Favorite Tot Activities of the Week

Homeschooling multiple kids can be a balancing act. Depending on the range of ages of the kids, it can be hard to find that good middle ground. Too much focus on the younger ones and the education of the older ones suffer. Too much attention on the older kids, and the younger ones demand attention…at least mine does. 😉

This week though, I feel like I was able to strike a pretty decent balance. I feel like I can conquer the world now! Or, at least take on next week. haha

Quick note. To help achieve this balance, the girls had taken it upon themselves to knock their math out first thing in the morning before breakfast. Thus taking the pressure off the rest of the day to make sure it got done and opening up more free-time later in the day to pursue whatever their interests are at the moment.

Here are the activities I found this week that kept my very active Little Man busy so that I could give the girls some attention. We were all in the same room, which always helps him feel like he is a part of whatever is going on.

Activity #1- Chocolate Scented Playdough {Homemade}

Quick No Cook Homemade Playdough — with a twist {and without cream of tartar}

Back when the girls were in preschool, the teachers had a sign-up sheet asking the parents to each take a month to make playdough for the class to play with. The colors would vary depending on what the theme for the month was. I definitely made my fair share of it. The school provided a recipe to make sure it was everything coming into the classrooms was allergy-safe. This particular recipe was for a cooked, unscented playdough. Once the girls were done with preschool, a part of me was glad not to have to make any more playdough. [Hey, that was 4 years of playdough making! Four years of large playdough batches that took a ton of flour, almost a whole container of salt and enough cream of tartar that would make me constantly need to make last minute trips to Kroger.]

After preschool, we had a TON of the store-bought Play-Doh in our home and a ton of the playsets. With our last move, we cut down on some of our containers and sets that just didn’t see much play time.

Enter my Little Man. I recently found a three-pack of Play-Doh hiding in my garage. (It may have been hiding…or I may have just forgotten to bring it in the house when unpacking…) He has enjoyed playing with the stuff and life was good.

Or so I thought.I was checking out some people on Instagram the other day and saw a mom sharing her genius idea {you can see it here}. Seriously, it’s such an awesome idea. Homemade SCENTED playdough! She tinted her dough orange and added orange zest. I know, amazing!

15 YouTube Videos that MUST Be a Part of Your School Day

By now, after reading through some of my posts, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I like to include YouTube videos in my school plans. Because the videos are enjoyed by my kids, I wanted to share them with you in hopes that your children will enjoy them too!

We have music as part of our morning time. After singing songs that we already have the lyrics to (and know the tune of the song), we watch some videos and sing along with them. [By the way, after only a few days of this, my toddler is already requesting some of the songs! Yay!]

It’s Not Just Me, Right?

I wanted to take a break today from my usual posts to pose this question to you: Does this happen to you?? Please. This can’t be happening to just me!

Okay. ::deep breath:: Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

When we bought this house, one of the big selling points was the giant second floor bonus room. There is just so much space and so many possibilities of what to do with it. Of course we knew that a portion of it would make a perfect school space and the rest could be used for toys and our collection of books. (I’ve since added the computer to the space in the hopes of getting some work done while the kids are playing.)

Morning Circle Time

 

Yesterday I talked about what is in our morning basket. I am definitely looking forward to starting this and I know the girls are too (they saw the Mad Libs and Aesop’s Fables sitting in it). This is only half of our morning routine, though.

Ready for circle time.

The other half of our new morning routine caters more to my toddler to help him feel like he is more of a part of our school. Especially since he is a sponge and completely soaks up everything that goes on around him. He is already able to recognize and recall a handful of things (such as his name, the letter B, count to 5, and colors). I want to take advantage of his curiosity [he can seriously ask ‘why’ for 20 minutes before he is willing to accept your answer] and help him build on it. While he is still young and too much “schooling” can have negative effects, I plan on introducing him to new things through our new circle time with songs and do it gradually. And when his attention wanes, we’ll move on.

What’s in Our Morning Basket?

 

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I have high hopes for the next 6 weeks. I want to be more intentional with the way we start our days and our morning time. The last six weeks have been a struggle. Our good days usually started out with time with Jesus Calling for Kids. Our other days, well, didn’t. They ended up being a little more chaotic.

After taking a hard look at our daily habits, the answer was clear: We are going to go back to starting our day with more structure and spending time with God.

I want to use our time together to touch on other subjects that tend to get pushed out for other *more important* things (while I agree these other things are important, I don’t think they are more important). Things that I’ve wanted to include are poetry, art, read alouds, etc. How to do this in a more cohesive way?

Morning Basket – Including the Toddler

*While this post contains affiliate links, all opinions are my own. Read my disclosure policy here and thanks for supporting my blog!*

 

While we’re on a little break, I’ve decided to change up our routine a little bit and create a more official morning time. I’ve been listening to some of Pam Barnhill’s podcasts about morning time and morning baskets and I think that this sounds like the best way to go about this time of the day. So this week I’ve been working on compiling a morning basket of our own. I’m really hoping that, by incorporating this into our days, we will have smoother starts to the day and days that flow a little better when we start back next week. I’ve noticed over the last 6 weeks that our days need a better start. This isn’t something I planned for, so it’s gotten me thinking during the break.

“Look at me!”

Today I wanted to focus on a particular part of the basket that engages my toddler. Little Man has high energy and, while sometimes he likes to have some time to himself, he usually wants someone’s attention. This is a new hurdle for us this year and we’re working on striking a good balance so everyone is still in a decent mood by the day’s end. {It’s been difficult, to say the very least, this last six weeks.}

Our Schedule & a Freebie!!

We are half way through our first six-week session now and I’m going to be honest with you, it hasn’t been easy. There have been days where I’ve questioned my life choices. But thankfully, my husband has been there at the end of the long days telling me it’s okay and we’re all doing just fine.

So far, I’ve learned that homeschooling with a toddler (a run-full-tilt-till-you-crash-into-something all-boy two year old) is no picnic. But I think we’re on the right track to getting a routine that keeps everyone happy. (And by everyone, I mostly mean the toddler. 😉 )

Unit Study on the Ocean

Today I wanted to share one of our unit studies with you. I’ve been asked a few times where do I get my unit studies. After answering honestly with Pinterest, I get an ‘oh’ and the conversation seems to kind of fizzle out. I’m going to guess that it’s because putting together a unit study seems intimidating and stressful combined with a whole lot of “I have no clue where to start or what to cover!” and the nice and neatly packaged ones look way more appealing. [True story.]

I’m here to tell you that I, too, was totally overwhelmed back when I started planning studies for Rosie and I to do when she first came home. I scoured the internet and other blogs but sometimes I just couldn’t find everything I needed or it just didn’t fit with where we were at in learning. So I timidly jumped in and started making my own unit studies. Once I started finding things to do, I found that it wasn’t as hard as I had made it out to be!

Little Man playing with ocean slime and ocean creatures.