Homeschooling with a toddler

 I have a very active 2.5 year old son, Z. He loves to be involved in our learning time. Story time means pulling the book out of my hands and possible throwing it. Going over our lessons means keeping him busy with things to 'write'. I've thought about doing busy boxes...I just don't seem to have time to put them together (I do plan on making some up this summer for next school year).

He's a very good little boy, he just wants to have things to play with and still be around us. I've done blocks, but they don't seem to hold his interest for long periods of time. I will add in all honesty I don't want huge clean up messes. Well when I was looking for activity ideas for Christmas I came across this neat little table from Simplay3. I really liked how he had two sections to have playtime in. I also wanted this for indoor play. We've used it with play doh sets as a table and he really liked it. I also found water beads. I've never used these before, but they are fantastic! Not only did Z love them, but the older two C and M loved them too. Especially when we added them to their marble maze toy Q-Ba-Maze. I'll be honest my kids had rarely touched the maze toy and I hadn't pulled it out since Z became mobile because I obviously didn't want marbles lying around the house. I still don't trust Z with marbles, so we used these water beads and they kids had so much fun! They ended up enjoying them so much I went ahead and used some gift cards from Christmas and order a couple to add on sets. While they were building separately and then combining their work I was seeing a number of ideas about using these in a co-op class!

I added the links to everything I mentioned! I do receive compensation if you buy through one of the links I supplied here today. 

I would love to hear from any of you with other great ideas to keep little hands busy during the school day! Or if you decide to try water beads with a maze toy! Love to hear what you think!