Sensory Balloons

We're up and running again! For some crazy reason last week I decided it would be a good idea to potty train Nolan. So we did it. He is finished now, aside from the occasional accident. We spent most of last week downstairs in our TV room because we had to run to the potty every few minutes. It's also easier to clean off of the hard floors than the carpets. But it's done now! No more diapers!

So here is what a general idea of our days are looking like so far.

7-8am we're waking up. I give it a larger timeframe because sometimes I have the kids play together in Kaydences room while I get a few more minutes of sleep. Generally this doesn't last more than 5 minutes at a time, but can't blame me for trying. We're usually up by 7:30, but today they both slept until 8. I was happy.

8-8:30 (or earlier, depending on wake up time) I let them watch some TV while I make breakfast. I'm not my best in the mornings. Takes me a few minutes to get up and moving, and once we start our school day the TV goes off.

9am. This isn't an exact start time, we just start whenever breakfast is finished and I've cleaned up. You get the idea. We start off with some sort of montessori style learning activity. Nolan can be involved and we do it as long as they are interested. I'm using an at home montessori curriculum as a guide. I haven't set up the proper Montessori environment (according to the book) and I'm not planning to do everything 100% Montessori. (it's crazy expensive, even at home) We pick a "practical life" activity. Right now I am just going through the pages. Once we have done a few I will give them the options and let them pick what they would like to do. Yesterday the activity was sweeping. I've done that with them before and they got bored very quickly. This time we started out by making sensory balloons. We took a package of balloons, some funnels, and some kitchen ingredients. We used flour, lentils, dried kidney beans, and rice. Mostly because that's what we had. They scooped the ingredients into the funnels until they were full and then I tied the balloons shut.

Kaydence was interested in tying the balloons herself. So I let her try as long as she wanted and only stepped in to help when she asked me to. 

Scooping the ingredients was harder for Nolan. He tried for a while and then he used his hands. He switched back and forth from using his hands to trying to scoop. He would stay very still and watch Kaydence as she scooped and then he would try to scoop again. He got bored filling the balloons before Kaydence did, so he went to play with his toys and we finished up. Now I brought in the sweeping. (We made a huge mess) I don't have a kid sized broom. I thought about buying one, but when my kids get a hold of a broom they generally wave them around in the air. I decided it was better all around not to give them access to brooms on a regular basis. Instead I bought them a little (as in smaller than the one I use) brush and dust pan. I used the broom to sweep into a big pile and then Kaydence helped me sweep it into her dustpan. Most of what she swept went all over the floor, but hey, that's what learning is about. Nolan didn't want to sweep. He was fighting a battle with his superman. 

Then we brought the balloons over to the coffee table. We made 4 of each type of ingredient balloon. 2 for each of them. I mixed them up and the game is to squeeze them and match them together based on how they feel. Kaydence finished pretty quickly and was done, but Nolan spent a long time squeezing them.

After we were finished with that I gave them a few options of what to do next. We ended up playing with our felt There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly set. I bought it used and then found it was missing a few pieces, which was annoying. (My fault for not asking first) We used some other animal toys for the ones that were missing, and the kids don't know the difference. I've also set up a rewards system for Kaydence. Every time she reads me a book she gets one gummy bear. So she read me three books, and then I took a turn reading to her. 

11am we decided to take a trip to the library. I like to go on Mondays because Sam is usually off work and I can look for books without the kids wanting me to hurry. However, I forgot it was labor day so the library was closed. Instead we drove around and enjoyed the pretty Texas landscape. 

12am- lunch. We usually eat earlier than this. Otherwise they beg for snacks and are then too full to eat lunch. While I fix lunch I generally give them the option to color or play with other things. They wanted to watch X-Men cartoons, and I was okay with that. I love X-Men. 

1pm- rest time. Nolan takes a nap. He's usually out for 1 1/2- 2 hours. Kaydence rests quietly on the couch. She has the option to play on the ipad or watch a show. I am going to make her some quiet boxes to play with during rest time, I just haven't gotten there yet. I usually only have her rest for an hour. It's pushing it to get her to lay still for that long anyways. We get up and do her reading lesson. We're on lesson 50! Oh yeah! She loves her reading lessons. Nolan woke up screaming that bears were going to get him. That's relatively new. He will go upstairs alone to play, and then realize he is alone and start screaming that bears are going to eat him. Sam put him to sleep, but wasn't in the room when he woke up so he freaked out. I had planned to do an art project from my Montessori art book, but he just wanted to be held. So we read books and colored instead. Kaydence read me a few more books. Usually around 4 we're done with any official learning that I have for us to do. Sometimes it's earlier than that, sometimes later. Most of this is just a general idea of what our day looks like. Starting soon we'll have dance classes and things like that. We'll adjust our day around those things. Some days (like toady) Kaydence decides she wants to wait to do her reading lesson until Daddy comes home. We're flexible. 

We're going to start a kindergarten level math program soon, as well as handwriting without tears. Or something similar. I'm leaning towards singapore math, but I'm not sure just yet. 

Here are some afternoon silly pictures from me and Bubba. It's one of his favorite games. I make a silly face and he tries to copy it.