I had such a great response to my What Is Homeschooling? post the other day, I decided to write another installment!

I do get asked frequently what our three-year-old does “all day” while we do school. Let’s see …

• She changes her outfit 50 times. (Well, not quite, but maybe 10. And not because of a need to do that. She just wants to.)
• She finds her scissors and cuts her hair. (Well that was a long time ago. I don’t think she has done this in at least six weeks.)
• She tries to get herself a snack … and maybe makes a little mess in the process.
• She whines and cries.
• She colors on the table … instead of her paper.

OK, seriously, this has all happened, BUT she also does a whole lot more! She learns right alongside all of us, and she also keeps us all laughing along the way. She is three years old after all.

Here are a few snapshots of our three-year-old learning over the past month.

Name Writing Practice (Yes you can erase a dry-erase from a cookie sheet!)

ABCs Scavenger Hunt

This kept her occupied for a good half-hour! After she put all of the letters in the puzzle, I used this opportunity to assess her letter recognition again.

Snack Time!

Love this photo of her feet! She also had a yogurt cup in hand while I worked on their Bible study lesson with Li’l Miss and Li’l Bro.

Cookie Sheet Activities

Mostly Li’l Bit just wants to be included, and really it isn’t hard most of the time to do just that.

While I played a game to work on subtraction facts with Li’l Bro and Li’l Miss, Li’l Bit was by my side working with a little game I made just for her to do on her cookie sheet.

She matched her magnetic letters to the word cards, which had a wintry theme! She loved this activity, and it was SO EASY to make it for her.

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With this next photo, you’ll see her smile in the corner. She had already matched all of the pom-poms to the correct Color word cards, and then decided to “mix them up” for my photo op! 🙂

Again, super easy to pull together with the color cards I have laminated and on hand. I just put the container of pom-poms with it, and she did the work!

Magnetic Pattern Blocks

I mentioned in my Let It Snow! post that Li’l Bit decided to make her own “starflack” with pattern blocks after seeing her big brother and big sister work on their own magnetic pattern block snowflakes.

I think she did an amazing job! This activity was impromptu, and was inspired by me leaving the pattern blocks AVAILABLE to her.

Her finished masterpiece!

Sorting Tray

I saved this plastic divided tray from a fruit tray we brought to a family get-together. I knew it would be perfect for a new twist on an old favorite: SORTING!

I simply filled this repurposed coffee canister with assorted objects in the colors red, yellow, green and blue. I also gave her a pair of tongs (also repurposed from a barbeque meal Grammy bought for a gang of people). Gotta keep those finger muscles working, and tongs definitely work well for this task.

I should add that when I give her things like this I don’t give her any direction. I just let her explore, and on this day she definitely decided very quickly to sort her objects by color. She even told me she was “missing one color” because she had to leave the center spot LOL!

As she finished, she tossed the tongs aside and began scooping the smallest objects into piles of colors, and then dumped them by the handful into the appropriate places. Too cute!

BINGO Games

She loves games, and seriously she is playing Sequence with us now! On this day though, she couldn’t resist a game of Farm BINGO.

She was made even happier because her big sister and big little brother wanted to play along too.

We made three in a row, Ts on our boards and ended with a coverall, which resulted in all of us yelling BINGO! She thought that was hysterical!

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We also have two other 9-square BINGO games that we play: 2D Shapes BINGO and Color BINGO! Speaking of shapes, she loves to use this next item in her learning time.

Exploring Shapes and Patterns

I wish I had taken a photo once she finished this masterpiece! She used the wonderful shape pieces to design a “princess.”

I found this little kit years ago at the Dollar*Tree, and it was money well-spent. She worked on this while I played a game of 10 Days in the USA with Li’l Bro and Li’l Miss.

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While I worked with LM and LB on 2-Digit Subtraction with Regrouping (using unifix cubes for reinforcement), Li’l Bit of course wanted a lesson all her own. Using unifix cubes of course.

I made a couple of sets of blocks, and then I told her to make some with the same patterns. She did so well, and that critical thinking was going strong in her little mind as she worked these cubes to match hers to mine!

She was quite proud of her hard work, and she was more than happy for me to snap photos of her work!

Today I decided we needed to do an art lesson, and it was so refreshing to exercise our creativity!
Of course Li’l Bit wanted to make her own Symmetry Art with Hearts!

I firmly believe children no matter their age or ability should be allowed in a safe environment to do their OWN work. This is exactly what Li’l Bit did with this assignment!

She is quite proud of her hearts, which she drew all by herself with a sharpie. She also cut out her paper squares, paper frames and glued it all together! Here is a photo of all of our Symmetry Art with Heart projects!