By Myself Boxes

I decided that I needed to revamp what I've been doing at home with Wade. Since he's started school this year, I've really slacked off on the things we do after he gets home and on his days off. And I'm embarrassed to admit how much TV he's been watching... He does so many crafts and so much work on his letters and numbers at school (not any of his favorite things) that I don't want to push it at home and I wasn't sure what to do. Until I recently read a mommy blog about a lady who home schools and uses sensory/quiet time boxes for one of her younger children while she's teaching her older ones. I thought that was a fabulous idea and created a couple "By Myself Boxes" for Wade. I included a couple books and stuffed "reading buddy," a puzzle or solitary game that he already knows how to play, a couple of figurines to play with if he's so inclined, an activity book (puzzles, hidden pictures, etc), a simple hands-on activity, and a sensory-type bin.

We started this week, and seem (so far) to only have time for them on the days he's not in school. The first bin included a box of pom poms, pieces of PVC pipes, and a robot grabber-type toy, some safari animal books and a stuffed lion, lion and elephant figurines, one of those I Spy bags I made for our road trip to CO and a baggie full of straws, paint swatches and scissors. The entire time (about 45 mins), he played with the "cutting bag." He asked for some tape and made a fantastic airplane/protective gadget for some coins he had (?). All by himself. It was awesome.

 

 

 

Today he had a box that included some super hero books and a TMNT reading buddy, a TMNT activity book, a Toy Story puzzle and a small box of colored rice with rocks and shells and some "excavating tools." He spent about 30 mins playing with the rice, then tried out the puzzle and quickly moved on to the activity book which he spent about another 15 mins on. Then I got done cleaning and did some of the activity book with him and read him a couple of the stories before Lily woke up.

I am really in love with these boxes. I think it's fun to see what he digs out and focuses on. It's also nice to have a limited amount of things he can play with. It forces him to try stuff that he wouldn't normally do, like the activity book from today. I will make 3 per week and set them up on Sundays. I will also plan one "science experiment" a week that we can do together- like slime, oobleck, foam dough, homemade floam (I have yet to find those Styrofoam beads yet...), etc. and possibly one cooking thing.

I have also limited his screen time to two 30 minute blocks. I give him two tokens and he can spend them each on 30 minutes of: computer games (Disney Jr, PBS kids, Starfall, etc), tablet time or TV. He likes the freedom of being able to choose and I like the limit (there is no negotiation, when the tokens are gone, he's done). This is my plan, we'll see how it goes :)