Tot School when you're overwhelmed

My last post mentioned how I've been struggling to keep up with everything.  Here is what a scheduled week of Tot School looks like when I am overwhelmed and feel like I can't do anything too structured.

I don't do anything structured!

I took 5 minutes to cut up a foam noodle, pulled out a puzzle, and threw them in a kiddie pool.  Simple, easy, and required little supervision (unlike the fun, but small piece filled bins I've been making).  

We finished a carton of eggs and I thought, "Hey, I can use this." Just add pom poms or sorting bears.

Fill the chalkboard in with chalk and add a cup of water.  Almost mess free painting.

Leave sensory bins in reach without the smallest pieces so a distraction is always quick at hand.
I added a nature basket on the far left which, right now, has a squash, some various leaves and a board book in it.

So, there you have a week of unplanned and unstructured tot school.  Hopefully this will encourage you to not give up during an overwhelming week and just make do.  And...I also remind myself that my mom didn't make sensory bins.  She just read a lot of books to us.  If that is all you have time for, no worries!

We all have to just do the best we can in the moment. 

I'm linking up with the Tot School Gathering Place here

Overwhelmed!!!

Have you ever had a week where things don't go as planned?  I feel like I've had a couple months worth of those weeks! This week in particular has been one of those struggle-to-figure-it-out-transitions-are-hard-overwhelming weeks.  I feel like I can't keep up...not that I felt like I could before, but really it's worse this week for some reason. 

Some questions I've been considering in hopes of getting through these hard days:

Are my expectations (of the day, my children, myself) reasonable?

What can I do to simplify?

What I've come up with so far is that some of my expectations are unreasonable for this season.  I cannot keep looking forward to what I want in the future, but just deal with the present.  Part of that prompted me to re-arrange some rooms in my house.  I keep hoping we'll sell this house and find something bigger, but the reality is that we are here now. I decided to move our living room furniture into our tiny dining room and the dining room plus homeschool stuff we've accumulated into the living room.  It is non-traditional, but I've never been really traditional. I think it will make my life simpler because now all our schooling stuff is in one room (the little ones have an area while the big kids will be at the table!)  I'm loving the change already!!

New living room/ old dining room

One half of our new school room/ dining room
This is the Little One's corner

Dining room side/ Older Kiddos school corner

Another look at the Little One's corner.
Finally a place for the 2 sensory bins I have at one time,
and I added a nature basket too.

  So...just trying to keep my head above water and these are the ramblings of the process.

G is for Garbage Truck

This week we've been talking about the letter G.  Since G is for garbage truck, this has been a fun week for my little man.  When our garbage truck comes by, they often stop and wait knowing that my little guy is going to run outside and watch them on the porch jumping and waving! 

Sensory bin: various letter G's, torn paper and napkins, popsicle sticks, yarn, rice, black-eyed peas and pom poms. 

So pretty much, they played with trash on the kitchen floor :)

We pretended the small pot was a trash can and his toy garbage truck came to pick up the trash 

I had every intention of turning our sensory bin activity into sorting what is and isn't trash, but my literal child insisted that beans and rice are trash too when they are dirty from being on the floor (that is true) so.....I threw the sorting out the window and just went with getting our hands messy! 

Making a shape craft

Gluing "trash" to our letter G outline

We also read the book I Stink by Kate and Jim McMullan.  I highly recommend all their books for this age group, my son loves I'm Mighty and I'm Fast.

We also used these printables from Ohhh, Mommy!!!

I'm linking up with other Tot School posts at the Tot School Gathering Place

Homeschool Mission Statement

I shared earlier this week about having a family mission statement.  To follow up that idea, I'd also like to share a little of our homeschool mission statement.

Learning for Life Academy

Purpose:  Educating with the future in the mind.  We want a family that loves being 

together, children who are whole emotionally and who are prepared for life.  

We want our children to love learning so that they always continue to seek knowledge.  

Academics are important so that college is an option and a traditional career that may follow. We recognize, however, that not all kids are preparing for a life where a college degree is the most important thing.  By teaching our kids life skills and giving them the opportunity to learn skills that could be a trade one day. 

                                  We are preparing our kids for whatever the future holds.

  We are learning for life.

Family Mission Statement

My hubby and I have, in the past, been very in-the-moment decision makers.  Sometimes that has worked out well, other times we wished we had thought and prayed just a little longer before jumping into something new.  I think that is all part of the growing and learning.  It doesn't happen overnight.  God creates change in us slowly, and, thankfully we aren't messing up his plan because he is working it all for good in the end.  Can you wrap your brain around that?  I sure can't, but I am so grateful God is in control.  (Well, sometimes, in-the-moment, I get a little annoyed that I'm not getting my way if I'm being perfectly honest....but, looking back I can most often see that my way wasn't the best.)

In an effort to be more intentional in living our lives, my hubby and I created a family mission statement.  It is just a way we try to filter our decisions now.  It doesn't make decisions any easier, but it does give us more confidence that we are actually considering things purposefully and combined with prayer that we are making a good decision.

I share this mission statement with you to encourage you to create your own.

  Family Mission Statement

Each family has their own goals and if we don't do life on purpose, it will happen anyway.  

(I need to add that the last question in our mission statement about the wise thing to do is from a series by Andy Stanley that I highly recommend The Best Question Ever- audio message or his book, The Best Question Ever.)

It's all about YELLOW

It's not a scheduled Tot School week, but two things have happened.  ONE, My Little Ones have been playing with their existing sensory bins and are growing bored of it not changing for so long.  TWO, at our homeschool academy I am working in the 1's and 2's room and the other teacher and I decided we wanted to bring a little more learning to our day to keep things interesting.  So we are going to be talking about the color yellow and circles this week....and I got to make some sensory activities to include (also a bonus for my kiddos at home who got to try the ideas out first!)

Yellow sensory bin: various yellow items including flowers, magnetic letters, foam letters,
pom poms, felt, and 5 little ducks (so we can sing the song too!)

I spy jar with more random yellow items.
My son loved finding everything...except the taxi, he's pretty upset I put his taxi in there!

Yellow fingerpaint in a ziploc ba

Great NON MESSY fun

Exploring and sharing.
I love these moments.

I'm sharing our Tot School fun over here at the Tot School Gathering Place

The Big Kids-- Curriculum choices

This year round schedule is working well so far, although with the start of our homeschool academy schedule mixing into my big kid's schedules, I am not positive it will work exactly as planned.  Once I started packing books into my third graders bag, I realized she will have a lot of homework on her HOME school days to do for the Academy classes.  She won't get quite as much of a week off on our weeks off...we're still going to try it and see. I'm not ready to give up the 4 weeks on, 2 weeks off option just yet since I SO love the idea of having devoted time for the Little Ones.

Scheduling aside, I thought I'd share our curriculum choices for the year since so far I've only shared what the Littles are doing and I'm not on an actual Tot School week right now.  

2nd Grade: Abeka Language 2
                  Abeka Writing with Phonics 2
                  Teaching Textbooks Math 3
                  Apologia Astronomy*
                  Various Literature studies*
                  Art, Music, Spanish, and World Geography*
                 
3rd Grade: Michael Clay Thompson's Grammar (Island Level)
                 Joy of Handwriting from Teach me Joy
                 Teaching Textbooks Math 3 and 4 (finishing up 3 that we started in January, then moving on)
                 Mystery of History*
                 Institute for Excellence in Writing: All Things Fun & Fascinating*
                 Apologia: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day*
                 Various Literature studies*
                  Art and Bible*

We have a Gathering Time in the morning where we come together to study a few subjects of interest to everyone.  Right now we are doing Road Trip USA by Confessions of a Homeschooler, The Wright Brothers inventors study also by Confessions of a Homeschooler, various art studies utilizing the Discovering Great Artists book by MaryAnn Kohl and whatever other art pursuits suit my whims :), Bible study reading various passages (I often alternate reading from a Psalm and then a story in the Gospels, and we read a book aloud together (we are nearing the end of The Secret Garden).

Items marked with an asterisk are items that their Academy has assigned and we complete part of those at home, but much is done at school. I think since I read Mystery of History aloud anyway, my 2nd grader will be included in that at home as well.

I is for Ice Cream Truck

We've been talking about the letter this week and I must say I've enjoyed it quite a bit.  Why? Because if I is for Ice Cream Truck, then we HAVE to eat a bunch of ice cream when talking about it, right?....

Okay, maybe not, but when Publix sells an awesome lemon cookie ice cream and it is summer....well, let's just say I will avoid the scale for a while since I've had a scoop every day this week. Yikes!

Back to our week in Tot School.  I planned on making this ice cream playdough I saw at Mama Papa Bubba because it looks so real. Then I started to think how real it looked and considered the fact that both my 1 and 3 year olds were eating the ice cream shaped chalk I bought and decided against it. :) Maybe I'll make it with the big kids later in the week when the little ones are napping.

 What I did do was put a kiddie pool in the kitchen with towels underneath and let the little ones have a giant sensory play time.  I gave them spoons, ice cream scoops, and bowls and they scooped and  made a grand mess.  My husband thought I was crazy when I told him what we did that day, but it gave me time to sit and watch them without any whining (and I got to drink my coffee in peace!) Shaving cream does look like whipped cream, but my 1 year old has never had whipped cream so it didn't really look like food to her and she didn't try to eat it.

Did you know shaving cream looks like snow when you clap your hands together and it flies through the air?  Just one of those things my 3 year old discovered for me!

For those brave enough to try this, shaving cream cleans up really quickly.

 Our actual sensory bin looks like this.  

I don't have a picture, but my daughter walked over to the laundry basket with these pom poms and spent 15 minutes pushing them through the holes in the laundry basket over and over again.  Proof of what we already know to be true, everyday items can be more fun than toys to a toddler.

Our shape craft for the week

We also used this file folder game I made

  Ice Cream Matching by Angela Wells

And this cut and paste letter craft

  I Letter Craft by Angela Wells

Check out the Tot School Gathering place here for what other tot schoolers are doing this week 1plus1plus1equals1 

E is for Engine

This week, we've had a lot of fun talking about the letter E.  We started with a trip to the library and, of course, a sensory bin.  I did not realize how enjoyable my one year old would find our focused "Little Ones" time.  She especially loves the sensory bins!

Curiously checking what is inside

Playing together

Our rock train 

She enjoyed putting items into this old cereal container.
I liked watching the wheels turn in her mind trying to figure out what would fit and what wouldn't.

My little man had a blast loading up a rooftop
 with black eyed peas and dumping it out.

Then the cereal container became an instrument.

My 3 year old impressed me by drawing some nice straight lines
for a train track on his letter E sheet.

It quickly turned to scribbles, though....a little more what I expected! ;)

Then the train delivered E stickers to the page.

We also did a train shape craft

 We read a lot of train books, but my little man LOVED  The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, I'm Fast by Kate and Jim McMullan, and Clickety Clack by Rob and Amy Spence.

To check out what other Tot Schoolers are up to this week head on over to 1plus1plus1equals1

A is for Ambulance-- action shots

Sensory bin, sorting out letter A's

Loading cotton balls into the ambulance

We read Five Little Monkeys and talked about obeying, how to call the doctor, and what makes an emergency.  We also talked about the community helpers of doctors, nurse, and paramedics. Mostly though we played! That is what being 3 is all about :)

Sorting bandages by color (they sell these at the dollar store)

Fine motor skills are practiced by removing the backing
 and placing the bandages on our letter outline

The one year old jumped in on the sensory bin play too.
I removed everything but the cotton balls and jar.  She had a blast filling and dumping! 

I added tweezers to add fine motor practice, plus it is fun! 

Shape craft 

My 6 year old jumped in on the craft, but I had her cut out all her own shapes

Here is link for my letter outlines

  A outline by Angela Wells

For other Tot School Posts check out one of my favorite blogs to read:

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