How to Start Your Own “Tot School”
Let’s start at the very beginning…..because it’s a very good place to start.
Well actually to easily explain what “Tot School” is we need to start from the end and work backwards! The end being when you hand your child over to a “Teacher” at “School.” Might I add that a parents role is to be the PRIMARY teacher of their child but once they are at school your time at home with your children is limited!
As we discovered on the “My Pigeon Pair” Facebook page the name for the first year of school is different in EVERY state! But we will use our family as an example!
Prep – First year of formal schooling, As of the first day of school students are aged between 41/2 and 5 1/2. They turn 5 by 30th June that year. Prep covers the “Foundation” phase of The Australian Curriculum. This includes phonics, sight words, reading, counting to 20 and beyond, simple addition and subtraction, science and history.
Kindergarten – Is the year before students attend “school”. This is primarily a part time program (in QLD) where students attend “Kindy” for a five day fortnight. Students must turn 4 by the 30th June that year. There is no compulsory curriculum but many states have their own guidelines. Thanks to the Qld government “Kindy” has undergone massive changes and is now taught by “Registered Early Childhood Teachers”. As a result many schools are starting to run Kindergarten programs. In fact all public schools in our area now have Kindergarten. The second biggest Kindergarden program is the C & K program which I HIGHLY recommend. You can also find Kindy programs in childcare centres and run by church groups.
And before Kindergarten? Well this is where the new gap lies. You are limited to sending your child to childcare centres or hunting out a playgroup run by a teacher. Hence how Tot School in our house came about! I wanted to spend this special time teaching my own child skills at home.
So what is “Tot School”?
Tot School are activities taught in the home, by a care giver (mother, family day care) to children prior to starting school. In our house Tot School starts from about 2 until they start Prep (both of my children will be just about to turn 5 when they start Prep)
Everyone’s Tot School looks a little different! It may not even have a name!
For us “Tot School” is just a name for the specific time and activities that we engage with our children in focused teaching and learning. We still spend a LOT of time playing and reading but Tot School time is primarily focused on strengthening or gaining a specific skill. In our house it is about 30 minutes twice a day. It has structure but is fun, hands on and engaging.
What do you do at tot School?
Tot School focuses on School Readiness Skills. Including;
What you need to get started.
The opportunities and materials are endless. I use items from all over the house, you use what you have and it NEVER has to cost a lot of money! Some basic items that will come in handy are;
- A Magnetic White Board (We bought a cute small one from Big W for $12)
- White Board Markers
- Any kind of counters (buttons, beads, pegs, cars, paddle pop sticks anything you can count with!)
- Magnetic Letters/Numbers
- Wool/String/Thread/Shoelaces – anything for threading
- Children’s Scissors
- Containers (ice cube trays, cupcake papers, cups, bowls anything to hold a number of objects.
- Things to match (stickers, magnets, memory cards, snap cards, pictures)
- Wooden Pegs (the number of times I have used these are amazing)
- Paper Plates
- Music (Ipod, Cd Player)
- Puzzles
- Blocks
If you want to keep resources long term I also strongly recommend investing in a laminator! You can get them at most department stores for under $30. They are great for laminating pictures that children can write on with a whiteboard marker and then rub off and use again another time!
How we structure Tot School in our house
We do two type of activities
- Busy Bags
- Teacher Time
Busy Bags – Ours are independent learning activities in a little bag that the student can self select and sit down and complete independently. We have about 4-5 Busy bags out a week. Often these are themed. For example our current busy bags are a “Valentine’s” theme! These bags are used at any time of the day and average each activity only takes about 5 minutes.
Teacher Time – A Song or Story (5mins), Focused Teaching and Learning Activity of a skill(10mins), Play/Movement/Music/Art to finish off (5-10mins) as they get older I also introduce Letter or Number of the day(10 mins)
Over the next few weeks I will take you through some of our Tot School activities! So start getting your materials together, schedule in some time, keep an eye on our Facebook page and Instagram feed and
let’s get learning together!