Keeping Little ones occupied... and storage/planning?!?

[honeymommy4]

I know there are lots of threads on keeping toddlers busy. i am getting some ideas - but where do you keep everything? We school in the kitchen which already feels tight. I have a large great room attached to the kitchen, but with one couch, a piano, toys, changing table and playpen it is already crowded. There is one closet near the front door, down the stairs from the kitchen that i can store some stuff in. it is a coat closet so not overly efficient for storage.

 

I really want to do more montessori activities but see no way to keep these separate from the usual living time vs. schooling time. And keeping everything together, intact and ready to use quickly.

 

Also when do you plan these out, get supplies from the store AND have it ready to go for the school time alone?

 

AND everyone is always jealous of the other person that gets to do "X". but there aren't enough hours in the day for everyone to do every kind of activity because most things are being used to keep the LO's attention during the learning time!

 

I need to adjust my expectations here. i am trying to do so many things at once. Incorporate a schedule, plan activities AND plan schooling for my kids while maintaining normal living. after 1-2 days of school my house looks like a war zone. I can't seem to catch up because the baby is always awake, into things or I am just zonked-out tired!

 

 

any suggestions? is anyone really pulling this off? :confused:

Edited February 24, 2012 by honeymommy4

[sarahv]

I got a play yard http://www.amazon.com/North-States-Superyard-Play-Classic/dp/B00020L78M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330056289&sr=8-1 when my twins were that age last year. It helped greatly for keeping them out of things when school stuff was out.

 

This year, I am just schooling the bulk of the subjects during nap time. Last year they weren't talking, but this year!! The noise level is a problem during school time, so I am keeping their naps to help school time.

 

Morning is kind of crazy, but I try to get handwriting and spelling in before lunch if I can. Sometimes if the olders are up earlier than the littles, I squeeze in math before breakfast, but that is rare.

 

The best school time gets in between 1:30-4:00. We can mostly get everything done during that quieter time.

 

My organization is fairly simple. I keep all of their current work in the AAS bag that sits in the corner, ready to grab and teach when the time is right. Same for the preschool material - AAR bag. My preschool educational toys are around the corner in the next room organized in stackable, sterilite bins with locking tops. The twins get into those, but I only let them play with them during school hours and at the coffee table in the living room, and I try to get them to help me pick them up before the end of the day. It gets to be a mess, but in my limited experience, the messier the house at the end of the school day, the better educational day we've had. <shrug>

 

Right now, half of the dining room table is strewn with readers and read aloud books and papers to be filed in their binders for the last couple of days. I have a stack of my teaching materials to put away, but the dirty dishes from dinner have been cleared away, and at least the books are stacked. The important thing is that my boys rocked their spelling tests this afternoon, and we had a totally fun poetry study to wrap up our grammar lesson. Life is good.:lol:

[Mommy2BeautifulGirls]

When you figure it out, will you let me know, too?

[ThreeBlessings]

Do you have any wall space? Bookshelves are a must around here, lots of tall bookshelves, lining every available bit of wall space. The bottom shelves can hold books, toys, and activities it is okay for the little ones to have. All upper shelves house school books, supplies, and activities you need out of reach. Also toy bins like this one, or similar with book sling on top of bins are actually quite narrow, but hold quite a bit. I use one with book holder and bins on bottom for my youngest daughter. I rotate books and activities weekly. It is in our dining room along with table, chairs, computer desk and chair, and 4 tall bookshelves. We have other bookshelves where ever we can fit them, much loved, well used. Be sure to anchor them to the wall though, with the little climber.

 

As to the planning, your kiddos are pretty young. At that point I was fairly fly by the seat of my pants, laid back, etc.

[happycc]

but we don;t have a couch...our schooling is all over the house!

My house looks like a bomb went off all the time.

 

 

I find a lot of storage under tables and under beds.

 

I second the boxes with lids.

 

I utilize the garage-either for storage or I send them in there for some activities during nice weather.

 

I utilize the backyard, porches if I had them ...

 

Books shelves are good.

 

The problem for me is that I am short so I have a hard time accessing tall places so we have a lot of wasted space in top areas and for me out of sight out of mind.

[swellmomma]

I have stuff stored everywhere, all currently used toys are kept in the livingroom. I use expedit cubbies from Ikea to hold all of our current books/science kits etc. I bought some cheap small cubby sets from Walmart to hold toys. I use a few cubbies in that to hold activity trays. I have a small wooden table in the livingroom that I use to hold our current sensory bin, and my dd's hope chest is in the livingroom under a window to serve as a puzzle station.

 

As for having time to assemble things. Typically at some point on the weekend I prepare my materials for the week, this includes putting together new activity trays, creating my sensory bin if we are having a new one, etc at the same time as when I prepare the big kids school assignments. Last weekend was the new sensory bins and activity trays. Tomorrow I will be dyeing new rice, laminating some nomenclature cards and changing up an activity tray.

 

I leave my preschool materials out for the kids to use outside of school time because for kids that age I think that they should not be limited to set times of learning. I put my livingroom and kitchen back in order each day at naptime and again at night, so before the kids wake for the afternoon and before bed I know that all items of each tray or activity are there for the next day.

 

Once spring/summer have fully hit here I will have some learning centers set up outside for them.

 

I don't have a lot of space, my house is pretty tiny for the number of us here each day, but with some planning and creative storage solutions I have enough room to set up the slide in the livingroom when the weather is too rough to go outside, or even bring some of the riding toys inside fo a spell. They can't stay inside, I don't have that much room, but for the littles to play for an hour or 2 while we work it works well.

 

While I was able to fly by the seat of my pants with my first 2 when they were small I have too many little ones each day now to do that and still be able to teach my bigs. SO I take about an hour or so once a week, sometimes split into little chunks, sometimes in 1 peice per week to plan out the week that starts about 2 weeks away for my littles. It is during this time slot that I figure out my general plan, make my shopping list, figure out what crafts, activity trays, bins, printables, baking, stories etc I need. I also reserve any books I want from the library during that time slot.

 

We do not do all activities every week, some weeks we have lots of crafts, some weeks we have none. SOme weeks I plan out baking, some I don't. But without taking the time to plan ahead my littles run wild and I spend all my school time wrangling them rather than teaching the bigs.

 

I hope that all came out making sense, I am going on 1 hour of sleep last night and have to be up for work in 4 hours to take care of 8 kids tomorrow.

[Jess4879]

Oh, this is so my life!! I had a bright idea to make activity boxes (which I literally stacked in a corner - pretty, I know. :lol:) I had things like bean bag toss and beads to string, pasta to sort and just little things like that. Trouble is, with a 5 and a 2 year old, nothing holds their interest for long so they play with the activity for 10 minutes and then they are bored. We also have very limited space, so if we are doing anything teacher intensive, it is tough because the little ones are loud and underfoot.

 

So, I have no advice to offer, but misery loves company, right? :lol: I will be paying close attention to this thread to see what others suggest!

[Tawlas]

I rotate toys. Open ended toys. I ahve 4 and 2 year old boys - they will play for 30+ with cars on a road rug or wooden train tracks. Of course, there are arguments and stuff, but it does the trick generally speaking! I rotate play set too, we have only three: garage, rocket ship, and farm, but they do the trick. A big bin of dinosaurs is also popular. Don't understimate snacks!

[MerryAtHope]

I kept everything in bins and rotated the activities. Pull out the bin, play for 20, clean up & put it away. Workboxes could work for this too. Merry :-)

[garddwr]

My kids are the same ages as yours--with one on the way too! Chaos is pretty common here...

 

I did recently buy this storage cabinet, and added a child-lock near the top so I could keep it closed outside of school hours (had to glue it on--the adhesive it came with wasn't strong enough). I keep all the older children's current school supplies on the upper shelves, and bins of toys/craft items for the youngers on the lower shelves. Those things are only available when I open the closet for school time, so it keeps them kind of special.

The other thing I do is work intensively with one child at a time, while the other three play together (including the toddler). My kids are pretty good about playing happily together, and this way the toddler isn't just interfering with school and creating havoc. We have some group learning times (devotional, memory work, history) but keep them short and move on when things start falling apart. My oldest is able to work independently on some things, which helps as well.

 

HTH,

Sarah

[prairiewindmomma]

bins & rotation are the key to my success too.....

 

It's worth the time and effort to get organized.

 

Expedit from IKEA is awesome.....the Billy bookcases don't quite have enough depth to hold bins. I drove many hours to get to an IKEA and brought home lots of shelving in the back of my minivan. It was well worth the drive for the quality construction + cheap price. I got some cheap plastic plants and woven baskets to keep it looking nice.

 

For us, we never had a changing station (just a cloth pad on the floor or couch and a woven basket with various diapers + wipes). We ditched the pack-n-play as well. We minimized our toys (no more big stuff) and the little stuff went into bins on shelves when not in use. One bin is allowed out at a time on the floor and I usually have another activity going at the table.

[Walking-Iris]

What sort of helps me most days is to do an activity with the littles first thing. Usually my morning is spent in a flurry of diaper changes and teeth brushing, getting dressed and feeding wild animals (I mean children and Husband). I try to throw in some laundry first thing as well. Husband and I set up a system where he takes a week of being responsible for folding and I wash and dry and then we switch. The folded clothes are put in piles on the bed and each person is responsible for putting their own clothes away. I put away the baby's clothes and towels.

 

But anyway---after these morning jobs I usually read to the littles and maybe play a few rounds of candyland (or whatever my 4 year old wants) and take the time to play with my dd on the rug. She's so bright and ready for interaction in the morning. My oldest ds usually reads a couple chapters in a book/draws/ or plays with us. Then I have the mad rush of working with my older ds in the morning before lunch and my dd's nap. We try to get the spelling/grammar/math/handwriting (3 r's) done between the hours of 9 and 12. Some things always get pushed to afternoon, some things we don't do everyday. Free time during dd's nap--then more mad house cleaning---then some afternoon school. History or science usually.

 

I store things I want to keep nice in drawers and on shelves that my littles can't reach. I have tall deep cabinets on one side of my kitchen that I need a chair to reach that I use to store science materials and arts and crafts materials. My 4 year old ds usually sits with my ds and me in the morning and works in a HWT or a Kumon book on his own (with plenty of interruptions). Usually giving my dd a messy fun snack in the high chair or a bin full of toys or crayons and paper keep her happy. But there's still plenty of complaints about the baby scribbling in this book or stealing that pencil.

 

I do science and history with everyone together. This is my first year trying to juggle so many completely different developmental stages. And I gave up the dream of living in a Waldorf or Montessori preschool a looong time ago. ;)

Edited February 26, 2012 by Walking-Iris

[russiantwins]

We bit the bullet and gave up the dining room for our school room, which is awesome to have it all in one room. WE still do school everywhere- couch, kitchen table, etc, but it is all nicely in one room for when I need something. We just eat at the kitchen table!

[momsuz123]

I know there are lots of threads on keeping toddlers busy. i am getting some ideas - but where do you keep everything? We school in the kitchen which already feels tight. I have a large great room attached to the kitchen, but with one couch, a piano, toys, changing table and playpen it is already crowded. There is one closet near the front door, down the stairs from the kitchen that i can store some stuff in. it is a coat closet so not overly efficient for storage.

 

I really want to do more montessori activities but see no way to keep these separate from the usual living time vs. schooling time. And keeping everything together, intact and ready to use quickly.

 

Also when do you plan these out, get supplies from the store AND have it ready to go for the school time alone?

 

AND everyone is always jealous of the other person that gets to do "X". but there aren't enough hours in the day for everyone to do every kind of activity because most things are being used to keep the LO's attention during the learning time!

 

I need to adjust my expectations here. i am trying to do so many things at once. Incorporate a schedule, plan activities AND plan schooling for my kids while maintaining normal living. after 1-2 days of school my house looks like a war zone. I can't seem to catch up because the baby is always awake, into things or I am just zonked-out tired!

 

 

any suggestions? is anyone really pulling this off? :confused:

 

 

Well, right now I am doing a breathing treatment with my 3 y/o, while my older dd is reading, and my younger dd is watching Letter Fasctory. In my blog (it is fairly new), I have several posts pertaining to your question. HTH. Sorry I can't link, but am typing with 1 hand.:)

[CatholicMom]

When you figure it out, will you let me know, too?

 

ditto!