I believe fully in a lot of free play for children. Interaction, toys without batteries, imaginative play...I've said all this before, I know.
Imaginative play can get kinda loud, though we have trained the children with "indoor voices". However, to help manage periods of time where I'm schooling with one or a small group of littles or doing kindergarten activities with Natalee we have what we call "buckets."
My father-in-law custom made this cabinet for me when I taught at the public school. The white buckets all come out and it gets hard use DAILY.
We keep our crayons/colored pencils/paper/coloring books for free drawing time in this cabinet, as well as other activities that I switch out periodically to keep them from getting stale. When I feel like the noise level is becoming a little too much, or a little learner is having trouble focusing because of the fun in the play area, we do a quick tidy and everyone chooses a bucket. The children are trained to know that buckets = quiet voices. If your bucket activity can't be quiet, I'll choose a different one for you.
This morning I switched out about 5 of the activities and was met with excited faces!!
This is what got sent out to be stored for awhile {felt clothes/clothesline/clothespins}, {growing sequencing puzzles}, {Discovery Toys Trace & Play Puzzles}, {How to Build an A book, foam pieces & letter sheets}, and {pattern blocks/letter pages}.
This time I dug into our game cabinet and pulled out a few independent games that the kids can do solo...Flip Flop Faces from DT {we'll see how this goes as a 'quiet' activity}, an ABC matching puzzle game, and Button Art (http://www.amazon.com/ALEX%C2%AE-Toys-Learning-Button-Little/dp/B003AP4JPE), as well as some lacing beads & string, a couple sets of foam blocks from DT, and one bucket with ice cube trays and color/shape buttons for sorting.
Here the kids are excited to be re-introduced to Flip Flop Faces!...
...and the foam DT animal blocks!
We also have a bucket of Polly Pocket dolls, a bucket of Snap & Style Dolls with a snap clothes Minnie Mouse doll, fabric ABC letters, Alpha/Number Bots (a favorite of Xavier's!), wooden puzzles at the bottom, and more all crowded into our little organizing cabinet!
How do YOU organize quiet activities for your children? Baggies? Small totes? Or is your house large enough that children can be playing while others are schooling and the noise not travel? (our house is pretty humble in size).
1 comment:
This looks like a GREAT way to organize the quiet toys--wish I had something so nice! We use one of those drawer things on wheels. It has four drawers in it. I try to change the activities out each week, and Tyrell, in specific, plays with about two different drawers per day while the older ones are schooling. Easton and Kiana usually use only one drawer apiece. That usually takes care of mornings, and then they nap/rest in the afternoon while Briana and Destry finish school. It's a constant reinvention of the wheel to find what works, isn't it?!
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