Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Life Skills 101

 Life Skills 101
I realize that it takes the first 3 years to establish a good Homeschooling environment
and 30 days to establishing GOOD Habits...
When I started homeschooling I just kind of jumped right in.
After all if you wait for the perfect conditions, you just never seem to get around to it.
Get the Magnet
 One and half years later
and quite frankly I feel a little overwhelmed.
Until I could came up with a solution, I bagged up all their toys.

I was really impressed that after the initial shock,
Housework became real interesting, 
(my oldest was suffering from Playstation2 withdraws... it dawned on me that he was taking advantage that I did not have my reward system in place yet...)  
Nicko was suddenly interested in Carpet Cleaning,
Pinkalicious & Purplicious & Lil man
were excited about washing dishes,
and more reading took place!
I was in such an Awe I forgot to take pictures so this one for Christmas will have to suffice!
  It dawned on me... Was I robbing them of their Life Skills?
Life Skills is so much more than Housework..
its about making Choices & our Attitudes...
Its about Habits that Last a Life Time
and the Home is the perfect place to start Nurturing those habits.
Gordon B Hinkley
I really Appreciate Deb at Living Montessori Now
for constantly Inspiring me.
It made me realize that for ME to work I needed the Space ...
And even though we are in a much smaller residence (what was I thinking?)

I decided to start with trying to create a "center" out of my dining room...
oh yeah which wasn't big to begin with...
As you can see by the shelf on the left, its still a work in progress.
I'm also playing with the idea to rotate some of the toys.
The rule in my house is if the kids can't clean it up during a reasonable time period...
Its probably an indication that too many toys are out.
Why Organize?

1. Helps me keep an eye on the toys
Being truthful, its easy to ignore kids playing in their rooms
and their mess.
When it was just Nicko, I was all about the one toy at a time..
Some how I lost that magical ability..
and I'm looking to get my groove back...
Now the mess is unreal.. its a pain for me and a pain for them to clean it up.
So I am going to help them :)

2. Helps my kids learn to respect areas in our home.
Now that the play and manipulatives are separate from their rooms
Its easier for both the kids & myself to focus on a given area.
 
and 3. Helps me know what to reward my kids efforts 
AND in turn to let us know where which habits we need to work on.

Its been a big hurdling block to implementing my Reward System.
When we haven't established good habits...
and as frustrating and over whleming as it has been for me..
I bet they were just as conflicted.
It should be simple so even my 3 yr old can understand it.
Free Pre-K Chore Charts from Over the Big Moon

Hopefully these chores will turn into Life Long Habits
What Chore is appropriate for your child?
has an Awesome list to jog your brain.

If you were wondering where we put our dining table... its where the "Living room" should be.
Our dining table is useless... and the chairs I think are about to fall apart.
Really ~ Its too high for me to feel comfortable with the kiddos using it.
I picked up a coffee table off Craigslist for $20 to transform it into our classroom table,
with these chairs I picked up at the Rummage Room, a local a local consignment & thrift store.
Hopefully Our classroom area will be setup soon.  :)
 

3 comments:

  1. I am a new follower from Hip Homeschool Hop.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We are in our third year, and this is the first year I don't feel completely overwhelmed. Your space looks awesome!! We have space challenges too, but we make do. Stopped by from the HOP. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stopping by from the Weekend Warrior Blog Hop.

    http://linorstorecom.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete

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