The delightful challenge of Littles...

Whilst I have a backlog (already) of good lessons I want to detail before we lose them, I need to start somewhere with other things that I want to share.

Quite often friends who homeschool will ask what we do with younger sibs while the older ones do their work. Other friends whose children aren't homeschooled but not yet at school, ask homeschooling mums for ideas for activities for their 2-4 year olds.

Up until now with our current crop of Little Hs, it's been pretty easy going once the 'climbing all over the table and tipping the pencils out' phase lost its grip on our daily routine. That stage i am satisfied is purely developmental, and as with all things "this too shall pass". For now, it just about has, as long as Little Miss June is happy playing, and Little Miss August isn't having a Dairy Day.

I will categorise these posts so that I can share ideas as I add new ones, and go through photos for old ones. :) The old ones are currently a little "old" though so i am going to have to spend some time researching and making up new busy bags or activity packs to keep together and use in rotation. Little Miss August is often saying that she has nothing to do... she's in that intermediate place between toddler and school... I guess they call it Pre-school!!!!

Today's efforts. I have to include the "making pics" because I have involved all of the kids successfully recently in a few craft / school projects aimed at the Littles. So much better than doing it myself and a good family activity in itself for a weekend morning (or any other time!).

So first - I came across this idea today and we promptly made it.

http://allourdays.com/2012/10/legoduplo-building-inspiration-busy-bag-activity-bag.html

Duplo Building Inspiration Busy Bag.

I printed out the cards from the suggested kit, and we got our massive supply of duplo bricks out onto the table for sorting. The children had to make as many of the pictures as they could, to determine whether we actually had the parts used in the photos. Some worked, some needed alteration. Hey that's fine, because of course doing your own thing is often better (though not quicker!). We put on one side the models needing new photo cards, and the boys made a few extra models for our own cards.

 Making the suggested cards.

 Our finished models. We found that we didn't have all of the pieces for the set cards and made some of our own. The boys took the photos with my SLR and they made creative backgrounds for the models with coloured paper. We quickly preferred our own photos and re-did the others as well.

The finished Busy Bag! I made our own label, laminated the cards, and used a ring to bind the cards together for the kit.

I found an old drawstring conference bag which is the perfect size and easy to open and close to keep in all the blocks. I have a feeling that as well as using this during school time for Littles, it will also become a kit that we can take to places where we will want something to do for the children - after church over coffee or anywhere else we need the children to have an activity when we need to take our own toys.

Everyone's pleased with the final result and I am so grateful the children were on board and keen to help - and make it their own. That in itself is a great kind of school for me. Even on a Sunday morning. :)






Next, I followed a link from the Busy Bag page to other ideas for busy bags or activities for younger ones. I found some great printables for play dough mats... I confess I have never thought of making these and I am a total play dough novice. On the few occasions I have made it, they have been hit and miss... but I finally appear to have a good recipe. I made green play dough a few weeks ago and it is still going strong (and also very green on account of slipping with the bottle as I added the dye to the water!). I plan to share the pictures of how that has been used during school time too.

Among the pictures to use for play dough maths for Littles, I found an apple tree counting set. You are supposed to use red play dough but seeing as apples can be green as well - very little effort is required from me to get this one up and running, save printing and laminating the mats.

Here is the finished kit:

The link is here: http://www.prekinders.com/2008/02/ten-red-apples-counting-mats/

Being the perfectionist I am, I am not happy unless it has a nice shiny label of its own (so I made one) and I need to put it in a better bag or container. But for now, I need to be satisfied with the fact that I made 2 busy activities today, and they can both accommodate 2 or 3 children, depending on who is doing what at the time.

When I have chance to make more play dough I will make some red for the apples. Also I downloaded the printables for rabbits to eat set numbers of carrots... again  for the future when I am desperate to make orange play dough.

I also have an even better idea for a project for myself to allow the children to choose an activity from the ones I have available, and so that I don't forget what I have available as ideas. Coloured lollipop sticks with printed labels for different activities. I'll make myself a list of the ideas available, and that will be a craft activity for another date in the future - of course with my Helpers.