Have your ever heard of tot school? Maybe you heard of it but don’t know what it’s all about?
If you’re a mom of toddlers, perhaps you have heard the term “Tot School”. Or maybe this is your first time hearing it! Tot school is essentially what it sounds like: Toddler school. Now, I know what you’re thinking: “why in the world would toddlers be doing school??” And I totally get it! However, there’s a little more to Tot School than you might think.
This is a post all about Tot School: what it is and how to start.
What is Tot School?
Like I mentioned earlier, Tot School is what it sounds like: Toddler School. I know that sounds like something extreme. It sounds like a method used to produce doctors or lawyers or children that are going to get their PHD’s! That is not what it is at all. It is not formal learning. It is not even preschool. Tot school can be done without any kind of papers or cards!
Tot school is not like formal schooling. It is not schooling in the traditional sense. It is bring intentionality to their play. Kids learn through play. It is SO important to allow them to explore and play. Tot school simply gives you, as the parent, the guidance to set up scenarios for your child to explore. Also, ways for you to intentionally play with your child!
There are curriculums out there for tot school. When you first here for a curriculum, you might think it’s more like formal schooling. But in reality, those curriculums give you book lists, game ideas, toys you can use. These curriculums can have thematic units that give you ideas of ways to put together books, activities and toys around the same theme and begin making connections.
How To Start
There are a two different ways I would recommend starting Tot School.
The first is to find a Tot School Curriculum and just follow that. One that we enjoyed with our oldest is from Learning with Alexa and you can find that here. This curriculum is marked as a one year old program. However, it is more appropriate for an 18 month old. My daughter loved this one and still takes it out sometimes to play with it! For a two year old, we enjoyed the curriculum for How Wee Learn. This was one of those curriculums that had more of a schedule or structure for us to get inspired from. There were book lists, activity ideas, games, and more. We are actually just wrapping up with this one and my toddler has been LOVING it!
The second way to start Tot School, is to do some research, get some ideas of what is included in a Tot School Curriculum, and build your own. This of course takes a lot of time and effort. Usually, this is not so easy for us as busy moms! However, I have made some supplementary things for my daughter and have used them as she’s grown and developed and I felt like she needed a little more challenge than the curriculum was giving her. It does take more effort, but it is a great way to become even more intentional about your child’s learning!
More thoughts
I feel the need to reiterate, this is not in any way formal schooling. Honestly, up until about a week ago, we never even used sheets or pencils! Markers were only used to color with and that was on blank sheets of paper on the floor! It is simply putting some intentionality behind the toys your child plays with regularly, activities you can do with your child, and so on. The curriculums are not to give a schedule, but simply to give you more ideas.
I am a licensed teacher with a background and degree for early childhood education as well. Coming up with ideas and teaching children is literally what I am trained to do! However, being a mom is so different. Waking up during the night with a baby, caring for my home, caring for children 24/7, running a business with my husband, and all the other demands, makes it so hard to have energy and creativity for learning tools! I have all the background to be able to do the activities and the play with my child, and yet I can be so tired that I have a hard time being creative. Having a curriculum is a huge help because it gives me the boost I need to be able to “take it from there” and teach my child and create fun play activities for her.
I hope this can be a help to any toddler moms out there!
This has been a post all about Tot school: what it is and where to start.
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