top of page

Older and Younger Children Learning Together

How to Integrate Older Kids' Learning with your Little Ones

Question:

What do you do with your younger children?!

I took what my girls were doing this morning, then tried to think like a homeschooler... here are some ideas. Based on your kids' own aptitudes and interests you'll come up with one even better! These aren't related to any curriculum, it's just stream of consciousness stuff. As you pursue your own love of learning, you'll get into the habit and this kind of thinking will become natural to you.

#1 Blocks and Gravity

Your little ones can play together (my girls play horsy, they do somersaults or twirl in circles together, they get out blocks and stack them in a row). If I am with them, we can talk about the letters written on the blocks or try experiments, “how high can you build the tower before it falls over?”

If Milah were a teeny bit older I would talk about gravity in relation to the blocks falling over. I'd let her feel gravity by explaining that when you jump gravity pulls you back down. Then we could talk about space and how there is less gravity in space so you float. We could figure out how much they would weigh if they were on the moon or mars (here is a fun resource I found with explanations. It has a calculator so you could check your work). Then we could even try weighing objects till we found one that weighed as much as they weigh on the moon. Though not doing math, your two year old would be up for grabbing their favorite objects (a baby doll, maybe) and placing it on the scale.

Gravity Discussion Continued...with Raw Eggs

Idea #1 Continuing the discussion about gravity, you could take the "Egg Drop Challenge." Let your teens cushion a raw egg and drop it from the top of a ladder using straws and other materials you have on hand.

Idea #2 Or your kids could design a bungee jump ride for an egg: the "Egg Bungee Challenge." The egg must come within two inches of the floor without touching the floor. You might want to practice with a plastic egg first.

If your little kids needed something to do, let them play hide and seek with the easter eggs. The 4 year old could hide the eggs and the 2 year old find them. You could have them group eggs by color or count how many they found. For a little bit older child, you could have them start with 20 eggs, see how many the little siblings could find (let's say 14) and then ask how many there are still hiding? A little subtraction lesson :)

#2 Marble Fun!​

Dan created this quercetti track for the girls, but if you had older kids they could create a marble run for their younger siblings. It wouldn’t be the “meat” of a Scholar's schooling, but it is a fun activity that builds sibling relationships.

About the benefits of little children and older siblings learning together DeMille’s write: “The older children are left with more natural compassion and innocence and younger children are invited into the world of ‘mature’ activities such as reading, drama and math manipulatives, through peer mentoring without any pressure or stigmatization. It is sheer play---Vygotsky, Piaget and Erickson style. Nothing gives us more joy than the devotion of our little children to toward their sixteen year old brother --- or the tenderness he shows them. We consider this one of the blessings of our decision to pursue Leadership Education in our home” (The Phases of Education).

#3 Jasmine's Magic Carpet

I remember putting random objects into trash bags, then giving my siblings 8 minutes to come up with a commercial, then taping their skit. Eden spread a blanket out on our treadmill, dressed up as princess Jasmine, and used a hair brush for her microphone. I filmed her sales pitch for Jasmine’s “magic carpet,” which was filled with clever ideas and witty humor. She could put on quite a show! It turns out her natural abilities were being expressed, as she served a performing mission for the Church and taught drama at youth summer camps. She is truly a performer and by not restricting our curriculum, she could explore her natural aptitudes.

Remember to Structure Time Not Content

If you give your little kids their own fun objects, see what they do with them! Don't direct or say "now make a puppet show" or something, just watch and observe. If they're not that creative yet, give them a cardboard box or a laundry basket and let them pull each other around the room in it while your older kids are coming up with skits.

#4 The Civil War

At our homeschooling co-op, the youth had been learning about what led to the Civil War. They had a great idea, let's create a 3D diagram with dominoes! They represented each factor of the war (e.g. agriculture was rows of dominoes that looked like "crops") each factor was a chain reaction of dominoes leading up to the war. The hands-on learning and thinking of how to express each event using dominoes makes it more likely they will remember this lesson. If you had younger children, they could learn to balance the dominoes and knock them over.

Setting up the Civil War Simulation

​{Credit: Heidi Pope}

MOST POPULAR
RECENT POSTS
  • Pinterest.png
  • Facebook.png
  • Google +.png
  • Twitter.png
RSS Feed

SUBSCRIBE

Congrats! You’re subscribed

ARCHIVE
FREE GIFT

Click on the image above to receive a free copy of the Book of Mormon or here for the Bible.

INSTAGRAM
bottom of page