Tot School and Schedules :)

Since making the decision to become a "full time" stay at home mom, I've really wanted to be purposeful in our days together, much like one is during the workday. I had big dreams of craft projects, learning lessons, story time, play dates, and music time. And while I was dreaming, I also had intentions of eating right, exercising daily, having the bod of an America's Next Top Model contestant, cooking dinner at home, having a stellar devotional time all while maintaining a clean and orderly home. A girl can dream, right?

But in all seriousness, I wanted to treat the "job" of being home with the seriousness I would treat any other career field I was entering into. And although there are no bonuses, sick days or vacation pay, or formal reviews, the implications of one's performance are eternal.

It's so easy for me to get lost in the day to day and to get lazy and forget the plans and hopes I had for our time together. It was hard getting through the day to day when I was pregnant and I knew with our adjustment to a newborn that I needed to cut myself some slack, and just focus on survival! So, now that we are settling in, all moved and getting used to life with 2 little ones, it was time to start.

But where to begin? Once again, I will state on this blog- Mommyhood is difficult! Why don't these little ones come with user manuals?! And I'm not talking about the baby days of the first year, all that stuff is pretty easy to figure out and there are a ton of books and resources to help with the infant stuff. I'm talking about TODDLERS!!! Man, this age is so much harder! And these little energetic sponges are ready to learn and soak in whatever you give them, so you've got to be careful and intentional with your time together!

So, the other day I was reading the blog of an online friend of mine, I saw a link to another mom's blog who does what she has 'dubbed' "Tot School" with her young son. She has an extensive site, with resources, examples and links that provides the reader with all of the resources to start their very own tot school with their toddler. She's a homeschooling, Christian mommy and her blog is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Seriously, this lady has talent and the fact that she provides this resource for free, is beyond fantastic! Please check her out!

So I began to read through her blog, and let me tell you, it's overwhelming at first. The toys, the activities, the supplies that she has- I started to think, Goodness I'm behind! I should have started getting ready for this when I found out I was pregnant with Evie! But-- in truth, we're set to begin. We had the resources I just had to get to work on organizing them. And I can always buy and add to our supply collection as we go.

So here's what our "Tot School" looks like (that we've only done for 3 days, so we're building on it)
1) Learning Activity Time (coloring our letter sheets or doing our Nemo book together)
2) Physical Activity Time (doing our "exercising" or playing ball)
3) Musical Activity Time (dancing, playing our instruments, jamming)

And then she also goes about my daily cleaning activities with me. She helps me switch laundry, she dusts, she "swiffers", ect.

The learning activity time is where we do things that are more traditionally how I view "schooling" activities and art. For this week we are working on the letter "B" (everyone is so confused in this house as to why we haven't done A but moved on to B...). You can see the sheets below I made for her with words/objects that she already knows that start with the letter B. On it are 2 of her favorite people, my aunt Barbie and her friend Beau. We also have Barney, a Bee, a Bike, a Basketball, a Baseball, a Bear, a Bowl, a Ball and a Baby. Now, honestly, I'm not expecting her to know the letter B or read these words by the end of this week. It's all about exposure. Exposure to letters, to pictures, to coloring, to drawing... Hopefully this will foster a love for learning in her. At the end of this week we will put these sheets in a 3 ring binder and begin a new letter. By the end of a while, we will have a whole alphabet book that she has colored and created with words in it that she knows, and we can read it together.

The physical activity time is just her and I doing something that involves movement and coordination. Don't worry, I'm not sending her out to do laps around the court (yet... the coach in me does want her to develop her dribblings skills soon :-0) But we do things like 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' and 'reach up high to touch the sky, reach down low to touch our toes' and we kick and throw the bouncy ball-- stuff like that.

The muscial activity is nothing more than putting on some kid's Christian tunes, and jamming! We have a great set of instruments that we play and we like to dance and twirl and shake our shaker eggs. I plan to get some scarfs to play with as well.


It's helped so much to add purpose and fulfillment to our days! Before I felt like we were sort of wandering and I wondered if I our time together was "quality". Now I can check off (very nice for a Type A personality like myself) our day together and know that we hit things that were important to me and that she got a kick out of.

Now, we by no means are the 'perfect example' of what a day should look like or raising a toddler. She still watches plenty of Barney and Calliou on PBS, we still get up around 9 or 10 am to start our day, and the list goes on of why our day isn't the perfect toddler home. But, it's a start. And we're enjoying ourselves. That's good enough for me :)

Coloring the "B" sheet #3 for the week:






Her other "B" sheets (that will go into our alphabet book)


The Nemo book tot book


Learning our numbers


Learning colors and the alphabet


Learning names


She loves that she is in this book!


Daddy participates in Tot School too!


Chet during tot school :)