Schedules can help young learners focus

I figured something out this past summer. Just as I need some kind of framework and schedule for me to accomplish things, so do my kids. Over the summer I looked for clipboards, and not just any clipboards, but my dream clipboard that I had when I was teaching. It was amazing. It had a clip on top to hold papers, and then it also had a hard case that could hold papers.

When I was teaching it held the handouts for the day. I loved that thing. Absolutely adored it. When my kids got old enough I thought about getting them a similar one, but couldn’t find it. Until now.

If you are ever looking for one, here’s one like what I bought: Plastic Storage Clipboard (affiliate link).  I love it.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it.

 

That’s been one of the big things helping us stay focused so far this year.  The other thing.

 

Illuminations (affiliate link), last year I used it and I was continually reprinting my schedule because I lost it.  Not so organized.  This year I’ve gotten smart.

 

Each of my kids has their own individualized schedule.  They are getting old enough they have different schedules now.  Also, it encourages all of us to check off those completed boxes each day.  Seriously, I love to check off the boxes in Illuminations.

 

It’s also helped me because now I can easily roll over activities that didn’t get done in the week, like oh say……  These past two weeks three weeks as things have been rather up in the air.

 

 

How was our last 2 weeks you ask?  Well let me show you

Our one actual learning activity the second week of Tara’s visit was to learn about Masada. The kids happily built and made their own versions of Masada out of Legos.  I’m trying to decide if I’ll write more about this, or just leave it be.  As you can imagine they each had very different versions.  Princess’ was more of a giant kitchen/zoo and not so much a fort.

 

The boys started chess club, a once a month club for 2 hours.  The name is a slight misnomer because it’s chess but it’s also strategy games.  We obviously have a few games, so we brought some linked below and the kids all had fun playing with that.  Princess meanwhile played with the younger sister of one of the boys there.

 

Speaking of Princess she has now started a weekly dance class, which I’ve managed to look like an incompetent Mom two weeks in a row (no leotard of proper shoes), but Princess loves it.

And as a bit of fun for everyone, in case you’re wondering who Princess is most like, that would be me.  Which is also probably why she can drive me the most crazy of any of my kids.

My happy memories for this week are the kiddos being silly.  We had our first night of our small group Bible study with a Mexican theme, so I came home with a sombrero and fake mustache which the kids happily played with until they were broken beyond repair.  The third picture is my view almost every morning.  The kids attempt to barricade the door and keep Jeff from leaving for work.  This ends in a group hug/tackle.  It always makes me smile.

On that note when Tara was getting ready to leave the kids gave her a much extended version of this.  Batman attempted to tie her feet together so she couldn’t walk.  Princess gave her “the lip.”  Superman snuck into her car so she couldn’t sit down.  None of which worked and she drove back to Iowa last week.  She’ll be back down for Thanksgiving and potentially Christmas depending on how her Mom’s cancer goes.

In the meantime Batman for his “thing with Mommy” (once a week each kid gets some alone time with me) chose to make a scabbard for his wooden sword.  Now he has a nice fancy scabbard that took us about an hour or so to make.

We’ve been taking a fair number of night walks recently and finding a lot of toads on the walks.  The last walk we found 10 toads, some of which we chased out of the street to try and keep them safe.

And because this post is becoming abonimably long, here’s a quick review of our activities from this past week:

1. We learned about Jeremiah (which will hopefully get up after I complete a few more activities and add in better discussion questions)
2. We washed Mac who decided it would be fun to play with a skunk (that’s going to be the topic of my Science Sunday post).
3. Notebooking for history (in case you’re wondering all notebooking pages are on sale this month over at Bright Ideas Press, click the button on my sidebar)
4. Made play dough for our model of the earth
5. Unburied the city of Pompeii

Books we read

(I’ve started a new rule and they have to read or study their Bible for an hour each morning)

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Pompeii…Buried Alive! (Step into Reading)
• Five Riddles for Robin
• Marion Takes a Break (The Critter Club)

 

 

 

Games we played

• Castle Panic
• King of Tokyo
• Fearsome Floors
• Transamerica

Linked up to Homegrown Learners