Playing and Learning

It has been a big adjustment for me going from working full-time to being a full-time-stay-at-home-mommy.  At first I focused on figuring out how our house runs, meal planning, balancing our bills and working out eating and sleeping schedules for the girls.

Well finally after a year, I think I have a handle on the house and with my oldest daughter approaching 3 I figured it was time to put more emphasis on learning.  For the past year we would do basic, coloring, counting, and building with blocks.  That honestly has been the extent of my teaching skills.  Well after realizing that at her age it is not enough and then discovering that preschool is highly over priced, even for just a few days a week.  I decided to take learning into my own hands.  First step, I needed to learn a thing or two about..well...learning.  Thank goodness that Pinterest is a wealth of knowledge on the subject and I have a friend who has a great preschool pin board.

My first plan was kind of a more structured traditional school approach. At the end of December I set up 52 weeks of learning.  Every week we would focus on a letter, number, color, shape, song, and life skill.  After about three weeks, it was working pretty well.  Zoe knows everything we focused on but I was BORED, and if I was bored I'm sure they were bored.  Plus I needed something that my youngest could enjoy too.

Homemade play dough, and noddles 

This is a great activity for all ages

So after a month I decided to look into Montessori activities and I found so many great ideas and plans, for free.  I was actually looking for activities to help my 9 year old with his sequential reasoning and direction following skills, but the preschool information I stumbled upon could not be ignored.

The next day I ran to the dollar store and picked up $20 worth of supplies for what I have been calling "Mommy's School for Booboos". Metal cookie sheets for "tot trays", tiny foam blocks, foam letters, puzzles  books, pipe cleaners...all kind of fun stuff.

Zoe with her TotTray

Now two weeks into the new and improved Mommy's School for Booboos we watch TV only an hour a day (versus, all day with only one hour of learning). All of the girls play and activities are directed activities that they are learning a skill or focused on a subject, and most importantly we are having more fun together.  My days have become more full filling and the girls seem to have less tantrums because I am playing and reading to them more rather than just cleaning and watching TV all day.

I also removed half of their toys from the play room and replaced them with more books, blocks and imaginative activities.  To spark this change I read an amazing blog that spelled out the best ways to teach your energetic toddlers and keep yourself organized and happy... The ABC's of Home Preschool

I have learned that Zoe hates to be "tested"  when I ask her a questions she purposely gives me a wrong answer.  So I came up with a game to play to see what she has learned.  I drew shapes, letters and numbers that I thought she should know on the patio with side walk chalk.  I call out one of the symbols on the ground and everyone runs to stand on that letter number or color.  I let her go first so that I can see if she can identify it before I run to stand on one.  She loves it because we are all outside running around, and she has not clue that I am testing her. (evil laugh)

I really still have no idea what I'm doing and if a professional came into my home to observe what I was doing with my girls they would probably think I was clueless.  But I think it is pretty successful when I hear my 2 year old counting to 15, identifying most colors/ letters and asking to do "trays".

Something is better than nothing I suppose.

Happy Playing...I mean Learning