Monday, January 29, 2018

Spontaneous Learning

My husband and I have toyed with the possibility of homeschooling our kids in the future for various reasons. Right now, our kids aren't old enough to go to school yet, so we still have some time to think about it and make a decision. But sometimes I wonder if I would even be able to handle homeschooling.

Some days it seems like I get absolutely nothing done, and the kids spend all day watching T.V. (Hopefully, that's not actually true, but some days it seems like it.) 

Well, I have made a new resolve to be more organized and make some specific goals on what to get done during the day. One area that I wanted to start having a goal for each day is to do some kind of learning activity with my boys. 

This morning started off better than most. I got part of my new planned morning routine in before the boys woke up for breakfast and got a couple things on my to-do list done before lunch, but I didn't have any sort of plan for a learning activity for the boys. 

After lunch, I actually remembered to go out and get the mail. (Most times my husband just grabs it on his way in from work, but then sometimes it doesn't get looked at for a few days because it's dinnertime.) 

There was one of those big advertisement mailers. I glanced through it really quick to see if there was anything useful in there and went to throw it away. I was feeling proud of myself for taking care of the mail right away instead of letting it pile up on my counter.

But as my hand was about to drop the mail into the trash, I stopped. My two-year-old was hanging on my leg, and I knew I should go do something with him since he obviously wanted my attention. I glanced at the mailer in my hand and got an idea. 

"Hey!" I said to him. "Do you want to do a project with me?" 

He did, so I ran to grab some scissors and glue. 

Not too long after starting, my three-year-old stopped what he was doing and came over to see what we were doing. He excitedly joined in. 

We searched through the ads for pictures of food that they liked.

Food Collage - Cutting Practice
This is the only reason I keep our coffee table.
It's the perfect height for the boys to do projects.

 Then they cut them out.

"Take a picture of our scissors, Mommy!"
"I can do it by myself."

And glued them onto a paper.



"And here's the glue!"

To make a fun food collage.

The finished product

I was going to have my three-year-old label his food when he finished, but after he wrote "Food I Lic" at the top and his name, he said he was done. So, I let him off the hook. I don't want to make learning a chore at this age. But I was so proud of him for spelling "Food" right all by himself.

This was such an easy activity to do, and the kids loved it. It allowed them to talk about different kinds of food, including likes and dislikes as well as finding out the names of other foods they weren't familiar with. They also improved their cutting skills and learning how to use a glue stick. And it kept them busy and engaged for at least 30 minutes! 

And there was no planning!

What spontaneous learning activities have you done?


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