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.)