Toddler Carnival!
Meredith at Sweetness and Light is having an oh-so-interesting carnival of ideas to do with your toddler while schooling older children. This topic is my ISSUE OF ISSUES this year...as I have begun formally schooling Wendy with a 2 year old and new baby. Jenn mentions that her reading time has been cut in half and I find this to be one of my main concerns, too. We used to read and read. Hour upon Hour of every day. But that has changed this year as John has become an active KID and baby has arrived. Somehow John does not seem interested in sitting for very long listening to books as his big sister did (of course, he DOES as long as they are on dinosaurs...which is all very interesting but I find the prose particularly lacking in books titled "Big Dinosaurs Attack!" and the like----this difference in attention span/interest is a topic for another post but it is a subject that gives me lots of concern so if you have comments please voice them!). And baby Michael is, well, a baby. He needs almost constant nursing/diapering/cuddling.
We started out the year doing formal school (which consists of maybe an hour of focused work on phonics/reading and math...she's in kindergarten) while John napped. Around the time (about 2 months ago) that John stopped napping (we still have both older kids have quiet time by themselves for about an hour after lunch but he does not sleep anymore)---which just happened to be around the time that baby fell into a sort-of-napping-schedule my good friend Becca (at my frantic plea for help!) sent a copy of a file from cathswapCHAT@yahoogroups.com that is stocked with ideas for a "toddler box" of goodies to be brought out one at a time during schooltime. As she did this as a favor and I'm not a member of the group I don't feel right quoting it here verbatim (plus, it is really long!) but I'll give some of the pearls and if you're interested you can join the group! The woman who wrote it suggests having 60 activities pre-made in ziplocs so that you have 2-a-day-per-month. This way everything seems fresh and new. She also suggests not putting in things that get played with everyday like legos and matchbox cars. Here are some of my favorites from the list:
dry rice with a funnel, measuring cups and spoons and random containers
pattern blocks
LOTS of stickers
lacing cards
super ball and cardboard tube (holiday paper, paper towel, etc)....make a tunnel or raceway.
I highly recommend this list (she lists 60!) and in taking an hour or two one evening to put together your toddler box. I did this about a month ago and while it is still rocky (he is not always cooperative about being interested in the toddler box---grr) it is VERY HELPFUL to be able to look in the magic box for something fun.
My 2 year old is also VERY into the Math-U-See blocks that we have. I let him go to town (we have both sets so there is always enough for him to keep playing once we've started the math lesson) building "pirate ships". I let him pull the cushions off the couch EVERY DAY and do gymnastics moves on them. I let the room get totally messy (my problem is that it usually doesn't get cleaned up afterwards...which is a problem not with the messiness but with my own self-discipline). I try to include him as much as I can. Coloring next to us. Counting with us (he loved the big number chart I taped to the ground to practice skip-counting by 2s).
I think (because I know this but don't always do it well) that having a consistent schedule and a time that we always just do learning...that it is just what we do after breakfast....will help. I also have discovered that he NEEDS much more activity than his sister did at that age. Which isn't to say that all kids don't need to get outside a lot everyday...but I notice a NEED in him that his sister did not have. If I don't get him outside a lot I notice considerable changes in his behavior. I've also noticed that I have to make more of an effort to give him his own time with me because unlike his big sister (the first child) he doesn't just naturally get enough of it. If she's getting more of my focus during formal school time I need to make it even by giving him more focus at other times.
Oh, I struggle with this everyday. And I'm SOOOOO looking forward to the other submissions. It's all such a balancing act, I guess. I don't want to be teaching my eldest at the expense of the younger ones. Or paying attention to the more immediate demands of the younger ones at the expense of teaching my eldest. We're still only talking about an hour a day of "school" in our home...but an hour to a 2 year old is much longer than an hour to me, yes?
Thank you to Meredith for hosting this great topic!
We started out the year doing formal school (which consists of maybe an hour of focused work on phonics/reading and math...she's in kindergarten) while John napped. Around the time (about 2 months ago) that John stopped napping (we still have both older kids have quiet time by themselves for about an hour after lunch but he does not sleep anymore)---which just happened to be around the time that baby fell into a sort-of-napping-schedule my good friend Becca (at my frantic plea for help!) sent a copy of a file from cathswapCHAT@yahoogroups.com that is stocked with ideas for a "toddler box" of goodies to be brought out one at a time during schooltime. As she did this as a favor and I'm not a member of the group I don't feel right quoting it here verbatim (plus, it is really long!) but I'll give some of the pearls and if you're interested you can join the group! The woman who wrote it suggests having 60 activities pre-made in ziplocs so that you have 2-a-day-per-month. This way everything seems fresh and new. She also suggests not putting in things that get played with everyday like legos and matchbox cars. Here are some of my favorites from the list:
I highly recommend this list (she lists 60!) and in taking an hour or two one evening to put together your toddler box. I did this about a month ago and while it is still rocky (he is not always cooperative about being interested in the toddler box---grr) it is VERY HELPFUL to be able to look in the magic box for something fun.
My 2 year old is also VERY into the Math-U-See blocks that we have. I let him go to town (we have both sets so there is always enough for him to keep playing once we've started the math lesson) building "pirate ships". I let him pull the cushions off the couch EVERY DAY and do gymnastics moves on them. I let the room get totally messy (my problem is that it usually doesn't get cleaned up afterwards...which is a problem not with the messiness but with my own self-discipline). I try to include him as much as I can. Coloring next to us. Counting with us (he loved the big number chart I taped to the ground to practice skip-counting by 2s).
I think (because I know this but don't always do it well) that having a consistent schedule and a time that we always just do learning...that it is just what we do after breakfast....will help. I also have discovered that he NEEDS much more activity than his sister did at that age. Which isn't to say that all kids don't need to get outside a lot everyday...but I notice a NEED in him that his sister did not have. If I don't get him outside a lot I notice considerable changes in his behavior. I've also noticed that I have to make more of an effort to give him his own time with me because unlike his big sister (the first child) he doesn't just naturally get enough of it. If she's getting more of my focus during formal school time I need to make it even by giving him more focus at other times.
Oh, I struggle with this everyday. And I'm SOOOOO looking forward to the other submissions. It's all such a balancing act, I guess. I don't want to be teaching my eldest at the expense of the younger ones. Or paying attention to the more immediate demands of the younger ones at the expense of teaching my eldest. We're still only talking about an hour a day of "school" in our home...but an hour to a 2 year old is much longer than an hour to me, yes?
Thank you to Meredith for hosting this great topic!
Labels: Blogroll
posted by Sarah at
1:55 AM
3 Comments:
Thank YOU for your lovely post, it was a wonderful inclusion in the carnival!! Blessings!
Sarah, you truly have you hands full, and it sounds like you are handling things beautifully. I love the Toddler Box idea. My littles are not quite old enough for "rice and a funnel", but by next September, I bet they will be. I am definitly going to keep the ziplock bag idea in mind. Any chance you might email me more specifically where I might find that master list of 60 activities? Thanks!
I have a two year old girl (birthday today!) who ADORES playing with blankets and water. She covers everything in baby blankets/burp cloths (and not necessarily in a girlie way with baby dolls) and will definitely play in the sink or at the mouth of our walk in shower for hours... And if we don't go outside for several hours a day or at least run around the living room (we have an open floor plan) for about a half hour, we experience a lot more tantrums and nastiness. I hear you on needing activity!
Be careful with the ziplock bags and choose the relatively small ones. I was close by and able to catch my daughter with one over her head (she wasn't interested in the contents, which she promptly dumped out, she was fascinated by the bag; she was about 18 months.) Talk about heart-stopping moment.
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