Craft Boxes

School is in full swing again after a lovely holiday break!  We have begun our travels to Germany and I am rediscovering why I love My Father's World curriculum.  The only planning I had to do before the ominous back-at-it Monday was penciling in math, English, spelling, and reading, and grabbing the proper notebooking pages for this week.  How easy was that?  I'm so blessed by the kids and how they have gotten back into the groove without too much trouble.  Vacation included mostly fun and play, very little work (as it should be, right?).  Transitioning back to scheduled days is a bit unwelcome to us all, but much needed.

The kids received a lot of  educational but fun activities for Christmas.  And toys, of course.  It was the toys that got the most use til this week.  I allow the kids to color or draw while I read to them or to work on activities from their craft boxes while I am helping someone else with school work.  Their craft boxes were full of new goodies from Christmas that were "rediscovered" this week.

All three of the kids love the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.  In fact, they love all Mo Willems character and books!  I got the older two a giant Pigeon Activity book with games, puppets, and other cut-and-tape projects in it.  They began work on them yesterday, getting lots of laughs out of it.  This was a fantastic follow-the-directions activity for them to work on.

Petite got oodles of coloring books for her craft box, along with paint-with-water books and sticker activity books.  She loves to place stickers on, well, anything, so she got a bunch of those too.  She will sit for seriously long periods of time doing these activities.

  Craft boxes are a great way to keep little hands busy and minds engaged.  When I declare a "No TV or DS" period, and I hear the complaint that there is nothing to do, I suggest they get out their craft boxes.  They typically take me up on the offer and have a great time.  Brown-Eyed Girl particularly loves crafting.
There are oodles of things you can put in the craft box, which for us is a clear Rubbermaid container with latching handles.  Each of the kids has a box of sticky mosaics.  Glittery dolphins for B-E-G, dragons for Mister, and an easier, larger set of pets for Petite.  Drawing pads, paint books, oil crayons, needlepoint kits, sculpting clay, twisty pipe-cleaner type things to build with, perler beads, jewelry making accessories, stencils... the possibilities are truly endless!  I like to choose things that the kids can do fairly independently, or at least with minimal help so that they are the ones truly creating and crafting.But there are also things that require teaching and learning, like sewing kits and origami.  We keep the craft boxes in our school closet so that things stay organized and taken care of.  I love to play music while they are busy about their work, usually something that goes along with the country we are studying (Handel for us right now as we study Germany).  Reading aloud to them during this time often works too!

I have to admit that the house is in shambles this week, especially the upstairs.  While I help Brown-Eyed-Girl learn needlepoint, and Petite with her stickies, the house looks like it is resting in the aftermath of a huge storm.  My good friend Aura wrote a fabulous post called The Monument on her blog.  The Monument referred to a pile of dishes that grew and grew because she was busy helping her son build a turkey house.  It was a testimony to letting go of the things that are so insignificant compared to relationship building and quantity and quality time with our children.  This picture of the family room is my monument to letting go of the insignificant and choosing to make memories with my children instead.  The TV can be a great resource, but too often a default to keeping them entertained.  Craft boxes are a great and constructive alternative for keeping busy.

Clean Your Room! An Idea That Might Help Them Do It...

Ever tell your kids to go clean their room and have them return in two minutes and say it's done? You don't really have to look to know that it's not done, but you go and look anyway. The bed isn't made, laundry is all over the floor, and there is stuff everywhere, maybe even shoved under the bed.

"I thought you said you cleaned your room?" you say.

"I did." they say.

"What did you do?" you ask.

"I cleaned my room." they say.

Oh dear. It is obvious that our kids don't know what it means to clean their room. Unless of course we tell them and show them exactly what we mean when we say it.

I'm not sure why it took me so long to get that. I know what a clean room is. It means everything should be in its place and nothing should be without a home. But the only reason I know this is because over time I learned what "clean" is. I wasn't born with this knowledge, neither were my kids.

The experts are always telling us that our children like to know what to expect and I wholeheartedly agree with them. When the kids have specific and reachable requirements, they are much more likely to meet them! And they have a great sense of accomplishment when they do.

For over a year I've had the bright idea to create a room-cleaning photo album for each of my kids. Chore charts haven't been effective, in part because my two youngest aren't strong readers. Also, it still requires a lot of enforcing on my part. But I figured that if the kids could each have an album with pictures in it, showing them what exactly to do to clean their room, they could take it and follow through with it more independently. I FINALLY made good on this bright idea. I took pictures of everything I could think of that needed to be put away and organized on Fridays, our big chore day. I took pictures of neatly made beds, storage bins, dress up chests, drawers fully closed, laundry baskets full of dirty clothes, and each child putting away clean laundry. I printed these pictures at my local Walmart and inserted them in an inexpensive ($1) 4x6 photo album, one for each kiddo.

When I handed them the album, I showed them how to use it. Open it up, do what the first picture tells you to do, then flip and do the next item on the agenda. I also made sure I went through the whole album with them so they would know what each picture was trying to tell them. Then, away they went to clean their rooms. And the results were extremely satisfying, for all of us. Mom wasn't frustrated because there were still Legos all over the floor (making for happy kids) and I didn't have to continually redirect them and stay on their case to get their work done (making for a happy mom). And the albums had the desired effect- the rooms were clean.








Giving our kids responsibility is important. Obviously our expectations need to be appropriate to the child. Each child is different. Motor skills, cognitive skills, reasoning skills- these all affect how much responsibility they can handle. But even a young child likes to have a little job of their own. For Petite it is putting the blocks and puzzle pieces away. As she matures, we'll give her more tasks. Not only does it take some of the work load off me, but it shows them what they are capable of. The more things they can do independently, the more we all "win".








So maybe you'll want to give this idea a shot! The visual reminder is a powerful teaching aid. For around $10 I bought the albums, printed the pictures, and also had an 8x10 photo collage of how to clean the bathroom made. Some quick tips from my own experience:








1. Make pictures very specific. I took pictures of each bin that toys go in. Pet net for the Webkinz, pink three-drawer bin for Beanies, and the purple tub for any other stuffies. Lego buckets, Bionicle buckets, dress-up chest, etc. It breaks each task into a managable chunk.







2. You can also take pictures of other areas in the home that can be cleaned and organized by the kids and assign them to specific children. Taking care of stray DVDs, the bookshelves, countertops, etc. You can switch the pictures from album-to-album if you want to circulate the chores.







3. Have reasonable expectations. The bed may not be made straight, the books may not be organized by size... but if you can tell they did their best, big hugs!







4. Make this fun! I found that this took a lot of the drill sergeant out of me because, again, the kids knew exactly what to do. If they need help, be there to give it. But nobody likes a bossy-pants.








5. Don't put a time limit on this. I have found that doing our Friday chores works best after school or any other things we have to do, so that everyone can work at their own pace. Brown-Eyed Girl is a fabulous and meticulous organizer, given the time. If I'm rushing her, it stresses her out. However, I do require that the work be completed before we move on to the next thing.








6. We already had a routine in place for house cleaning. Fridays is the big chore day and also pay day for the kids. When all their work is done, they get paid. If you don't already have some kind of routine, or haven't implemented a consistant way of getting chores done, give everyone time to get into the habit. Again, knowing what's expected can help, but so does simply getting into the mindset of doing chores regularly.








Let me know if you give this a shot or if you have other hints for helping kids gain more independence and take more responsibility!

A Plug for Audio in the Auto

We've been doing lots of driving about this summer.  I asked to stay busy and I have received my request!  We most recently returned from a few days at camp over the Fourth of July and then another trip to the Maine Highlands on Sunday.  Travelling by car with children can be exhausting emotionally.  The close proximity for long stretches of time (long can be 20 minutes) seems to bring out impatience and boredom which leads to crankiness or annoying others to have at least something to do.  I love when we travel by Yukon and the oldest two are spread apart in the very back- extra elbow room for them and a small, but helpful, sound barrier between us and them.  But often we take the car and are full to capacity.  I have discovered a lifesaver, however, for our car trips.

Audio books and audio drama.

We have been a fan of The Story of the World audio series read by Jim Weiss ever since we bought our first set, about two years ago.   I love that we get a bit of history into us when we're out running errands and such.  I highly recommend this series, even for younger children.  You could use it like us- not as a "curriculum", per se, but as educational entertainment and a supplement to what your children are learning at home or in school.

Speaking of Jim Weiss, we also love any and all of his work that he has recorded under his company name, Greathall Productions.  We add to our collection of these storytelling CDs frequently and listen to them over and over again.  I especially appreciate that suggestions are given for various age groups, in case you don't know where to start, or what the target audience is.  The kids' favorite so far is Animal Tales, especially The Tortoise and the Hare.

The most recent and wonderful discovery I've made in the audio world are Maestro Classics.  These CDs were on display at the recent homeschool convention I went to and I only had to listen for a minute to know they were worth buying.  Each CD has original music composed by Stephen Simon and performed by the London Philharmonic.  The music is composed to tell such  stories as Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Casey at the Bat, Peter and the Wolf, and (my favorite so far) The Tortoise and the Hare.  The CDs also include history, information about composing and other musical terms, and there is always a sing-a-long.  I simply, simply love these and I am so impressed with the quality.  The kids ask for them as soon as we get in the car... and it makes for a much more joyous journey.  This is a wonderful way to introduce music to young children (I'm not sure older kids would appreciate them quite as much).  The narration is also superb.


Lamplighter Publishing has also recorded several audio dramas which are phenomenal, especially for older children and their parents. They can be more intense, but have a wealth of values and entertainment in them. We enjoyed The Robber's Cave and it especially seems to appeal to boys, which is refreshing in this market.


One final specific audio we are loving is James Herriot's Treasury for Children, read by Jim Dale.  I must say that Dale rivals Jim Weiss in a big way. Herriot's stories in and of themselves are so charming, but Dale brings them (and the very British country characters) to a fullness of life.  This is another that the kids are begging for in the car.


Of course you don't need to buy any of these to have great entertainment in your car.  Your local library is probably well stocked with audio books on CD at no cost at all.  We've enjoyed The Magic Treehouse series, Roald Dahl stories, and the like from our own library.  The benefits of listening to audio books, classical music, and audio drama are huge- they spark your children's creativity, encourage their attention span, and are just plain educational.  Not to mention, they seriously cut down on boredom and it's undesirable effects during those long car rides.