St Gabriel Windows

St Gabriel Windows
Photocopy c. 2013 Jamie Laubacher

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Merrily We Roll Along....

If you homeschool and have several children, you've certainly been asked about your wee ones....infants, babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers......What DO you do with them while you are schooling the older children?! Are they running amuck, causing havoc....taking all the books off the shelves, building towers with the videos, spilling the softsoap down the drain.......? Why yes! Yes, they are! :) Ah, this is why today, the "cart" came out. Yessiree.....we've used "the cart" with the previous children in order to keep them busy and "doing school" also. The cart is like a Montesorri preschool on wheels. In this case, literally a rolling cart. We use a Sterilite brand that has two big - deep pull out drawers, and two smaller ones. These drawers are clear to be able to see the contents easily. It is restocked with some updated items; for the most part it generally contains fun educational items, several books, magnetic alphabets, small Mega-blocks, Leap-Pad w/books/cartridges, both wooden and 24 piece puzzles in boxes, an occasional video or DVD, some preschool workbooks, stuffed animals that somehow connect with the child using the items - in our 3 year old Mark's case, he loves Tigers, Elephants, and Bears, and we have these in cute Beanie Baby brand. There's also Blue Puppy and Elmo; and some hand puppets. Oh, and some small snacks.

The cart goes where it needs to be. The beauty of it! Primarily it is moved into the livingroom, off the diningroom area where mom can still spy the young'un playing. And it's only available during school's most desperate hours - that would be the first few hours of the day where Maths, Latin, Grammar and Religion courses are being done with the oldest children. Otherwise, it is put away so it will remain a special item to be looked forward to each day.

Merrily we roll along......

2 comments:

Rebecca said...

I like this idea, Denise. I have such a hard time keeing the littles in the learning room where I can keep an eye on them.

Home School Mom: Denise said...

It is nice to have it portable. To avoid the novelty from wearing off - I periodically add a couple new items to it, and it works well for a reward system too....like, if you listen to mommy today, you'll find a surprise (snack) in your cart tomorrow. :)