Preschoolers and Peace

When I first started homeschooling, my children were close in age (4 children in 3 years) so it wasn't too hard when we started homeschooling as they all worked together. But we went on to have more children. Now I have preschoolers all the way to high schoolers and I'm finding myself in new territory. I recently heard about Preschoolers and Peace and was quite intrigued. Kendra Fletcher started the blog and went on to compile her best tips in the ebook Preschoolers and Peace: Homeschooling older kids with success while loving the little ones at your feet.

This 47 page ebook is an easy read for the busy mom. She broke the book down into 13 chapters that include:

• What a Homeschooling Mom Needs
• Preparing Yourself to Homeschool Older Kids With Little Ones Underfoot
• Planning Around Preschoolers
• How Do I Keep Them Busy?
• What Does a 2 Year Old's Day Look Like?
• How Do I Get Any Pre-schooling Done?
• How Not to Just Kill Time
• Circle Time, or How We Pull the Little Ones In
• Preschool Boys
• When All of Your Kiddos Are Preschoolers
• Preschool Chores
• Planning for Preschool
• When Mama is Worn Out (or Pregnant)

At the end of the book you'll also find a menu planning guide, a word of encouragement and a resource page. The resource page ties in with many of the chapters throughout the book by having clickable links that take you to the authors favorite resources which I found quite invaluable!

The author is a mom to 8 children ranging in ages 20 to 5 so she truly gets what homeschooling is like in the trenches with a broad age of children. I love how she not only shares her tried & true suggestions and tips but she also shares her heart.

She hit the nail on the head by stating that preparation is the key to successful homeschooling! One of the first steps to preparation she said is simply starting your day with prayer. I loved her suggestion of a prayer box by taking all those photo Christmas cards you receive and pulling them out during circle time to pray for those families.

Kendra also shares how she teaches her little ones to get into habits to start the morning off well. She feels that starting a routine when they are young, will help them once they get older in becoming more independent. She goes on to even show what a schedule looked like for each of her children with their ages listed.

I think one of my favorite sections of this book was when she shared ideas of how to keep toddlers busy! Some of the things she shared we already do (like rotate toys, helping mom with chores, make forts, etc). But I also gleaned some new ideas which I needed.

Have you heard of Circle Time? I hadn't known there was a term for this but this is something we do that is also talked about in Preschoolers and Peace. It's a time when you can gather all the children no matter their ages and do things together as a group such a prayer, memorization (which could be of planets, Bible verses, poetry, etc). We also use this time for a short devotion and right now we also do history as a group. Kendra also said she wrote an ebook about Circle Time that comes with planning pages.

We are big fans of starting our children out very young with simple chores and I appreciated how the author highlighted this same thing. She went on to list ideas of chores that a 2, 3, 4 & 5 year old can do.

I only scratched the surface of sharing about this wonderful resource. Preschoolers and Peace was an encouraging ebook to read and one that I know I will continue to reference the next several years. It's available to purchase for just $2.99 for the ebook. This book is geared towards moms!

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