I’m looking for recommendations on how to start homeschooling

You can start anytime you want! With that said, they don't really 'have to' start school till kinder/first grade.

You can teach your kids as soon as they're ready to learn! About anything really! If you have to notify your school district that you are homeschooling it would be around the age of them going into kinder.

State to state laws are different but generally there are two ways, you go with a homeschool institute (you may even receive funds for supplies and classes) or do it yourself and file to the state.

Honestly I just do things they play. They don't really need to start being more structured til 1st grade. So if we bake together, I'll have mine count how many scoops, tell me the colors, help set timers. That kind of thing. There's alot of good activities I find on Pinterest that help too. We also do a lot of art. Gluing, painting, cutting. All helps with coordination. I find that kids learn pretty fast like this. Also when we do some screen time with learning she loves watching nature documentaries where we'll take about the animals and do art centered around them or her favorite is Ms. Houston on YouTube.

Blossom and Root has a nice Early Years curriculum if you’re looking for something structured to use as a guide

You don’t need to homeschool a 2.5 year old. They’re already learning through play and experience. If you want something structured all you need to do is 15 mins a day of alphabets, counting, sink or float experiments, and getting out in nature and talking with your child. I’m one year into homeschooling my kindergartner and if I could go back and do it all over again I would have stopped stressing when he was younger about “schooling” him and just lived life with him. They have MANY years of schooling, there’s no need to start now, enjoy your baby without the academics.

At 2.5yo you don't need to do worksheets or anything. Build in time in your schedule for reading aloud and doing some kind of hands-on learning activity. Right now you'll work on counting and phonics and it should be informal & play based, but the time in your day is a place holder for what comes next. Whether that looks like traditional school work or something else is up to you!

Honestly, I would recommend just play based learning, there's no need for structure at this young age. Read a lot to him, explain things in the moment. Work on manners, and emotional development. Incorporate learning with puzzles and age appropriate games. I learned a lot from local and state FB groups. I learned from them that it's better to start later as opposed to early on because they aren't physically or mentally ready. Public school is so rushed, and oftentimes, new homeschool parents try to match that schedule, and that's not the point of homeschooling. Typically, from what I learned in those groups is "formal" learning doesn't start until age 5-6, when their attention span is there and hand strength is strong

My son is turning 3 this month and at around 2 - 2.5 we worked on the alphabet. He learned upper case first then lower case. We also had a shape poster to learn shapes and did puzzles (he is still struggling with rectangle though for some reason). We read books, sang songs, and occasionally did little work sheets around tracing, circling things, counting things, etc. I tried to keep it pretty low-key and casual and gave him many breaks. Currently he's working on reading basic CVC words, counting to 20, and shapes still. He's great with the letter sounds we are just trying to tackle blending those sounds together. We enjoy these activities together because I am always teaching my son that reading is an absolute joy. That it unlocks whole worlds of adventure. When they're small, it's not so much what you teach it's how you teach it. If I'm excited and he's excited and he gets lots of praise, he thinks it's a game and he's very proud of himself.

@Annie my son also knows the alphabet, shapes and we’re working on counting to 20 but he is so energetic it’s hard to get him to focus sometimes. How do you get your son to focus on something? I’ve tried counting things while we go on walks or if he has a handful of stick counting those and showing him but he doesn’t seem to care much.

@Sookie I definitely feel like public school rushes everything as well. I feel rushed to start the structured teaching from my boyfriend because he wants our son to go to public school and doesn’t see a problem with it because we went through it. However I think our son wouldn’t do well because he is very social and energetic. In public school you’re always told “sit down and be quiet, school isn’t for socializing” which I don’t really agree with.

@Emm I’m definitely going to try to stop stressing about this now. I keep telling myself I don’t want him to fall behind other kids his age so I’ve been trying to find ways to teach him as much as I can.

@Brianna oh yeah my kid is wiiiild. Honestly sometimes I give him the thing we are using. Like if I'm writing something with a pen I let him write something with a pen too. I also use stickers for a lot of things as rewards. And honestly just hype hype hype. Everything is awesome and amazing and great if you make it sound that way

@Brianna I would join your local homeschool Facebook groups and listen to homeschooling podcasts so you can get more clarity about the type of homeschooling approach you and your child align best with.

Just teach him random stuff. I've homeschooled my child for few years now at that age he knew left and right and few other things

@Brianna take your time and have him join groups as well so he can learn. That really is the beauty of homeschool. You focus on what you need as opposed to him being a statistic

We don't start formal homeschooling until 7. I highly recommend reading some homeschooling and child development books to better understand how children learn and to understand age appropriate expectations with learning.