Brother-to-Brother Playtime

I finally have kids who are at the age where this works! In order to have some quiet school time with both Agent H & E we started a special playtime for LE Babe with his brothers. Every morning we meet together for circle time, then snack time, then we break up into groups. Agent H and LE head up to my room to play for about 20-30 min while Agent E and I do his preschool. Then we switch it up and Agent E and LE go to LE's room to play for about the same while Agent H and I get some time together. We are on week three of this and it's working wonderful. Admittedly the first week had a few bumps but we revised things to do snack time together before we break up and that brightened everyone's spirits. (By the way, Agent H who is in 2nd grade spends about an hour or so after lunch working-during rest time on the rest of his work)

I can't imagine why it took me so long to get on the rotating toys band wagon but now that I have, it's been awesome. I have a schedule written up so that I know who gets to play what, when during those play times. It's just a list with two activities for each group for each day of the week (I only pick one of the activities a day for each group). So . . . they should play with each activity twice a month. Then I'm thinking we switch the H&E column the following month so there is a whole new list for the big boys. Here's what it looks like.

	Agent H & LE	Agent E & LE
Monday	Bowling/Ring Toss/Air hockey game Race cars and track	Little People Duplo blocks
Tuesday	Rescue Heroes Mr. Potato Head	Play tools and benches Doctor play set
Wednesday	Plastic dinosaurs Elefun/Lucky Ducks	Wooden cars/trucks and road blanket Stickers and a large piece of paper taped to the wall
Thursday	Puzzles Bristle blocks	Balls, baskets, basket ball hoop Big trucks and fire engines

Extra activities: Puppet theater, castle marbleworks, plastic zoo animals, fort, movie, dominos, trains, play mailman, lacing/stacking toys, Leap Frog alpha and animal magnets.

I just happened to think that part of my motivation for toy rotation has come from reading the book The Well-Behaved Child. In the book the author talks about not making your kids' room into the Garden of Eden (i.e. removing most of the play factor). He thinks alone time in your room is a very good tool for getting your kids to come around. There's much more to it than that but you get the idea. So their toys have been gradually sifted from their rooms. Really, they haven't even noticed.

Our first week of Mighty Oaks

Yes I changed the name of our school again. My brother and SIL sent us this plaque last Christmas that I just love: Might Oaks From Tiny Acorns Grow. I posted it above the door to our schoolroom and love it. So Mighty Oaks Academy it is.

Our first day was pretty light. We took "first day" pictures, did a little circle time, gym, and a bit of desk work.















Sometimes you take what you can get. Can you see his mouth forming the "ooooo" in " Mooooooooom"





The boys constructed and reconstructed paths out of the alpha mat letters that LE Babe got for his birthday. Then they raced along them and jumped off the end. This literally consumed two hours of their day.








LE is at his desk playing with another of his birthday presents. Magnetic pom poms on a cookie sheet. I LOVE these. This is where I found how to make them (you really don't even need directions) and here is where you can get printables to use with them. LE just enjoyed lining them up along the edge or the cookie sheet.

















Agent E at his desk area and some active preschool time. We're using the Play-doh alpah mats from Homeschool Creations.
















Agent H at his desk area, no real dress code as you can see. Up next he's modeling our "globe". We wrote the continents and oceans on index cards and he had to tape them to the correct locations on our balloon.

That's a quick glimps at our week. Don't be deceived by the drawers at the desk stations. I am NOT doing the workbox method this year - I burned myself out on it last year. I am glad that I did it though because I learned a lot of things that I like from it and being a part of a workbox Yahoo list provided me with tons of great free schooling printables, ideas, etc.

Who're you looking at?

Who're you looking at?
-LE Babe

Our turtle for a day

Swimming Lessons

Per the recommendation of a friend we signed Agent H up to join her kids at Swim America. I have to say that I was sold on the company when I heard that the kids get to dong a gong when they pass on to a new level. I knew my Club Penguin loving son would LOVE that. After the first day of lessons he was convinced he wants to be a Swim America swim instructor. He passed through 2 levels so he was able to try his hand at the gong twice. And let me say, I think we all felt the vibration!

Oliver H. Kelley Farm

Oh how we love visiting the Oliver H. Kelley Farm . . .

Summer Came

Summer came . . . Agent H and Papa doing a little fishing.

35

Somewhere in the last 3 months I turned 35. My husband brought me to the only restaurant that could sooth my belly into a few hours of peace (Noodles & Co.) so we could enjoy a concert at Orchestra Hall. It was a beautiful night.

It also happened to be my first night away from LE Babe (LE Babe and I both survived).

1/11/11

It's only been three months since my last post . . . but really I have a very good reason. A ten itty-bitty fingers and ten itty-bitty toes kind of reason. A "I feel really sick, so only the bare essentials are getting done" kind of reason. Due 1/11/11.