What to do with a 2 year old?! Out of necessity, I am mixing up our home school schedule a little to include some "class" time for Olivia. "Class" is what Olivia calls nursery at church, and she has started asking to have "class" at home. And because she has become disruptive to our morning lessons (i.e. coloring in kids school books during lesson time, throwing tantrums for attention, etc.), I'm happy to give her the wanted class time.
I'm not approaching this class time as "preschool." The objective is not for her to learn her letters, numbers, shapes, and/or colors, though these will somewhat be included in our class, but the main objective is for the two of us to spend time having fun together. I think this is really what she wants. That said, I don't want to have to create original lessons for her, especially when there are some wonderful resources out there with information already put together.
I have been using the new Nursery Manual, and Olivia loves to look through it. I use one lessson per week, and each day review the main idea from the lesson. Lesson one is "I am a child of God" so we sang the song each day, looked at the picture of the kids and talked about how they are all children of God, everyone in our family is a child of God, and some days we did the activity verse, "If your very, very tall (stretch and reach arms up . . . etc. "
We have been using Letter of the Week's pre-preschool lessons. Instead of a poster as suggeted at Letter of the Week, I put all the information for that week on a single white cardstock page. I point of the letters, numbers, etc., but mostly we have been focusing on the weekly theme-- reading picture books from the library, singing songs and nursery rhymes, playing games, and coloring pictures-- all centered around the theme. She can also color the pictures on the white cardstock page if she wants.
These are the two main resources I am currently using. Here are some of the other sites I use to find songs, games, activities, and coloring pictures:
It's Storytime
Online Storytime
Free Kid Crafts
Enchanted Learning
Preschoolers and Peace Blog
My time with Olivia is only about 15-20 minutes, sometimes Austin and Nyah particpiate and sometimes they don't, but it has made a huge difference in how Olivia acts while I am doing school with the older two. After our class time, she gets to pick a special toy from the high closet shelf- these are toys I have put out of reach and she can only play with them while I do school with the older kids. These are a house set (plastic house, people, furniture, etc.) , farm set (plastic farmer and animals), Noah's ark set (plastic ark, animals, Noah & wife), and play dishes and food.
I didn't use the toys the first week we were trying the class time, and Olivia wanted class time to go on and on, and would throw a tantrum when I'd stop. Now she has something else to focus on, and happily plays with her toys. When she tires with one of the toy sets, she and I clean up, and she can pick another one if she wants. Most of the time she moves on to the other toys that are around all the time. As part of our morning chores the kids to clean up their bedrooms, and this helps Olivia be able to find the toys she wants to play with- like her babies and baby stuff, Barbies, stuffed animals, etc. 
Sometimes Olivia wants to be working with us while we are doing school, so I have several activities for her to do then. I try to get her to do something similar to what the older kids are doing. When they are reading she can look through books, and there are many days she will look through one book after the other, until she empties a book shelf. When they are writing or drawing, I'll give her a coloring page about that week's theme, or we have lots of coloring books and paper she can pick from. She loves to take her turn on our big whiteboard after the kids have finished using it, but we also have a couple small whiteboards she can also use. We have lots of puzzles that she can do- some on her own, and I can help her put harder ones together when I don't have to completely focus on the older two, such as when they are listening to a story or working on something on their own.
Mid-morning (about 10a.m.) we usually have a snack-recess time, and this gives me time to feed her & Jolie, change diapers, read a quick story, or do whatever else needs doing (switching laundry, which Olivia likes to help me with- sigh, someday she'll grow out of it).
Once school is over I make a point to spend a few minutes with her before I jump into making lunch or doing household stuff- we read a story, chase each other around the house, play ring-around-the-rosies, whatever comes to mind.
I'm not approaching this class time as "preschool." The objective is not for her to learn her letters, numbers, shapes, and/or colors, though these will somewhat be included in our class, but the main objective is for the two of us to spend time having fun together. I think this is really what she wants. That said, I don't want to have to create original lessons for her, especially when there are some wonderful resources out there with information already put together.
I have been using the new Nursery Manual, and Olivia loves to look through it. I use one lessson per week, and each day review the main idea from the lesson. Lesson one is "I am a child of God" so we sang the song each day, looked at the picture of the kids and talked about how they are all children of God, everyone in our family is a child of God, and some days we did the activity verse, "If your very, very tall (stretch and reach arms up . . . etc. "
We have been using Letter of the Week's pre-preschool lessons. Instead of a poster as suggeted at Letter of the Week, I put all the information for that week on a single white cardstock page. I point of the letters, numbers, etc., but mostly we have been focusing on the weekly theme-- reading picture books from the library, singing songs and nursery rhymes, playing games, and coloring pictures-- all centered around the theme. She can also color the pictures on the white cardstock page if she wants.
These are the two main resources I am currently using. Here are some of the other sites I use to find songs, games, activities, and coloring pictures:
It's Storytime
Online Storytime
Free Kid Crafts
Enchanted Learning
Preschoolers and Peace Blog
My time with Olivia is only about 15-20 minutes, sometimes Austin and Nyah particpiate and sometimes they don't, but it has made a huge difference in how Olivia acts while I am doing school with the older two. After our class time, she gets to pick a special toy from the high closet shelf- these are toys I have put out of reach and she can only play with them while I do school with the older kids. These are a house set (plastic house, people, furniture, etc.) , farm set (plastic farmer and animals), Noah's ark set (plastic ark, animals, Noah & wife), and play dishes and food.
I didn't use the toys the first week we were trying the class time, and Olivia wanted class time to go on and on, and would throw a tantrum when I'd stop. Now she has something else to focus on, and happily plays with her toys. When she tires with one of the toy sets, she and I clean up, and she can pick another one if she wants. Most of the time she moves on to the other toys that are around all the time. As part of our morning chores the kids to clean up their bedrooms, and this helps Olivia be able to find the toys she wants to play with- like her babies and baby stuff, Barbies, stuffed animals, etc. Sometimes Olivia wants to be working with us while we are doing school, so I have several activities for her to do then. I try to get her to do something similar to what the older kids are doing. When they are reading she can look through books, and there are many days she will look through one book after the other, until she empties a book shelf. When they are writing or drawing, I'll give her a coloring page about that week's theme, or we have lots of coloring books and paper she can pick from. She loves to take her turn on our big whiteboard after the kids have finished using it, but we also have a couple small whiteboards she can also use. We have lots of puzzles that she can do- some on her own, and I can help her put harder ones together when I don't have to completely focus on the older two, such as when they are listening to a story or working on something on their own.Mid-morning (about 10a.m.) we usually have a snack-recess time, and this gives me time to feed her & Jolie, change diapers, read a quick story, or do whatever else needs doing (switching laundry, which Olivia likes to help me with- sigh, someday she'll grow out of it).
Once school is over I make a point to spend a few minutes with her before I jump into making lunch or doing household stuff- we read a story, chase each other around the house, play ring-around-the-rosies, whatever comes to mind. 
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