Learning Time with Multiple Ages

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Learning time can be pretty simple if you are working one-on-one with a child. It can also be relatively simple if you are working with multiple children of the same age group (depending on their age :) ). For me, doing something with just my 7 and 5 year old is no difficult task. They are both quite independent and able to follow verbal instructions well. They also have the fine motor skills developed to work on their own.

It is adding the 3 year old to the mix that makes it the challenge. Even if it were a 5 and 3 year old, it would be more of a challenge.

Younger children need more help than older children. Older children can work quickly and they want to do so (especially children who go to school; in school, projects are made quickly). So how do you make learning time work when you have a younger child who needs help step-by-step and older children who want to fly through the activity?

There are a couple of ways you can do it. Here are some tips to make the whole activity more enjoyable for you (fewer "What now mom?" "Mom!" and so on). It will also help you to have less time where a child is just sitting and waiting to know what to do next.

Take Turns
We start learning time out each day with our learning poster and our calendar. I quickly learned that I needed to instruct the older children to not blurt things out when I say, "What shape is this?" I instructed them to wait to be called on. I ask a different child each day about different aspects of the learning poster. I try to make the questions suit their skills. So my three year old gets asked what the number is while my seven year old is asked to give me two parts that make up that number ("What are two parts make that up the number seven?" "5 and 2.").

I don't want my three year old to be sitting in the room while her siblings blurt out answers faster than she can think about the question. I want her to have the chance to think.

Have a Sample Made
This is something teachers do in school. They have a finished product made to show the children before they start. This really helps children have a vision for what you are trying to accomplish. If your activity is one where you want some creativity, be sure to stress that this sample is your project, and that the child is free to do XYZ to their own project. If you have gotten your idea from the Internet or a book, you can show your child a picture from that source instead of making your own ahead of time.

Give a List of Instructions
Walk through the entire process with your children--or at least as far as you think they can remember on their own. This will work for older children who will be moving at a faster pace. The 3 year old or younger will most likely need you to provide one step at a time.

Don't Stress Down Time
What we are trying to do is avoid long periods of down time, but it is not a bad thing to have some down time. Learning to wait patiently is a skill in and of itself, so don't stress if your child ends up needing to wait for a few minutes while you finish helping another sibling. You just don't want constant waiting and constant down time. That leads to boredom and possibly "creativity" being channeled in ways you don't prefer.

Have Enough Supplies
Have enough supplies on hand that a child isn't sitting and waiting for long periods while other children use a certain supply. I try to have a tool per child. So each child has his/her own glue stick, crayons, scissors, etc. There are things, however, that must be shared due to economics and my lack of desire to fill my house with 3 different collections of things like glitter.

Have More Than One Activity
This is something I really focus on for my children. I like to have a few activities ready to go. One will be some sort of art project that I know my three year old will take longer to complete than my seven year old. Others will be activities I can have my seven year old do after he is done with his project. This can be sorting activities, sensory boxes, math worksheets, reading, etc.

How I Do It: Learning Time

On one of my other blogs, I have been doing a series on how I do various things in my day. Here is my post on how I do learning time. I thought it was appropriate here :)

Learning time at our house is something that has definitely grown over the years. I remember talking to one of my very best friends when Brayden was two. She was a school teacher before becoming a mom (a very good one), and we have been friends since elementary, so she knows me well. We were talking about what Brayden knew and didn't and I expressed that he couldn't do something all the way yet, and she laughed and said it was a 3 year old skill and not to worry about it. She commented that he would of course be fine because of all that I did with him. I told her I didn't do anything beyond normal stuff you do with children. She then listed off all of these things I did with him daily that helped him learn--things I had never thought of as teaching him, just things you did with kids. One example is reading with him each day.

Two days ago, my sister-in-law was asking me how I structure learning time and she commented that she should have started long ago with her oldest (who is two). I assured her she was fine. I didn't start formal learning time with Brayden until I was pregnant with McKenna, so he was 3. 

I share that with you to impress upon you that learning time does not need to be formal and I also don't want this post to cause you stress about not having done something with your child yet. This is how I do learning time right now, but not how I did it 5 years ago. Don't underestimate the power of playing with, reading to, and working beside your child. If you want to add more formal setting for your child, this can be a great structured playtime slot in your day. Here is how I do it.

Organize Your Stuff

An important step to having successful learning time with your child is to organize your actual stuff. You'll have paints, crayons, paper, sequins, string, saved paper towel rolls...lots of stuff. You need somewehre to put it. There are tons and tons of different ways to do this. Some people can have an actual room that is used for learning activities in their home. In it, they can have drawers, closets, shelves, etc. full of their items.

Other people (like me) do not have a room dedicated to a toy room and/or learning room. We do our crafty stuff in the kitchen for the most part. I have our items organized into totes. I then have these totes primarily in the office closet, which is close to the kitchen. I used to keep the items all downstairs in a nice big closet. Space-wise, it worked great. But proximity wise, it was annoying to me. I didn't like going all the way downstairs each day for our learning stuff (I know, my life is so hard--sense sarcastic tone). But it was annoying enough that I would put off doing learning activities. So I recommend you keep your items as close to where you will do your activities as possible. Here is the section of my closet in my office for the learning items:

I also recently dedicated a drawer in my kitchen to learning items. We have all of our crayons, pencils, pens, markers, etc. in it. My children all love to color, so I can grab a paper and hand them crayons to keep them occupied at the bar while I make dinner. 

I keep all of my laminated items for my learning poster I describe below (letters, numbers, shapes, calendar items, etc.) in envelopes:

And I keep those envelopes in an accordion file organizer:

I also keep anything that can fit in there that has to do with learning stuff :)

Here are some more organization ideas:

• Learning Boxes
• Storage Magnetic Letters
• Face-out Book Shelves Tutorial
• Storing Kids' Crafts
• Work Boxes

Think of Learning Ideas

Another important step to doing learning activities is to think of ideas to do :) This is such an easy step in our modern world. There are fun books out that give you ideas (The Toddler's Busy Book, Preschooler's Busy Book, and The Siblings' Busy Book). There is also an untold number of blogs in the Internet that give you ideas (I will of course plug the one I write with a few other moms: Children's Learning Activities). As you do these regularly, you will find that you start to come up with your own fun ideas of things to do!

Plan Your Week

I think you will get the most from your time spent if you plan out your week ahead of time. I really like to do a theme each week. I got into this habit in following the curriculum on this blog: http://www.ourpreschoolhomeschool.blogspot.com/.

I loved the set-up and we have continued this way while creating our own themes and ideas. Each week, I pick a theme, vocabulary word, nursery rhyme, letter, shape, color, number, and scripture to focus on. Then I plan my activities around those ideas. In addition to activities that teach those items, I try to do sensory, gross motor, fine motor, sorting and matching, and science. We also read books that are related to our theme. This might sound super over-whelming, but a lot of these can be combined with each other. If it all seems like too much, just start small and work your way up.

I use one of two different documents I have made for planning. This one is detailed and has one week per page. This one is my quick planning sheet. I use this one most of the time. It has two weeks per page on it.

Once I have the week's activities planned, I make a list of things to do to prep for our activities. For example, we recently did a week on Thanksgiving. One project we did was a Mayflower shape picture. To prepare for this, I created the shapes to use in the picture. 

I then make a list of things I need to buy to do any of our activities. 

Prepare for Activities

Now that you have everything planned, you need to prepare. I find this is easiest to do all ahead of time. I take a couple of hours (ideally the Friday or Saturday before the next week starts, but sometimes I am doing it on Monday of the week we are doing the theme) to prep everything. I print my learning poster items, make sure the calendar is ready, and prep activities. 

I also need to go shopping sometimes to get some things to do activities. 

I also prepare my Face-out Book Shelves. I put the books that go with our theme on the shelves. If I have extra space on my shelves, I put other books I want to encourage the children to read at the time.

Do the Activities

Now is the execution. We used to always do this in the morning hours, but right now I do not have a consistent or ideal time to do it. My problem is I want Kaitlyn involved in it all, but that is rather silly becaus she is at preschool three days a week. So yesterday I decided I need to have a set time and on certain days, she just wont be around. But there are some activities I know the older kids (Brayden and Kaitlyn) will just love so we do it after Brayden gets home from school.

Here is our process.

1. We start with our Learning Poster. See this post for more on it. We discuss our theme and the vocabulary word. We then recite the nursery rhyme. We then talk about the letter, the sound it makes, and words that start with that letter. We then do the color and shape. We finish up the poster with our number of the week. We count to that number. I have printed (and laminated) a picture of each. On Monday, we put each item in place as we go along. 
2. We then do our Calendar. See this post for more information about our calendar. We say the day (Friday), the month (December), and the date (second), with the year (2011). We put the number for the day on the calendar. We then talk about the weather outside and put up the appropriate picture. We then read and recite our scripture.
3. We read a story. We pick a story that coincides with our theme for the week and read it.
4. We do our activity(s). Sometimes, we move right into this. Other times, we wait until after lunch or after Brayden is home from school. 

Aftermath

One thing I recommend is that you take a picture of the creation right away. That way, you can either save the best and you have a photo before it is smashed OR you can throw it away after you have displayed it for a while. You can't save everything. 

I always hang my children's latest up on our refrigerator. They love to see it up there. So find somewhere in your home you can display your children's artwork. I have more ideas in my head for this...hopefully it will come to pass so I can share.

Conclusion

If you want to do a learning time each day but this all seems overwhelming, it is okay to start small. We we first started, we just did the learning poster side of things without an extra activity. Make this work for your family. 

I would love to hear how you do it! How do you organize? How do you plan and prepare? How do you execute?

Learning Boxes

You can make learning time very simple by having a learning box set up. This makes gathering common supplies very easy and also creates a situation where you can teach your child some personal responsibility and help her learn about cleaning up after herself when a project is finished. 

This is a great time of year to buy these supplies since stores have them on super sale. You simply buy a pencil box. We got ours at Walmart for 50 cents each. Then you either buy or put in the supplies you want. We did crayons, scissors, a pencil, an eraser (pencil erasers are the first to go), and a glue stick. Brayden also has a ruler. Then, being the nerd I am, I whipped out my label maker and put their names on each box.

These are great for learning time at home and also for a child who is doing homework. Everything is in one neat box. You could even stock extra supplies in it ahead of time if you knew you would be using extra things (like glitter, tape, etc.). 

Storage: Magnetic Letters

I used to have the HARDEST time keeping up with all those miniature things you use to help teach the kiddos...you know, all the things you use to practice sorting, counting, moving, stacking, and patterning. Magnetic letters were especially painful because I could only seem to find the b when I needed a p. Or I was always one letter short of exactly what I needed.
Thank you, super cheap plastic sewing organizer. I labeled each compartment w/ the correct letter, sorted, and ta-da! No more searching for 30 minutes for a 5 minute activity.
So, how about you? How do you organize all those tiny pieces?

Face-Out Bookshelves Tutorial

Here is our tutorial on how to do a face-out bookshelf. This is the way my husband designed so you couldn't see a back on the shelves--it looks like they are free-floating. Hopefully I can translate from Engineer-ese to English.

Materials Needed:

• 3/4"x1.5" pieces of wood cut to the length you want them on the wall. This is the actual size of the wood. They will be called 1"x2" in the store. You will need two pieces of wood for each shelf. Buy as many as you need to fill the space on your wall.
• 3" Grabber screws
• Glue if desired (we used wood glue)
• Paint and paint brush (we use foam brushes for projects like this)
• Finish nail gun nails
• Wood putty

Tools Needed: 

• Drill
• Router and/or Table Saw
• Measuring Tape
• Pencil
• Finish Nail Gun

Prepping Wood

1.First, buy your wood. If you are confused on what to buy, see the picture below. Click on it to enlarge. The wood shown in this picture would make one shelf. Cut wood to desired length.

2. Next, you need to router and notch one piece of wood for each shelf. 

Use a router or a dado on a table saw to notch one corner (all the way down the long side) as shown. Again, click on the picture to enlarge.

Use a router the opposite corner if desired. You can do it however you like things done. We used a 45 degree chamfer. You could do things more fancy if you like, or you can do nothing at all.

3. Brush all sawdust off and paint. Allow paint to fully dry. You don't have to paint the 1" (3/4") sides of the un-notched wood. 

Putting Up the Shelves

1. Measure and mark on your wall where you want the shelves. You might want to involve a level.

2. Pre-drill holes in your wall where studs are. It is very important you drill into studs.

3. You can glue one side of the shelf if desired and hold to the wall. We can't remember if we used it at this step or not.

4. Use 3" grabber screws to anchor to the studs. You want the 1" (3/4") side facing out so the long side of the wood is where your book will sit. Countersink screws so that they to just below the surface of the wood. Just make sure you don't go too far and split your wood.

Here are all of our initial pieces on the wall

 5. Uses a finish nail gun to put up the face piece. At this step, we did use glue to secure the two wood pieces together. You want the notched side in and up and the routered side out and down. See the picture below. The notching makes it so the shelf is a bit deeper while providing a lip to keep books on the shelf.

Finishing Touches

1. Use wood putty to fill in holes where finish nail gun put nails in. You want this to just go in the holes and not bump out beyond the hole.

2. Paint over wood putty once it is dry.

3. Put books up!

Face-Out Bookshelves--Part Two

So yesterday Valerie posted about her face-out bookshelves, inspired by Jim Trelease's The Read-Aloud Handbook. Having also read Jim Trelease's book after Valerie raved about it for so long, I was enamored of the face-out bookshelves too! After some quick googling for images similar to what was posted yesterday I was practically drooling :)

This obviously called for a trip to Ikea. I found the perfect solution for us since my husband has little time for building shelves and our budget is rather tight. These picture ledges from Ikea are the perfect size for displaying books. We got two long ones and two short ones. Honestly I much prefer the long ones, but the short ones can be useful in a tight space and you can go vertical with them. I also like that they come in black or light wood tone so if white isn't your style you can make them fit into your home's decor.

(this is our playroom, note the shelves above the toy bins)

(I recently changed out some of the lower shelf books)

(this is the other side of the playroom, with 2 small Ikea shelves within reach of our glider rocker)

(see, perfect for cozying up with a book during roomtime)

Jim Trelease claims that books that are more visible will be used more, and I can say that those books on the lower two shelves get read ALL THE TIME now. In fact I confessed to my husband the other day that I am tired of reading aloud to Tobias and wish I hadn't put the shelves up, lol! (I'm only joking, I'm happy he's loving his books).

Now I'm using those lower shelves to display books according to our theme. Right now we have books on Family on the small shelf, come September I'm sure it'll be full of books about pumpkins and trees and fall.

Lamination

A couple of years ago, my husband said, "Maybe we should get you a laminator?" I replied, "Eh. I would probably use it a few times when I first got it, but then it would just sit."

Flash forward to me having been writing on this blog for a year and Christmas is approaching. I can't really think of anything I want. I see this laminator (above) for a great deal and decide to try it out. Why not. I don't enjoy using contact paper to laminate things, so I figured I would give it a try.

I LOVE IT!

I am constantly laminating things. It is addictive. Whenever I make a learning game, like the "Feed the Penguin" game, I laminate it so it will last through three children.

I also started to laminate the items I put up on my Learning Poster each week. With just paper, the paper would curl on the edges. Laminated it does not. Plus I can re-use the items over and over again.

My husband laughs at me ("you wouldn't use a laminator huh?").

Sometimes I just love being wrong.

Storing Kid Crafts

Pile of Projects

Do you have a New Year's resolution to be more organized? Or are you already there? Kids' crafts pose a problem for the organization of homes everywhere. What do you do with all of the many, many crafts your kids make?

Even though you want to, you can't possibly save them all. It really starts to take up quite a lot of space. Here is what I do.

First, I take a picture of each craft as soon as they are done with it or as soon as they bring it home. That way I get the photo when it is fresh. Also, I can save things in a photo and can then easier throw items away.

Next, I put it in a certain place in a closet.

Then about twice a year, I go through the items. I sort them into three piles: keep, maybe, throw away. I throw away the throw away pile, put the keeps in my storage container, and go through my maybe pile again. I don't keep anything that exceeds the size of my storage container. I like giving it some time to think about because with time I become more removed from the item.

By the end of the year, I get the items I want to keep down to what will fit into a pizza box (my storage container). Last year, Brayden's preschool teacher gave us a clean pizza box all decorated. I saved only enough items that could fit in that box with it shut.

I do plan to cut this back more in the future. I will have to keep only a few items from every year.

I know there are lots of good ideas out there, so please share yours!

Home Made Calendar

Doing a daily calendar is a great way to help teach your children about days of the week and help them grasp things like "yesterday" and "tomorrow" and "two weeks."

I made this one very inexpensively. It is far from perfect, but good enough for us! I got a piece of poster board from the dollar store as well as some numbers. You could also print the numbers off. I then put a grid for the calendar days. Then I wrote the days of the week across the top. I put pictures of people on their birthday. I also put a spot for the weather for the day. I printed out some weather clipart (sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing, etc.). I have a spot for the scripture we are memorizing. Then I have the title of the month mounted on some scrapbook paper to offer some color. I might start doing a Spanish vocabulary word and put that up, too.

Each day, we put up the number and I say "Today is SATURDAY September 4, 2010. What is the weather like today?" Then we put up the weather picture. We then recite the scripture. This works well with our Learning Poster.

Independent Learning Time

When I taught, we always focused on teaching a skill and then giving the children time to practice the skill independently (this is the idea with centers and homework). I think this is an important idea to do at home, too. Once you've spent some time on teaching, it's important to take a step back and evaluate how much they've learned, what you still need to work on, and where they are having success. It's hard to do that and get a clear picture when you stand over/next to them and guide them. At some point necessary to let them show you what they can do.
Each (okay, most) day we spend one on one or two on one time together learning some new skill, letter, number, and practice it together. When I am working on dinner, I do something with the girls that we call Tray Time. We call it that because they are asked to stay on the blanket and work on activities on trays. That way they are within eyesight, I can help them if they need, but I can also back off and not hover. So how does it work? It's somewhat related to the posts about Learning Trays/Baskets that Manda did. We also use lunch type plastic trays. I got mine from Oriental Trading.
They review any skill/game we've previously worked on, but independently this time. I spread out a blanket for each of them. This is what they do when I am cooking dinner most nights.

Here's the basics:
*We spread out a blanket, and I put a few activities out for them to work on. My one year old doesn't get many trays yet, but the 3 year old does and has for a while now. I set a timer and they work until the timer goes off. I stop every few minutes to check on them or interact, monitoring their progress and encouraging them, but not really interfering.

Here's some examples of activities:

Stringing blocks (this is a Melissa and Doug set)

Magnets on a cookie/baking sheet. I give her family pictures a lot. They can sort, or just play.Fridge magnet sets, like the animal matching or the alphabet.For my 3 year old, I set out the trays on a blanket (she likes to spread waaaaay out otherwise). This particular day she worked on a memory game (I break them up into individual baggies to match, otherwise using the entire game for her is very overwhelming).Stamping sets...a blank piece of paper, washable stamp pads w/ numbers, letters, shapes, etc glued to the end of pill bottles. They are easier to grasp when glued to something with more of a handle for them to grab onto. Playdough is another good option. I give her one or 2 colors, one or 2 tools and let her create. At the end, I can just shake off the tiny pieces outside so they don't get on the floor.

So what other kinds of activities are appropriate? First consider your child's age, what you've been working on together, and what would be realistic for them. I wouldn't give playdough to my one year old without direct supervision because she likes to eat playdough. :)

Remember, it DOESN'T HAVE TO BE FANCY!! I do recommend starting with 1-2 trays and teaching them not to start a new tray until another one is cleaned up completely.

Some ideas:

• Coloring book and a few crayons
• Chalk board and chalk
• Paint with water
• Shaving cream on cookie sheet
• Magnets
• Matching card games
• Sorting puffs by color, shape, size
• Transferring an item (like puffs) into new containers with tweezers, tongs, etc
• puzzles
• Do-A-Dot markers
• Lacing cards
• Lacing beads on pipe cleaners
• Rolling dice and counting the dots
• Play items, like cars, dolls, dollhouse
• Playdough
• Dominoes (We have princess dominoes)
• Blocks to stack
• Legos, Duplos
• Electronic games
• A stack of books (not recommended if you have crayons out at the same time for a young child...coloring book and coloring IN a book is a little confusing)
• Clothespin games (at tot school blog)
• Stamping
• Gluing w/ a glue stick (like leaves on a tree)
• Practice pouring (I started this with pouring beads out of a container, rather than w/ liquid) or they practice pouring their own snack in a bowl
• Pen and paper
• Counting activies, like described on the blog
• Any homemade game or something that uses fine motor skills!

Save your containers!

You probably end up with tons of empty containers week to week, right? Yogurt, baby food, sour cream, ricotta, ketchup bottles, gallon jugs, spice jars, coffee creamer...the list goes on and on. Don't throw them out unless you have to! I have a large container to, well...contain my extra containers. :)

Before you toss, clean them and consider the uses:

• All are fun and new dumping toys for the bathtub! The ketchup bottles are really fun for squirting.


• Containers for water play or pouring


• My girls use them in their sandbox outside to dump, build, and make a nice mess.


• Stacking, like blocks


• Pom Pom stuffing (cut a hole in the lid). My 15 month old loves this!


• Clothespin games


• Smelly jars


• Spice jars with colored sand for art (I use them like glitter shakers, too).


• spice jars- Glue a shaped sponge on top. It's much easier to sponge paint with grip something to grip!
  
• Parmesan cheese container- Pipe cleaner game!
• Store homemade playdough, bathtub paint, finger paint, bubble solutions, etc.
• Make musical instruments!
• Then the obvious, like storage.

Workboxes

Originally explained by Sue Patrick in her Workbox System book, workboxes have become pretty popular in the homeschooling community.

(the above photo is from the Tot School blog and shows the standard way to do workboxes, head on over and check out her posts on how she's implemented Workboxes with her toddler!)

Everybody uses this system differently, but the basic concept remains the same. Your child has work in a box/basket/file/hanging pocket that is to be completed that day. For a toddler you might want to start with just 5 boxes of 'work'. For a preschooler maybe 9 would be a good amount to fill up the learning time. Ideally most of the work contained in the boxes will be activities that your child can complete independently. For a toddler that's just not going to happen completely, so expect to at least supervise each activity.

The benefits?

• organization
• structure
  
• independence
  
• teaches care for toys
• keeps the learning time moving without constant direction by mom
• better focus
  

The limitations?

• does not work for messy/complicated activities
• requires more prep time the night before
• physically finding the space to set up boxes can be a struggle at first

Our experience?

We have only done this 2 days so far (Monday and Wednesday) and I am already loving it! Oh, and Tobias loves it too ;) I fill each box with an activity the night before and the next day when we have a good 1 hour time slot for learning time I tell Tobias we can do his boxes now. He gets each box out, completes the activity as quickly or slowly as he'd like, and then puts everything back in the box and returns the box to its shelf. Then he grabs the next box on the shelf until he's done all five. No clean up for mom, and more independence for my toddler, can you see why I love it? :) Below I have two pictures of how I've set up our workboxes. The containers are photo boxes from Joann's that were $2 a piece. In the second picture you can see today's activities all set inside each box.



How do I get started?

Round up five boxes if you have a toddler, nine if you have a preschooler. You can use anything, shoeboxes, photo boxes (this is what I used), those plastic toy storage bins, etc. Pick a good place for them to go where your child can reach them easily.

The first day, choose easy activities because your focus is to teach your child how to get each box, complete the activity, and put the box away properly. There is to be no throwing or banging of the materials, which is what I mostly had to correct Tobias for. We had two time-outs when he threw a toy and when he refused to put the materials away in the box. He only got off time-out when he was willing to finish up and he did that happily both times without any further discipline. For a toddler, this skill of getting out one toy, playing with it, and putting it away neatly is huge! It's useful for mom, useful for Kindergarten, and useful for the poor toys who take all the typical toddler abuse normally, lol!

What activities can I put in the boxes?

I am choosing 4 activities that have a clear purpose and 1 that is open-ended right now. The open-ended toy comes last so Tobias doesn't get bored before completing all the boxes. Some activities we've used include:

Counting Bears

Lauri Shape Sorter

Lauri Tall-Stacker Pegs

Small Spaces Activity--we used the puff balls and a yogurt container activity

Transferring Activity--we used wooden toast grabber tongs to transfer puff balls from one basket into another

Cutting Activity--safety scissors and strips of scrapbooking paper worked well (this was very difficult for Tobias so don't be discouraged if your toddler can't do it either)

Stamping--this was great fun, but also a bit of a mess so we might put this away for a few months and come back to it

Coloring--crayons and paper are always fun :)

Learning Poster

Over 26 weeks this year, I have been following the preschool curriculum found at Our Preschool Homeschool Blog. On it, she suggests doing a learning poster where you can post your weekly learning items.

In our old house (we recently moved), I didn't really have anywhere to hang a poster. Instead, I wrote each item on a piece of paper and hung each paper on cupboards in the kitchen.

When we moved, I now had room for a poster. So I made one. Since we have been using it, I have grown to like it so much that I think I should have tried harder to find a place in the old house. I have since thought of lots of places I could have put it.

Here is how I made it:

SUPPLIES

• Poster board
• Computer and printer
• Scrapbook paper
• Scissors (I used a scrapbook rotary cutting board)
• Glue stick
• Tape (to hang the poster)

METHOD

1. Type and print (or write out) the headings for each category on your learning poster. Just be sure you don't print each title larger than can fit in its respective columns.
2. Cut out rectangles to put each item on each week.
3. Cut out each title.
4. Glue each rectangle in place.
5. Glue each title onto scrapbook paper (card stock).
6. Hang the poster.

WEEKLY

1. At the beginning of each week, create your items for your learning theme.
2. I put up the theme picture, vocabulary picture, and nursery rhyme at the beginning of each week.
3. On each respective day, I add the appropriate picture. So on letter day, I add the printout of the letter.
4. Each morning, we review all that is on the poster.

PHOTOS
I made mine a bit more colorful than the one on the preschool blog. This wasn't difficult, but more time consuming than it needed to be. In my mind, it was worth it :) Decide for yourself. I didn't worry so much about having perfect spacing around the words.

Scheduling Learning Time For All Ages

Since Grandma is in town we haven't done any new learning activities this week but I have been listening to Moms Notes Cd's on structuring your child's day and thinking a lot about how to implement learning time into the day.

Here are some tips for getting started at any age:

- Choose a time when your child is fed and well-rested. Right before a nap or a meal is not the time to introduce a learning time!
- If your child is still doing 2 naps then your ideal time will be after lunch. If your child is taking just one nap each day then you will want to do learning time either after breakfast in the morning or after the nap and a snack. If your child has no nap I would recommend right after lunch as a good time for learning.
- Start with short amounts of time, even just 5 minutes if that's all you think your child can handle. Gradually add 5 minutes each week until you reach your goal.

General Tips for Babies:

Location: keep it on the floor, preferably on a blanket so there is some boundary to the activity.
Duration: 15 minutes is a fine goal for any child under the age of one. You may be able to do two 15 minute learning periods each day.
Types of Activities: expect each activity to last around 5 minutes with infants. You can choose a physical activity, a music activity, and then a reading activity to fill up the 15 minutes nicely.

General Tips for Toddlers:

Location: your learning time can be split so it takes place half at the table or highchair and half on the floor. Again, a blanket can help to give a reasonable boundary to the activity and can be a cue to your child that floor learning time is about to start, not just regular free play.
Duration: every toddler is different, you need to gauge your child's interest, ability to focus, and age on a case by case basis. However, I would say that you can aim for 30 minutes for a 2 year old and 45 minutes by 3 years old. If you want to achieve the longer learning time, please understand you need to vary the activities, they cannot do 1 activity for 30 full minutes. You can also feel free to do two slightly shorter learning periods each day.
Types of Activities: If you have a "sitter" then plan for 2 table activities and 1 floor activity. If you have a "mover" then plan for 1 table activity and 2 floor activities. Choose 3 activities from different categories (craft, fine motor, and music or maybe fine motor, physical, story). This will hold your child's interest and allow you to see where your child's strengths lie.

General Tips for Preschoolers:

Location: at least half of learning time should be at the table and half or less on the floor. Remember, you are preparing them for the larger amounts of sitting time in Kindergarten whether in public school or home school.
Duration: 30-60 minutes. As with toddlers, do not expect them to pursue one activity for an hour, plan enough activities to fill the time you have allotted. You can certainly do 30 minutes twice a day if you choose or do an hour altogether. Dividing the learning time between the table and the floor will be very useful if you have a preschooler who is a "mover". *If your child is in preschool every day any additional learning time should be shortened slightly compared to a child who does not attend a preschool outside the home. You don't want to burn them out so young.
Types of Activities: Again, variety is the key! At this age you can truly delve into math, science, social studies, and reading in addition to music, art, fine motor skills, and physical education. Always plan one more activity than you think you will need for the day just in case! Three to five activities should fill up a one hour time slot. Be careful not to let your preschooler jump through activities too quickly but know that sometimes you'll end up with extra time anyway.

Credit
Moms Notes by Carla and Joey Link
The Tot School Blog by Carisa