Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Tot School - day 1

I am always looking for a better way to manage my 4 kids during our homeschooling days.   I have 2 kids in school (2nd grade and kindergarten) and 2 kids in diapers!  This makes for an interesting day.  

I stumbled across this blog recently  1+ 1+ 1=1 that incorporates some time for the little ones into our school day.  It is more play than real school, but it still helps my little ones with counting, colors, shapes, letters, and whatever else we can think of.  Today was our first day to attempt this, and I think it went quite well.  I bought some cheap dishpans at The Dollar Tree and put some fun items in each bucket last night.  Most of these were toys that had been put away, so they were new to Baby Broccoli (28 months).  

While Baby Cakes (16 months) was taking his morning nap and Monkey Boy (8) and Banana Girl (6) were working on school work at the table, BB and I were able to do some Tot school.  She loved the one on one time with mom.  I let her choose which bucket she wanted to use first.






We started with the counting bears, but eventually made it through all the buckets. 


We sorted the bears by color.  We counted the bears, and we put them in the red pitcher(also a Dollar Tree find) and poured them back into the dishpan. 
 


She liked the shape sorter, although she did figure out it was easier to get them in if you just take the lid off!

Overall our Tot School was a success.  I can't wait to try some more fun ideas like the Tot books.