K.I.S.S.

K.I.S.S.

by | Sep 12, 2022 | Homeschool, Parenting, Sensory DIYs, Toddler Activities

I think by now my love for felt has become pretty evident. I use it often in my materials and I find it incredibly versatile. The fact that I can often find it at my local dollar stores makes it even more appealing to me. Besides the low price tag and versatility it is also extremely easy to store! The felt mat I have pictured in this post was an activity that I made to accompany our land, air and water impressionistic lesson. After my children and I had sat down and discussed what was land, what was water, and what was air I realized that they were still very interested in exploring the concepts but the impressionistic lesson did not leave much for them to work on independently. So I spent twenty minutes with my sewing machine creating a simple mat that depicts some land, some water and a little dash of the sky. I did not include any trees or bushes purposely to extend the usefulness of the material, I had in mind already an extension I could use it for when we started exploring animal habitats. The mat has since been used with our original jars that show land, air and water. It has been used with small animal figurines, and vehicle figurines. It has been used with our colour tablets for identifying and matching colours. It has joined our blocks as a simple invitation to play. It has been hung behind a simple dinosaur invitation to play as a back drop. This quick little DIY is a reminder that sometimes simple is the most beneficial. If I had added much more complexity to the mat then I would have lost so much versatility. The reason it is so useful is because it is so plain.
Whenever I am planning on purchasing or creating a material I try to keep in mind the saying my Dad used to tell me on occassion, the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid). Its a funny little saying but it honestly holds a lot of truth in four words. Keeping it simple, keeps it open. I actually forgot this principle when I made my second felt mat for my children after this one was such a hit. I made an underwater scene complete with coral and vibrant colours. I noticed my children were not using it much at all and then I realized something. It was way too specific. It did not work as anything more than a play mat for toy animals because it was so zoomed in to a specific scene. That coupled with the fact that the sea creature figures we have would not live in such a habitat made the mat basically useless. I forgot to keep it simple and the result was a waste of my time, and my felt. For now that felt scene is kept on my desk while I try to brainstorm a way to use it. I may end up adding some more details and adding it to my continent boxes, further minimizing its utility but at least giving it a function.
I think sometimes when looking at homeschooling, Montessor at home, or parenting in general we have a tendency to overcomplicate things. I often see posts on my facebook groups asking how to extend a child’s interest in door knobs, or replicate an opening and closing activity because the child loves to open and close cupboards. As much as I love to create DIYs and extend activities I think this is another area to consider how you can KISS. If a child is fascinated by door knobs then you do not have to do a thing. Sit back and watch them examine the doorknobs that are conviently installed all around your house. Maybe point out some other kinds of door knobs while on an outting. You do not need to replicate it in the form of an activity especially since this would not be an activity that would last very long at all. If a child has a skill or an interest and they have found a safe way to satisfy the desire to explore it on their own, then in most cases it is more valuable to let them do that, than it is to create your own way to do the same thing. Unless there is a safety concern, let the child explore what they have found works to satisfy that curiousity!
An Invitation to Play

An Invitation to Play

by | Aug 17, 2022 | Homeschool, Parenting, Parenting Hacks, Parenting preschoolers, Parenting Toddlers, Toddler, Toddler Activities, Toddler Environment

As a home childcare provider I find parents are often curious how I manage to get so much done in my home. I provide childcare, homeschool, write and have a large collection of plants and animals that I care for in my home. I am the one who primarily does the cooking and house work as well since I am the parent who has more time to do so, my husband works many more hours than I do. I was thinking about it this morning when a client was shocked that all three fish tanks in the house were mine. She asked how I manage everything. I think one of the most useful tools in my parenting (and childcare) arsenal has been the invitation to play. This is the tool that lets me get so much done each day. Many evenings before I settle down for the night I set out a few invitations to play. Something in my living room that will greet the children as they arrive (either my own two from upstairs or my clients on daycare days), something in my dining room to attract them while I prepare breakfast, and something in the playroom to draw the children in while I tidy and move us through that transition.
The strategic use of invitations to play has saved me so much time, energy and conflict. So what is it? It is exactly what it sounds like. Some call it strewing, literally strewing toys around to entice children, some call it a provocation to play (technically a little different but I use both) and as this post suggests some call it the invitation.

Take a few minutes to set out a few toys, art supplies, or even random household objects out in a play area (or another surprising area) to draw your child’s curiousity and provoke them to play. This morning I set a few blocks out in a row, put a few cars on top and then rested a baby doll at the end of my makeshift track. It took me two minutes to prepare, and bought me thirty minutes of play and giggles from my daughter and two daycare clients. By the time they finished playing and decided they were ready for breakfast, I was ready for them with a prepared meal. After breakfast they were ready to hop right into the bingo dabber and sticker art invitations that I had set out on trays on the floor around my dining room. While they explored the art materials I made myself a coffee and tidied up breakfast. Then we moved down to the playroom. Last night I had spent 5 minutes taping a picture of a washing machine to a tiny cupboard, filled a basket with doll clothes and hung a makeshift clothesline. The kids were thrilled when they discovered this invitation and played indepently while I drank my coffee and observed. This is just an example of a morning where I used a few different invitations to make my day run more smoothly. They can be used anywhere however. I have placed small dinosaur toys and pebbles out on our driveway near where we park. Conviently out of the way of where I need to carry groceries up to the house. My children are equally likely to either help me with the groceries or get drawn into that play area, but either way I have an easy and unhindered trip to bring the groceries in the house.

Similarly I have left a couple shovels in the front garden, just sticking out of the soil along with a pile of bush clippings. I have set paint and twigs out on my picnic table when I noticed some children are ready to head inside before others. Small starts to activities. Simple ideas or prompts that the children can develop. That is all it takes, a few minutes of planning and some strategic timing and placement. Let me know below if you are interested in hearing about some ideas for invitations or provocations to play.
Planting Season

Planting Season

by | May 9, 2022 | Homeschool, Parenting, Science, Science Activities, Toddler Activities

With the arrival of spring my kids have become fascinated with plants. I have been subtly scaffolding this interest with books about local plants, three part cards of different types of flowers, and gardening based sensory bins. Less subtly I have been inviting them into all of my plant care in and around my home. Recently it was time to feed my plants and as it often goes when I want to do a chore Mr Man asked if he could help. I explained what my plan was, and Mr Man began inserting the plant food in the nearby plants. As soon as Little Miss noticed she wanted to help as well. We have many houseplants and the children spent a good half an hour caring for our plants. While we worked we chatted about what the plants needed to be healthy inside our home. We also watered and dusted off the plants leaves as we worked through them. Since that day I have noticed both my children checking if the plants soil was drying out, as we talked about how they would need to be watered more often now that it is spring again, so I moved their watering can to a more obvious space for them to access. Mr Man observed that one of our plants was getting pretty big and asked if I would be trimming it down because he remembered helping me trim the bushes outside. We talked a little about propagation and put our clippings in our aquariums where we could watch their roots develop. They really wanted to start our garden but it was a little too early in the season so we started some seeds indoors. These are the children’s plants, they are fully responsible for their care and these seedlings are flourishing! We always like to experiment so we decided to plant some very old seeds, some new seeds, and some fresh seeds right out of a bell pepper. Mr Man has been recording his findings on various charts and drawings as he watches them grow. We are waiting and observing our outdoor garden every morning hoping for signs of flower growth. Little Miss did not understand what we were talking about before we had planted the seeds, but now that she has watched the vegetable seeds sprout she is aware of what we are looking for. When we go for walks she looks for plants that are sprouting and claps. The children have prepared their gardening tools, gloves, watering cans and are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to do some outdoor gardening. Mr Man has already noticed and pulled a few weeds he found in our bushes and has suggested he could take care of all the weeds this year. There are so many ways I hope to extend this area of interest and learning as spring turns to summer but for now I just wanted to share how we are spending our time as we prepare for the warm weather. 

Montessori Sound Cylinders DIY

Montessori Sound Cylinders DIY

by | Mar 29, 2022 | Homeschool, Preschool Activities, Sensorial, Sensory DIYs, Toddler Activities

Today I want to talk about an extremely easy DIY version of a classic Montessori material called the Sound Cylinders or Sound Boxes. In the classic material you would have two sets of six wooden cylinders. One set would have a red top, and one set would have a blue top. The goal of the material is to have the child match the red and blue cylinders into pairs that create the same sound when shaken. There are actually a number of other activities that can be done with the cylinders but this is the activity that seems to be the best known. A key part of the material is a small colored dot on the bottom of the cylinders. Each pair of cylinders has a matching dot or number on the bottom to allow for the child to self correct as they work. When I decided to DIY this activity I picked up a set of plastic containers from the Dollar Tree and everything else I used I already had on hand.

The containers I found were transparent so my first step was to cover the containers in tape so that my kids would not be able to see the contents. We want to isolate the skill of auditory discrimination rather than having the child simply match by visuals. Once the containers were covered I used washi tape in two different colors to mark my different sets. I then put matching stickers on the bottoms to mark my pairs. Finally I filled the containers with different fillers- beans, lentils, quinoa, rice, and beads. Make sure your matching containers have the same amount of filler in them or it will impact the sound and they will not match. I also hot glued my containers shut because of the younger kids I have in my home, but if I was making this for a home with preschoolers and up I would have left them unsealed, leaving the option open to change the sounds and even have the children change it up themselves!

This is a fun little activity and only takes ten minutes to assemble. I do not think it is worth the $35 my local Montessori store is asking for it, but for the $1.25 I spent on my DIY definitely worth it! Now that Mr. Man has mastered the matches I have actually been thinking I may switch out my color match stickers on the bottom for numbers. This would allow the activity to also be self correcting in arranging the cylinders from softest to loudest. The reason I went with colors initially was because Little Miss is not familiar with number symbols yet, but I have noticed she does not care to self correct anyways. She prefers to work on them together at the moment and so that leaves me space to adjust them for my four year old’s needs.

 

Following Big Brother

Following Big Brother

by | Mar 22, 2022 | Homeschool, Parenting, Parenting Toddlers, Toddler, Toddler Activities, Toddler Environment

Younger siblings tend to want to do whatever they see their older siblings doing. Little Miss is no different in this respect. Everything she sees her big brother doing or enjoying she immediately wants a turn. It has been forcing me to be extra creative in our school planning. Mr. Man has been doing plenty of work recently that is well beyond the scope of his twenty one month old sister. He is cooking, sewing, and cutting with scissors. He is working with materials for multiplication and division and exploring fractions. Little Miss is still working on one to one correspondence and transferring. She is by no means ready for that world of work. This puts me in a bit of a pickle. I do not tend to tell my children they cannot do something because of their age, that is too discouraging. I also do not like for them to explore materials that I know are too challenging and will lead to frustration and again, discouragement. So instead I have been observing what she seems interested in trying and figuring out ways to tweak the activities for her. One activity that she has been fascinated by is cutting with scissors. Mr. Man has been using papers with patterns to work on his scissoring skills and gluing his work in a notebook so that he can see his progress. Little Miss wanted a turn, and her own book but she does not at all have the fine motor skills required for traditional scissors. I decided to provide her with a pair of loop scissors and switched out the paper for cardstock. The cardstock is less floppy which mean she can generally get a snip in no matter how she holds it. I also cut the cardstock in to strips about half the width of the scissor blade so that I could be sure that most snips would successfully cut off a piece of cardstock. The children have been working on their scissoring every day the past week and they are both incredibly proud of their work.

Another recently coveted material has been the math beads. I understand the appeal, they are a beautiful material and her big brother gets so much joy from them. I adjusted a few of the materials for her to use. These are not appropriate adjustments in a Montessori classroom, but in our Montessori homeschool I think they serve us just fine. For the golden beads I created a new presentation for her to just arrange the beads from smallest to biggest on a mat. She is very capable of this activity and it looks similar enough to what her brother is doing that she doesn’t seem too bothered that I have left the number cards out of her reach. With the multiplication and division boards I likewise removed the numbered parts ( the tiles and equation cards) and left her with just the boards and beads. She uses them as a fine motor activity placing the beads in the holes. Lastly we have our colored beads from 1-9 which we have been using as a color sorting activity. With these alternate lessons I taught Little Miss I can leave all these materials on the shelf and know that both my children are benefitting and enjoying the materials. When I begin to see hints that Little Miss is ready to use these materials in the way for which they were designed I plan to put them away for a few months. I suspect we have a few years until that time comes which gives Mr. Man time to finish with the materials. After they have been put in storage for some time I will pull them out and reintroduce them to Little Miss using the intended presentation. I still have quite a few other materials to tweak in the next little while but I enjoy the challenge, and my children enjoy the benefits. 

Stop Overthinking It!

Stop Overthinking It!

by | Feb 12, 2022 | Parenting, Parenting Toddlers, Practical Life DIY, Toddler, Toddler Activities

It can be easy to get swept away by all the beautiful Instagram pictures of shelves perfectly curated for children. To see blogs about homeschooling families who have a morning tea time with poetry daily. To compare yourself to these families with the expensive but authentic materials. I see it often on different social media platforms- “All my toddler wants to do is open and close this cupboard. What activity can I make or purchase to encourage this skill?” My suggestion is to let them open and close the cupboard. Let them find ways to engage with their environment that are meaningful to them! It is not a planned or purchased activity, but it is still valuable to the child otherwise they would not be repeating it. This is just one example but there are many others that are similar, children doing harmless activities and parents wanting to replicate that action with a toy. Children are not limited to educational toys to play and learn. Everything that they interact with throughout the day provides information. Whether it is sensory information, or cause and effect observations or even activities like self feeding which practice fine and gross motor skills as well as engaging the child’s proprioceptive skills. 

The other day my daughter wanted to draw with Mr Mans gel pens but she could not get the caps off. I wanted a few minutes to myself to drink my coffee and read the news so when she interrupted me for help the third time I realized that I needed to adjust the accessibility for her. I removed all the caps from the pens and let her continue drawing while I read. Afterwards I cleaned up from breakfast and as I was tidying I noticed the pens were nearly all capped. Not only that she had matched all the colors on the lids to the pens. Color sorting has been a big interest for Little Miss lately so I was happy to see that she had discovered her own color match activity. I was also amused to see that her paper looked very similar to how it looked before I uncapped all the pens, she had lost interest in the drawing itself. I probably could have jumped in and made it into a whole color identifying lesson (had I been paying attention) but that would have likely robbed her of that self chosen activity, the pride of accomplishing it, and very likely could have ended the activity prematurely. 

I want to share one other example of an opportunity to overthink it and my simple but effective solution. I needed to prepare dinner and Little Miss was underfoot. Normally I would invite her to help but on this day she had no interest in helping and just wanted me to carry her. Not an option at that time unfortunately. She wanted to be near me and I knew I needed her engaged in something if I was to get anything accomplished. So I scanned the room and noticed her toy teapot on the floor. A minute later she was happily seated with her tea set practicing pouring water (a skill I was trying to work on often with her) while I prepped dinner a few feet away. I did not need anything fancy, it was not planned. It was just using what we had on hand in a way I knew would distract her. This activity actually drew Mr Man in as well and kept both children engaged for half an hour.