Homeschooling Materials for 2-3 Year Olds

I do not know about resourse materials but, I would suggest being very sure there is a problem before concerning yourself too much. When my son was about 2 his pediatrician told me he was delayed and we needed therapy and such. We had all the evaluations and I took him for therapy and I worried. Turns out he was simply delayed, nothing was wrong. He is in college now in an honors program. It was after the fact that my father said he was a late talker also. It does run in families. I am only saying you MAY not have reason to be concerned.

We homeschooled our kids for many years (through 11th grade for our girls and 8th grade for our son). I would highly recommend that you do not do anything structured with your 2-3 year old. In my opinion it is too soon. Do some research on the Internet for unschooling and this may give you some fun ideas for setting the stage for making learning fun to encourage a love of learning. If your child has speech deficits, the speech therapist will have recommendations for therapy, probably both with the therapist and at home and I would take my cues from that visit. You sound like a very caring and wonderful mom and I have known many moms like you over the years that want to take an active role in their children's education and I applaud you for that. However, children mainly learn by play when they are very young and structure can absolutely be a detriment at this age. There will be plenty of time for that later. In the meantime, go online and find a homeschool group in your area. Join now if they will let you and begin to surround yourself with other families going down the same path. Many will have younger children and you can begin to go to play dates and other outings. Homeschooling was a very rich experience for our whole family and I wish you the very best. Hope this helps, S.

There are great ideas for 3 year olds at http://letteroftheweek.com/preschool_age_3.html

I have homeschooled my three sons. At this age, I did not use a particular curriculum but would set aside 30-40 minutes each day for more structured learning. We would look at colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. Simple items around the house can be used - crayons, colored paper to make shapes. I also purchased a set of bears (Wal-Mart for less than $10)that had ten bears in five colors with coordinated cups. We used these for many many many things - sorting, counting, line them up in the form of a shape, patterns, etc. Go on color scavenger hunts around the house or shape hunts. Play games: connect four, candy land, uno. I could go on and on, but I'll stop. Hope this helps. Oh, I am a former elementary teacher, also.
K. H