There is a buzz word on pinterest called tot school. And although I have a tot and although we do activities together...we are not following the "craze" of tot school. I have been asked recently to outline specifically what I do/how I do it and most pertaining to the Advent we did last year with Miss K. So I'm breaking from lunch (a bowl of cereal) and taking some time to blog. Something that Lord willing can happen more often, soon.
So my degree is in early childhood. My excitement comes from finger paint. I love preschool themes. I love the words fine motor and gross motor. I don't do well with unstructured time (although I know there is a time and a place for this).
So before we even had Miss K, I desired to do "tot school". There is an excellent website called 1+1+1=1 and growing a jeweled rose. These to sites I could spend HOURS on and unashamed I probably have over the years. So then God invented Pinterest! So every time I got into a preschool kick I would pin things. Say what you want about pinterest but I LOVE it. I love that my brain can numb out and I can just look at shiny things or pretty pictures and it virtually takes zero effort. So here's my steps on creating our "tot school year". I will tell you in advance that this is way more for my benefit than Miss K's. I have no doubt that her childhood would be just as blissful if we did not do a single one of these activities. She just likes to paint- she could care less if we are painting apples, pumpkins, or bubbles of paint. She likes to take a bath- she could care less if the water is green, blue, has bubbles, or has butterflies in it. Do you see a theme here? I do it because it is enjoyable to me, almost therapeutic. I know when she gets older it will have more of an effect on her. I hope that through what we do she is learning colors, numbers, letters, and shapes but developmentally I think she would catch on to that in our day to day life. So this post is not to create shame if you do none of this. It is also not to brag about how awesome I am- I just admitted that I do all of this for myself- that is incredibly selfish! LOL!
But here goes the process:
1. I created a long list of themes. Some of these came from my preschool classroom days. Some I just think are fun. Some are seasonal. There are things on the list like: bears, trees, adoption, kwanza, advent, rainbows, ocean, bats, pumpkins, dinosaurs, etc. I then broke them apart by age and season. This way every year we are not doing pumpkins but at the same time we are not learning about pumpkins in june. So I, like a nerd, have the next four years of themes planned out- so did not want to admit this!
2. Once the list of themes is complete I look at the list for just this year and decide what I like and what I don't and where it would fit on the calendar. I live a very busy life. I have a family. I run a non-profit. My child is 19months. We do not cram a theme into a week. Some themes are two weeks- some a month. So we just finished apples which took us all of september. July we did blue and August we did Dinosaurs. We will now to pumpkins for two weeks, and then monsters for two weeks, and then Fall (leaves, and anything else I want to do-lop) and then thanksgiving, and then Advent.
3. One that list/calendar is complete I turn to pinterest and the internet. I am specific in my searches- gross motor pumpkin, messy play apples, etc. I just pin till I am bored or it's time to go to bed, or something else comes up.
4. I then get on the library's website and start reserving books for the next theme or next couple of themes depending on time of year and how high of demand the books will be in.
5. Then I start filling out my table that I have. I am looking for 5 things in each of these areas (not that we will do all of them) but it gives me things to choose from. The areas that I am looking to fill are: Family Time (fun things to do on daddy's day off), baking time (food/fun snack things), Arts/crafts, literacy (books, letter recognition,etc), Science, math (numbers, shapes, colors), character education, fine motor, gross motor. mommy/daughter dates (fun things to do when daddy is at work). Once it is filled that's all I do before hand.
6. The week before when I meal plan, do schedules, prep for staff meetings, I also prep for where our free time will be in the week and what we want to do. I make sure I have the stuff on hand that I need (which I normally do) and I fill daddy in on any day trips we will be doing that week. (This is all loose- if some thing comes up and these activities don't get done it's no big deal. But having all the pre thought helps me when there is a lull and there is still two hours left till bedtime we can pull out paint and make apple prints and I didn't have to come up with anything on the spot.
Now advent follows all of this- but here are my other rambling about advent:
1. Does Miss K know what advent is? Probably not- but she does know that it is special.
2. Our church celebrates advent every year and so "doing advent" is kind of in the culture of our church and the people we surround ourselves with. They gear their activities to the slightly older crowd but I try to take things and make the whole season fun.
3. On Sunday night (this is when they do it at church- daddy has a rotating shift- so we do it sometimes on Tuesday,Thursday, Saturday, or a Sunday. They suggest setting the mood and making it special. For us we lit the advent candle and turned on our christmas lights. We turned on some christmas music. We would eat dinner together. Then after dinner we would do our bedtime routine (bath, pi's) and then when it was time for the book part of the night we would read age appropriate christmas story books. There are so many great christmas story books. Pick one that you like. Last year we loved Christmas in the Manger. This year we might try Truth in the Tinsel or readings out of the Jesus story book. Not sure yet. Then after book time we would have a night time snack. Something special that we would only do on that night of the week.
4. Our advent "calendar" looks different every year- mainly because I enjoy making them. But ours are always created in a way that there are 24 days in our countdown and fun activities or things to do but there are no dates on them- so we can move things around as needed. And- a big secret is that I use things we are already doing or are already on the calendar and just write them down and stuff them in the calendar and it makes it super fun. Example: we decorate cookies every year. In the advent calendar we will put cookie decorating party. Instantly more fun and absolutely no more planning :) This year there is a spend the day in your Pj's- I will make that one "appear" on a day when it is cold and I don't want to go outside all day. Super fun- PJ day but to me it's just a day we didn't get dressed-lol. I tell you all of my secrets to tell you that it's all about being intentional and making the ordinary special and WAY LESS about being a super cool mom. I also block off all the days that Daddy has off (his second day off is when he is much more rested) and those are the dates that I start searching community calendars for fun things to do and adding that to our "advent calendar". This year we have two category of things: each day we will have something special- go to live nativity, eat at winsteads and look at the lights, etc. But we also have christmas activities to do during our normal "tot school" time. So we have cotton ball painting (we will use red and green paint), we will make snow men, we will watch frozen, we will make puppets, we will get messy...but all in all we will just enjoy our time together :) So I normally plan our advent activities just a week in advance. I do, however, have a list that is super long of just ideas...I'll trim the list as it gets closer but for now it's just a hobby and something fun to thing about (another way I am odd). This year I think the calendar is going to be a bunch of stars hanging on a branch (thanks pinterest) it will match our christmas decor (a plus) and I can put them all in the order I want them to appear.
So I think that is everything- then as we do things- things that I love I jot down to do again. Things that I hate (or causes a melt down) we take funny pictures of and put that in the making memories department and don't need to do again (at least not for a few years ;))
Now I will also tell you that Andy and I don't buy Miss K christmas presents so anything we do for advent is her christmas. If we get her anything this year it will be things that we can continue to use in her "tot school times" or life skills things for her (like a step stool, or a potty chair, etc- I know exciting). We just want to spend Christmas as a family, making memories, and spending as much time as possible being together and not getting caught up in the santa chaos and hopefully spend what used to be an incredibly painful holiday for me a joyful one of memories being made and enjoying the anticipation that was in the first Christmas.
So, I hope that helps-and lets you in to my oddly wired brain :)
