities, I’ll often whip out Reading Eggs for entertainment and feel good about knowing they are learning as well.

It is a monthly membership of $9.99 or $69.99 yearly, and is so worth it. I have three accounts all for one membership price. Here is the link to their website! https://readingeggs.com/

Abeka

I use Abeka as my primary homeschooling curriculum. It’s amazing! I love Abeka because one of the most daunting things to me about homeschooling was coming up with what to teach and when to teach it. I googled and Pintrested and Mom Blogged my heart out, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t figure out what to teach or when. I also didn’t have the time or mental room after dealing with three small children to figure it out. It was such a stumbling block for me that I almost gave up on the idea of homeschooling altogether, but then I came across Abeka. It offers full curriculums for at-home learning, or online learning or supplemental learning for those who go to school. I love it because it has day-by-day outlines for teaching and sets guidelines and milestones to be reached. It has written and oral exams for checking on progress and documentation of learning, and also has report cards. It not only teaches your child but also teaches YOU how to teach. It offers many resources and tools to support you in your education journey. Now you might be thinking, “That’s great and all but how much is it?” Now the cool thing about Abeka is you can go as big or small as you want. I went the middle route. I bought the K5 Child kit and the K5 Parent Essential kit plus a couple of their optional but recommend learning tools (which can be reused for more than one child so are a one time buy) for just above $300. That’s it. I was stunned when I realized how little it was going to cost. Compared to preschool this is significantly cheaper (assuming you’re willing to put in the time commitment). I could then spend what I would have spent on preschool tuition costs on field trips and hands-on learning experiences and it wouldn’t even come close to the tuition costs. I’m not saying that preschool tuition costs are bad, but I just had it in my head that homeschooling would be prohibitively expensive, and I was surprised by how reasonable it is. This summer marked the completion of our first year of preschool (I used the K5 curriculum for my child because she was ready for it) and it did not disappoint. I would recommend it to anyone whether for a primary source of teaching or supplemental. Here is the link if you are interested! https://www.abeka.com

The Library

My girls and I love going to the library! My mom always took me when I was young and because of that I have always taken my girls! The library is so underused as a learning source! I know that was a lot of exclamation points but they were necessary. The library is not just for books! At our local library my girls have met firefighters, explored their truck and fired their water hose – all of which helped them overcome their fear of the loud noise from their trucks! Now whenever they hear a firetruck they act as if a personal friend is passing by. They have done STEM experiments through the context of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. They learned of Humpty Dumpty and tried even created and tested hypotheses of how to keep an egg from cracking when dropped and then talked about why it did or didn’t work. Not only did they learn about science and critical thinking, but they interacted in a “schoolroom” environment with other students and a teacher. All of this for FREE. And let’s not forget the library’s traditional uses. They’ve walked through aisles of books where they’ve have learned to be quiet and respect learning and also have experienced the thrill of finding their next adventure through books. I can recommend enough to search online for your county’s public library and then looking online, calling, or going in person to find out their calendar of activities. I’ve found that most have something for every age, toddlers up to adults.

I hope that this list was helpful! I love learning and teaching and I hope that this aids you in your journey however it may look.

Alicyn