What I’d Do Differently in Homeschool Preschool | Homeschool Preschool Mistakes I Made

Hey everybody, welcome to the Law Doc Way. I'm Jessica and today's video is going to be all about homeschooling, preschool, and what I would do differently if I could start over from scratch. Planning high school does a really strange things to homeschool moms, at least it has for me. One minute I'm thinking about transcripts and credit hours and then somehow my mind is traveling down the road of where we all got started. Something about looking at or towards the finish line, it makes me want to reflect back on how we started. And so doing that over the last couple months has really made me kind of like think about what I would have done differently. If I could start all over, if I could go back, if I could redo those first one or two years, what did I do well and what would I have completely done differently? So I thought that in case any of you are new to homeschooling or you're homeschooling a preschooler in the next few years, that I would share if I could start over what I would do differently. So maybe you can get some insight and do some things that I wish I would have done. So the first thing that I wish I would have done differently is I wish I would not have literally created school at home. When we first started homeschooling preschool, we have an addition onto our house and that's our homeschool room and it quite literally looked like a preschool. Like I could have had 10 to 15 kids here and run a preschool daycare and nobody would have asked any questions. It was primary colors. It was bright. There was the calendar time thing. There was, I mean, there was everything. And every day I was like, okay, let's sit down at the table. Let's do our calendar time. Let's do this. Let's do that. And here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with that. But the problem is I wasn't really enjoying the home part of a homeschool. Like I was like, this is school. We're going to go down here and we're going to sit and we're going to do the school part of it. But I completely neglected the home part of it. The cozy on the couch, the curl up in bed, the fact that we could have snacks and just everything that makes homeschooling beautiful and wonderful. I absolutely neglected it. So that would be the first thing. Like if I could start over from scratch, I would totally lean way more into the home part and way less into the school part. I also would not have decorated our downstairs as a preschool because that was way more time, money and effort to undo than I wish I would have spent. The second thing I would do if I could start over is read more books. Now we did read a lot. Don't get me wrong. We read a lot in the early years. We've always read a lot, but books would have been so much more of a fundamental part of our homeschool. I mean like that would have been the base of everything that we did. I also wish I wouldn't have pushed chapter books quite as fast as I did because I feel like there were so many beautiful picture books that we missed out on because we kind of moved through it a little too quickly. So I would have still used some early chapter books as read aloud, but I definitely would have dwelled in the beautiful picture books for preschoolers for a lot longer if I could do it over. There are just so many really, really great ones that you can learn with and you don't need to rush things and that is probably something I did way too much of in the early years. The third thing I would do if I could start over is play more games. We really didn't get into games going until Emily's like kindergarten, like the later half of her homeschool year. So in preschool while we did play some games as a family because games have always been part of our family culture. I mean Kevin and I were playing games for dates even before we got married. We just did more of like a family game night like every now and then. I wish I could go back and really, really enjoy the benefits of game schooling in those early because there are so many fantastic games designed specifically for those early years like where you can learn things like alphabet, numbers, colors, shapes, so many games that are great for fine motor skills. Like there are just so many and I feel like while we did get to use some of them and while I did still buy a lot of them even for the kindergarten years, we didn't get to enjoy the longevity that we could have if I had learned about game schooling and played more games in preschool. Like those games would have lasted us a few years if I had done that. The fourth thing is focus on fine motor skills. So I just talked about fine motor skills and I feel like the biggest, like literally the biggest mistake that I made was not focusing on fine motor skills enough. Instead it was putting a pencil in Emily's hand too early and unfortunately by doing that I feel like it led to her being a reluctant writer. She was a reluctant writer for years until I flipped the script and let her start typing and I really, really truly in my heart of hearts feel like a big part of that is because I put a pencil in her hand too early. Instead of letting her develop fine motor skills in more fun ways like, like I said, those games that have like the little pinchers or learning to write in a fun way. For example, my only memory from like preschool when I was in preschool was when they would put shaving cream down on the tables and we would write and draw on the tables and the shaving cream. Like that is one of my earliest memories and I never did that with Emily. I mean literally my earliest memory, something that I absolutely enjoyed and I never did it. And I wish those were the things that I had done. I wish I had done things like have her write in shaving cream or in those, you know, sand tablets or in salt instead of holding a pencil. I wish we would have done fine motor skills like scissors, pinching and squeezing, playing with Play-Doh, you know, threading things, things that would have been so much more fun than forcing a pencil into her hand, which is probably, like I said, one of my biggest regrets because I feel like that led to her becoming a reluctant writer and that being something that I almost had to undo in the later years. The fifth thing is kind of a double whammy because it's something I feel like I did right, but also something I wish we had done more of and that's sensory play. So I knew the value of sensory play. I've always known the value of it and I always made sensory bends for Emily, but I just wish I had done more of it because I know the value of it. Like it can bring so many things. It can help with conversation. It can help with those fine motor skills. It can help with vocabulary, with all kinds of development. There's just so many benefits to it and we did a lot of them when she was like a toddler and like early preschool, but then as we got into like preschool and, you know, even easing into towards the kindergarten, it became less and less because I felt like we needed to do more real things. And I wish I hadn't have done that because sensory play in general, I'm talking playdough, I'm talking those, you know, rice bins, water beads, all of those kinds of things have so many benefits. And honestly, I loved setting them up. I don't know why I didn't do them more. Like I loved dyeing rice and dyeing chickpeas. Like we had the most beautiful rainbow chickpeas. We had beautiful rainbow rice because I enjoyed doing it. I just didn't make time for the sensory play in our homeschool. And I wish I had made more time for that. Okay. The one thing that I feel like I did really, really well, and this was even kind of like before I knew what I was doing was following her interests. That is the only thing I feel like I did super well in the preschool years. And obviously I still could have done more of it. Emily loved animals. She's always loved animals. So even when we were learning the alphabets, like everything came down to like A is for ant. And so we learned about ants. We watched ants, the movie, we went and did an ant, we went and did an ant farm. We went outside and observed an ant hill. D was for dinosaurs. We watched dinosaur movies. We learned about dinosaurs. We went to a dinosaur exhibit at a museum. And this was before I even knew unit studies were a thing. All I knew was that she was learning more and, you know, like D says, duh, duh, duh, dinosaur. And she was equating it. And she was remembering it because I was making it something that she was interested in. And I already learned that it was like a whole family affair because we were going on field trips together and we were watching movies together and following her interests and doing that family style learning was so much fun that that's where I kept going. Even in, like I said, the future years before I even realized that unit studies were what I was doing. Cause I didn't know that that was a thing. Like I didn't set out to homeschool long-term and preschool. I was just doing what worked and that worked. And so I think the one thing that I did well was follow her interest. I could always have done more. I think you can always do more following interests and leaning in to whatever your child is into. But I would say looking back, that is the one thing that I did really, really well in preschool. And I love that I did it because the memories that we have, like, for example, we did a horse for H and we went and she got to ride her first horse. Then she did like this whole horseback thing and she brushed them. And like, we have so many fantastic family memories from doing that. And I would not trade that for the world. The things I would have let go of, and I'm hoping that you can let go of too, is the comparing the over-planning and the nagging worry. So yes, it's preschool, but they're like three, four, and five, depending on when you start preschool. The over-planning is so unneeded. Like you don't need that. You really just need a stack of books and some games to play. And maybe a couple of really good either apps or TV series. Like I can't even tell you how many things Emily learned from Magic School Bus and Wild Kratts. Like that is enough. You don't need any more than that. And as far as planning goes, anytime I did plan, it was absolutely pointless, especially in the early years, because some days she would be ready to sit or learn or read or play games or whatever for hours. And other days we would maybe get minutes in and that's okay. Like they're little, they shouldn't be required to sit there for hours. So it is absolutely okay to not plan at all and just kind of have a stack of resources that you're going to pull from. Like these are the books we're going to read. These are the games we're going to play. And just whenever they're in the mood, read the books, play the games, bring them into the kitchen with you when you're cooking. And when you're baking, take them on grocery shopping or to the post office, or I mean, I call them field trips, which for them they are because those things are new and exciting. That's the glory of preschool is everything is like new and exciting for them. They're built to be curious and want to learn more things. So don't squash that curiosity and kill that love for learning early because I promise you will regret it. So don't do that. And also there is absolutely no need to compare. There will be four year olds who are already reading. There will be seven year olds who haven't learned to read yet. Like it's not a comparison game. I promise when you're sitting at the table planning for high school, you are going to look back and you're going to regret the fun. You didn't have the connections. You didn't make those things that you missed out on. You are not going to regret that. You didn't teach them how to read until they were five or six. Like you're not, I promise. Just trust me on that because hindsight is 2020. So do the things that bring you connection, that bring you joy, that make learning fun, because that is what's going to matter. And before you go, if you're homeschooling a preschooler this year, I'm doing a giveaway. You're not going to want to miss. I'm giving away everything you need for preschool books, games, hands-on resources, and even purposeful preschool. So if you've been wondering how to make preschool simple, fun, and actually work, this is the easiest way to get started. Check the link below in the description to enter for a chance to win.