New Year, Fresh Perspective. Time to Get Organized.

On New Year's Day, Mike's parents took our kids to the zoo. With the house all to ourselves, Mike spent an unhealthy amount of time figuring out iTunes while I tackled some organizational hot spots in our school room.

My first area of concern was all of our new (amazing) educational toys and games that the kids got for Christmas. They were everywhere; in the way and getting lost.

I pulled out a bunch of plastic bins, emptied their contents, and reorganized them to hold an assortment of distractions for Jason that I could rotate each day.  I now have five bins full of toys, puzzles and books, for Monday through Friday, to keep Jason occupied while we do schoolwork. (PS - I have wanted to do this since Ryan was little, but never got around to it. I've always loved this bin-of-the-day concept!)

The two year old attention span is really short, so I've also decided to set the timer for 15 minutes and rotate what he's playing with to avoid boredom and mischief. I get so into teaching the big kids that I don't realize how much time passes, rarely rewarding Jason for keeping himself entertained. Poor little man!

After that, I revised our school schedule for January and prepped our school work for this week. It hit me today that I'm traveling three times in the next six weeks, so I really wanted to take advantage of the free time to wrap my head around our coursework, before I get overwhelmed with packing and planning for my trips.

Next, I sat down and wrote an inventory of our outside toys and outside play ideas. The weather has been beautiful this past week and it occurred to me that I might want to set up an outside toy rotation schedule, too. The kids overlook so many fun ideas, simply because they're readily available all the time. Taking them out of sight for a period of time might increase their appeal. It sounds good in my head...we'll see if it works!

I remember our old pre-school had a calendar in the storage shed of which toys and games were to be pulled out each week, to keep things fresh for the kids. So I did what I do best: I stole borrowed their genius idea. This might sound over the top, but I know myself. My intentions are good, but in the moment, if I'm up to my elbows in dinner prep, finding all of the pieces for the ring toss game doesn't occur to me...and I direct the kids to the swingset or their bikes. Again.

While I was in the "writing down ideas" mood, I filled out some note cards to put in our Bored Box. I've slacked off on my whole "no t.v." bandwagon over the last several months and I'm ready to pull the plug again. Granted, the kids prefer PBS shows like Curious George and Cat in the Hat, which I love because they tend to be more wholesome and educational, but I'd much rather they get back in the habit of playing creatively together instead of asking to watch a t.v. show. 

(Some of the ideas I added to the bored box are: write/act out a play, have a talent show, make an obstacle course, play grocery store, do a treasure hunt and have a puppet show.)

The other day, I suggested that the kids do a play with our neighbor and this is the script I found outside...

I love when they use their imaginations. I'll be making the "no t.v." announcement this week. I'm sure I'll miss the electronic babysitter for that hour or so each day, but I'll have to adjust!