Come Learn with Me

When it comes to homeschooling, one of our biggest challenges so far has been keeping the younger kids busy while I work with Rhiannon. For a while, handing the boys coloring books would keep them occupied long enough for me to get Rhi situated and then I could keep them playing while working with her whenever she needs me.

We came to the point recently that Talon just wants to learn with her. He knows that a coloring book is not the same way. I can't complain. I mean who can complain about a child simply wanting to learn. I just had to get creative. He is too distracted to sit and do workbooks or any type of curriculum. We have a few manipulatives already that he could work with, such as patternables, but adding to our collection to keep him busy all day would get expensive.

Our solution? Dollar store items turned into learning tools. Our main focuses right now are fine motor skills, colors and letters. Here are some of the fun ways we are learning. 

For our fine motor skills, I have Talon use tongs to move cotton balls to and from different cups and bowls. Some of them are easy, simply squeezing the cotton ball and lifting it out of a bowl. Others are a little more challenging, having to close the tongs to fit into a cup before opening and closing trying to pick up the cotton balls. We also do this activity with tweezers and smaller items.

For our colors, I have Talon and Little Man find items around the house to put into the properly marked muffin tins. We start off with basic colors and move onto different shades. Talon is only allowed to bring me items small enough to fit into the tin. This is helping him with recognizing not only the colors but size relativity too. This activity also keeps him busy during times that I really need to focus on helping his big sister.

When it comes to letters, our main focus, we have a lot of activities, like using our fingers to write in rice. Our favorite activity as of lately is using pipe cleaners to make letters. We have pipe cleaners that are full size, cut in half and some cut in fourths. Talon simply has to manipulate them and make them fit onto the sheets that I have written on. 

I know this picture is not relevant to the post but he's stinkin' cute.

We are having a lot of fun with learning around here. Even little man, who is almost two is able to get in on some of the learning. He is pretty good about just playing while we work though. Now if I can just find something to keep this one occupied. You know when he's not posing for pictures.