having opted not to enroll lucy into her (parent-attended) preschool this session, i am, as of late, searching for ways to give her a bit of structured-yet-unstructured lesson time here at home. i stumbled across the idea of tray activities somewhere on the internet, loosely based on the montessori approach of having age-appropriate crafts and learning toys set out a the child's level to work with as they desire. i liked the idea of going beyond what's sitting in the toybox (the stuff that gets played with day in and day out) to "special" little activities that are a bit more engaging and conceptual.
our interpretation is a tray set out each morning for lucy to work with & explore. when she's done, the tray gets tided up and set back on the table, just in case she wants to come back to it later. she often does.
favorite activities so far have included water pouring, button art and digging for treasure (bottle caps!) in a bowl of flour. tools have included glass jars, bottles and bowls, items from the cooking drawer and one of my favorite china pitchers--in lucy's eyes this makes everything all the more interesting. it's all fun and games till something breaks, kid!
of course, i'm the mama with tons of ideas and a little one who wants to do the same three activities over and over. oh well. i guess that's part of being two--they learn through repetition, right?
5 comments:
well, keep posting these ideas for the rest of us! hehe.
i'm interested in doing this for Joseph, but all he does is throw stuff. *sigh*
My son is in motessori. I love their approach. Right now he is loving the water pouring activities. I'll have to try the flour finding activities. I love the little sifter you have.
he also loves sorting the socks and hanging them up with clothes pins which makes mommy haopy bc i hate sorting socks.
I love these ideas! Do post more!
It has been so long since I've been here. I can't believe how much Lucy has grown and how big your new little one is! This blog has always been one of my faves, so I'm sorry I've been MIA, lol. Thanks for the tray idea, that sounds great :)
Yes! Your blog is so wonderful! You can put things in boxes to shake that make different noises (auditory learning) or little spices in baby food jars to sniff. Color sorting is great too! My kids went through Montessori preschool until Kindergarten and they say that was the best thing they ever did (they are in Middle School now!).
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