Montessori Work Stations to Keep the Kids Busy at Home

At my daughter's new preschool, they have started doing "work stations", which is a modified Montessori practice of allowing the kids to select their own project and work on it by themselves.  They must put it away before moving on to the next project.  My daughter has really enjoyed this so far, so one rainy afternoon I decided to invent my own "work stations", using stuff we already have.  I set up everything at the table while they were having quiet time and they were ready when they came downstairs.  Here is what we had:
1.  Sand (Great sensory activity) 2.  Playdough (Good for strength and sensory) 3.  Sensory box (Sensory skills) 4.  Buttons/Muffin tin (Math skills via sorting colors)


I let them each choose their activity and they got to spend as much time as they wanted on each one before moving on to the next one.  These are all things we do often, but it definitely mixed things up a bit to set them all out at once and let them choose which one they wanted to do.  It didn't take very long to get everything set up because I have it all organized already in our craft closet.  Also, it was really nice because this kept everyone busy for at least an hour and I was able to get things done while they worked.  When they were finished, they also scampered off to play by themselves for awhile so it was a very successful afternoon!

This is Little Buddy playing with the sand.  As you can see, I put letters in there and he is making a bit of a mess, but I put some plastic under there and it was really easy to clean up.
This is our sensory box, which we used a few days later for a bean ramp.




You can find out why it's so important for kids to have ample time for sensory skills and strength in my new book!  We give you hundreds of ideas on how to keep kids buys, but in a productive way so they are actually getting some benefit out of the way they spend their day.  To give you an idea of what you might expect to get out of this book, here is what one reader put on Pinterest. 

Feel free to download the first chapter on your Kindle so that you can get a feel for whether you want to spend your money on this! 

   

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Painting rocks and How it Helps Daddy

One Thursday afternoon I had a surprising realization.  I hadn't seen Hubby since Monday night...that's three days.  It might seem logical that he was out of town but he wasn't.  He was living the glorious life of a surgical resident with crazy hours.  The poor kids were begging to see him.  The problem is, when he does finally walk in the door after being gone for 3 days, the kids go WILD.  They run around the house screeching at the top of their lungs.  They hit each other and laugh and then fall down, then screech again.  Then they hit Daddy and run away, laughing.  They hang on his neck and yank his ears.  Really, they act just like the dogs.  We know they'll be fine after a few minutes, but those first couple of minutes can be excruciating, especially for a poor tired Hubby with a headache.  Don't get me wrong.  It's cute, but it can be a lot to take.

With that in mind, I decided to come up with a couple of projects that we can be working on when he comes home, so that he can be involved, but their energy will be directed to something positive.  I knew Hubby wouldn't be too intrigued with My Little Pony crafts, but I did find one recently that was right up his alley: Painting rocks.  My kids adore collecting rocks.  This is what Munchkin Girl's bike looks like all the time.


Not only do they love to collect them, they love to throw them in ponds, put them in purses, pretty much anything you can do with a rock is A-Ok with my kids.  So, I pulled out the paint and we spent almost an hour one day painting those rocks.


Little Buddy has been painting since he was only an 18 month toddler.  I started him off doing it much younger than Munchkin Girl because he saw Big Sis doing painting and I think that's why he's so good at holding the paintbrush.  He's only two, and he holds the brush almost better than Big Sis (who is almost four).


If we want to keep these rocks and have them decorate our garden (Ha, like I have time for a garden!), we can just spray them with acrylic to make the paint last.

Now when Hubby comes home tonight, we'll be all ready to welcome him home, with a nice cheap craft, with hopefully very little high-pitched screaming.

One quick note: Will you do me a favor?  I am learning more about Google and apparently it helps them if you tell them what you like.  That way, when people search for things like crafts for kids, etc., they are more likely to find my posts.  Soooo...if you liked this post and think others might like it, click the button below that looks like this.  You are basically "recommending" this for Google.  It really helps me too!





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