The Tea Time Experiment

We can thank Anna Marie Russell, the 7th Duchess of Bedford for starting the tradition of afternoon tea in the late 1830's. Her need for a late afternoon snack was the start of a daily ritual for most upper and middle class families for years to come. She wasn't the first to make drinking tea fashionable (that was Queen Catherine of Braganza). However, due to the "sinking feeling" she had at 3 p.m. each day, she started having a cup of tea and a light snack. This became her daily tradition that evolved into a perfect opportunity for socializing and various forms of tea gatherings, tea gardens and tea houses have carried on the brilliant tradition ever since.

As it turns out, pretty much everyone in my house experiences a "sinking feeling" at about 3 o'clock. And my six-year-old happens to ask me to have a tea party every day. And since I have been revamping our family schedule, I decided...why not take a page out of Anna the Duchess of Bedford's book.

We are in the early days of this snack experiment, but so far, so good. There are several reasons why I want to incorporate afternoon tea time into our day.

Health Reasons
Since we are all experiencing that dreaded sinking feeling... we usually have a snack at 3 o'clock. And in general snacks tend to be more casual and in the end can easily turn into kids munching on a bag of carbs while watching something on TV. This is a recipe for a spoiled appetite when the real food (AKA Dinner) is served. Secondly it is reinforcing the bad habit of absent minded snacking of non nutritive food.

Fun Reasons
I do have two girls who love tea parties right now and are willing participants. (I will say that I haven't met too many boys who will turn down a snack and a yummy mug of tea.) I also have an assortment of tea pots that don't get enough use. And this is a time that we can all look forward to enjoying together at the end of the school day. It is a lot of fun to set out a snack on a nicer plate, use a tea pot we haven't used in a while and take a break from school and chores for a few minutes.

Relationship Reasons
It is fun to sit around and talk while having our Afternoon Tea. We share a plate of veggies, pretzel and some hummus and peanut butter to dip them in. We look each other in the eye. We smile and enjoy the food and company. I want to be in the habit of having times through out the day where I am available to listen to whatever my children need to tell me. I want to give them face to face time starting when they are at their littlest and hoping that whatever stage they go through along the way that I will be there to sit down and have a spot of tea with them.

Afternoon Tea is a great time to invite a friend or neighbor to pop in for a spot of tea and a bit of a chat. It gives my children a chance to play host and an excuse to get-together for an hour, to keep it simple and just make time for people. I love sitting down with a friend over a cup of tea...some of my most favorite moments have happened over a cup of tea.

Side Note
At this point, you may be thinking...lovely sentiment Jen but in this modern age I am driving an SUV of kids around at 3 o'clock and a tea party everyday is just not practical. To this I say, you are right, this may not be for you. But maybe something strikes a chord and you will find your own version of this.

You may also be saying to yourself, this girl obviously watches a lot of PBS and must read a lot of Jane Austen. To this I have to say, "True, true, this is all true!"

Simple Reasons
We have a snack at this time anyway. I like to drink a cup of tea at this time. Why not actually sit down and enjoy the two, rather than standing over the sink as I munch a handful of something. We are not having High Tea every day. We aren't having a plate of cookies and scones, and my kids aren't dumping in large spoonfuls of sugar into their beverages. Tea Parties can definitely turn into guzzling straight sugar parties. We are having a healthful, portioned snack with a cup of chamomile tea (with a little drizzle of honey). Simply put we are stopping to smell the roses, taking the time to look each other right in the face and smile. And building relationships along with healthy eating habits.


In my mind, it's a worthy experiment, and I really hope we can keep it up!

What about the littlest?

Sometimes it is hard to think outside the box when it comes to engaging our little ones in activities. Of course the very best activities are the ones that they can experience right along side you. Little ones learn so much by doing what you are doing.

Most moms also know about the obvious-- sing songs, read stories, teach them to play patty cake and sign language. And really that is just awesome! But if you want to take it up a notch, or if you are looking for additional developmentally engaging activities for your newborn through three-year-old... Here is the perfect book! Wonder Play by Fretta Reitzes and Beth Teitelman

I loved the book Wonder Play -- it has activities for you to do with your baby up to three years old. It includes games, crafts and creative activities that you might not have thought of.

It is true that the book may include some activities and songs you may already know. I still found it helpful to have those activities and songs matched up to appropriate ages to introduce them. Plus I found it helpful to be reminded to do those activities!

Most of these activities and little rhymes are best done spontaneously especially when your baby is young. You will want to either keep the book handy, or create little activity cards that are on a ring. That way you can pick it up, flip to a poem or activity and won't be struggling with the book. You can keep your cards by the changing table or where you feed your baby.

I have enjoyed rediscovering this book in preparation for baby #3.

Mommy and Me Poetry

Enjoying a little "Couch Time" with my girls!

One little activity that my five-year-old and I like to do together is write poems. This is usually a spontaneous activity when we are sharing a little moment of one on one time. CJ usually has a pen and notebook on hand at all times. So when we are inspired... the poetry just flows.

Here are a few ideas for writing poems with your little one:

Create and acrostic. This poem was written when we were learning about Kangaroos. I wrote down commands or imperatives to create the acrostic. The words are leading, or create room for an idea. Then CJ filled in the response or the idea. Here is our poem, My words are black and in bold, her words are pink.

Kangaroo

Keep eating grass

Always follow your leader

Never leave the pouch

Go in the pouch! And stay there!

Ask first to come out.

Remember to stay with your mom.

On occasion, stop for some food at an Oak Tree.

Oh! One more thing... Always keep away from predators.

Then there is always the whatever goes approach. This is a fun way make up a silly poem. For this you can choose a letter and choose words either real or made up for your poem. This next poem has no form, a few rhymes scattered in, but it is all her own. It nothing else it is very expressive!!

Zipity Zackity Zoe

Zackity Zooza

My Father in Heaven loves me!

Zackity Zoo

God loves you!

Nanny  & Poppy, me & Daddy

Have a new baby

Awesome too!

Have a new baby

Zaza Zoo!

Here is one we did together. This was very collaborative. We worked harder on rhyming words. She started out with the opening line. And I helped her pick a word for the last line of each first sentence. She filled in most of it. I let her fly with her ideas and offered a few suggestions.

Snuggle buggle boo!

Mommy loves you!

Snuggle buggle bee!

CJ loves me!

Snuggle Buggle Zipity Zoo!

Daddy loves you!

Snuggle Buggle whee!

Rose loves me!

In the end, I am sure writing poems with your kids has educational value. For us it is a great time spent having fun together. My little one got a chance to express some of her ideas to a willing listener. We got to bond over a few things we both enjoy...snuggling and playing around with words!

Clinging to Imagination

 Here is a sweet and simple activity that my kids love, your kids might like it too.

This is a set of vinyl cling, window decals that were purchased at the dollars store (for a $1). This particular set is a under the sea theme. (And one left over Valentine's Day Heart)

My girls love creating scenes and making up stories with the different pieces. They love moving them around, doing voices of different fishes and pretending together.

As long as you don't mind the decorative finger prints on your windows to go with it... You could get creative and stick these to white boards or other surfaces for them to play on.

However, my kids happen to love washing windows, so that could be a follow up activity!

Just an imagination inspiration that I like A-Latte!

Homeschool Journal

This year I have had the privilege of homeschooling my daughters. One is in preschool and the other is in pre-kindergarten. It has been a lot of fun, and a learning experience for me as well as them!

Discovering their 5 senses.

We started the year by by buying curriculum through Sonlight. We purchased the Kindergarten Multi-Subject Package.  This package is designed for kids age 5 through 7. It came with an enormous amount of books and teaching curriculum. Truth be told I was completely overwhelmed!

Even though we had a 3 and 4 year-old we decided to get the Kindergarten curriculum so that we could use it for more than one year. We also felt that our oldest was ready for the reading, math and handwriting at the Kindergarten level.

It took me a really long time to sort through all the curriculum, and to get a feel for how the teacher's manual was organized. Then I had to pair down the subjects... a lot! This involved a lot of prayer and a lot of chocolate!

And like most journeys, the path we ended up taking was very different from what I thought it would be. But, we are happy, and it is going great!

Here is what we ended up with:
The Kindergarten Package came with:
Horizon's Math- K
Handwriting Without Tears 
The Sonlight Reading Curriculum with the Grade K Readers

We have been using only these three elements for our Pre-Kindergartner. As we suspected, they were just right for her. However, the rest of the curriculum was too advanced and had to be set aside for next year. We will definitely get more than one year out of our purchase.

Then came the surprise. We ended up borrowing the My Father's World Kindergarten Curriculum. We have loved this. We have used that curriculum for our Science, Bible, Letter and weekly theme. This has flowed nicely into our weekly themed book basket we started last year. This was also very easy to use with both girls and they can fully participate at each of their levels.

Rose, our Preschooler has her own set of age appropriate workbooks... more on that later.

Keep the Kids in the Loop!

Around our house there are a few visual reminders of our schedule that the girls can interact with.

The first is a good ol' fashioned chore chart. I found ours in the dollar section of Target. It is a great magnetic, dry erase chart. On it I have written a few chores AKA daily habits that the girls should be completing every day.

Our lists go something like this:
Brush your hair
Brush your teeth
Get dressed
Make your bed
Pick up your room
Put away your clothes.
Make sure there are no toys in the living room.
Help set the table.

*Other chores we could have put on are: Help sort the laundry. Help make the salad or veggies for dinner. 

The other visual reminder is our interactive schedule AKA Day Planner that I made.

This is a kid version of our daily schedule. It is broken down by hours of the day. For each hour there are three Velcro squares. I have laminated picture squares that represent activities we do during the day and the week. Either the night before or that morning we fill in the day with the activities we have planned. We stick the activity pictures into the time slots. It is essentially a photo day planner for kids.

How I did this Project.
1. A list of your families daily, weekly and monthly activities. You will also need a list of people you may visit or see.
2. Find a picture to coordinate with each activity or person. I used photos that I took as well as lots and lots of Microsoft Clipart.
3. Print out your activity squares. You also need to print out the hours of the day in a large font as well as your day planner title.

4. Glue the hours and the title to poster board.
5. Take the poster board and your pages of activity squares to be laminated. (I usually go to Office Depot)

6. Once everything has been laminated, apply the Velcro squares to the poster and the activity squares. (I made our school calendar and our Daily Planner at the same time. So, I made sure that all the squares that went on the poster and the calendar were the fuzzy side of the Velcro. This way the activity squares could be used on both the calendar and the day planner.)

 If there is an even coming up, I will put it on our home school calendar and then move it to our Day Planner the day of. 

7. Apply magnet strips or Command Strips to prepare to mount it to the wall or door.
8. Stick on the Activity Squares for the day and start using it!

A game plan for the day!

There is that age old question every Mamma likes to hear... "What do you do all day?"

Any woman, working outside the home, or staying home, needs to have a plan to get things done. For me, I know that there are basic things that need to happen each day. I find that the best way to ensure that things get done is to plan a time to accomplish them. I created this schedule to act as a guideline for me and my family. The more we stick to it each day, the better things seem to flow.

The trick to a family schedule is to make it structured enough to get things done. But open and flexible enough for it to work! 


For instance... the girls were playing so well this morning I didn't want to interrupt them. We didn't do home school until 1pm!

Here is a day in the life for us....

6:30 - Lights on for Mom and Dad! Wake up, drink a smoothie. Complete chores and Exercise. (This is the early morning ideal that rarely happens)--(See Good Morning Mamma)

7:30 - Start making breakfast. (This is closer to when we actually get up).

8:00 - Family Breakfast at the Table. ~ Do morning devotions, get dressed, make all beds.

8:40 - Dad leaves for work.

9:00 - Chores (for me), Girls get ready for the day and Independent play. (Or help Mamma with the chores)

10:00 - Home School Time!

10:30 - Snack and Craft Time (Or extended Home School)

11:30 - Clean up and independent play until lunch

Noon - Lunch

12:30- Clean up (Load and run the dishwasher)

1:00- Outside play time. (Or hands on Home school Activities or Egg-citing Activity)

2:00- Nap or quiet time. (Usually listening to books on tape in their bed, or doing their leap pad)

3:00- Snack Time & Computer Time (Independent play in the play room)

4:00- 10 minute Tidy- Then movie for the kids while I make dinner. (The girls help set the table and sometimes help with the salad and veggie portion of the meal.)

5:00- Daddy comes home (Although he tends to work evenings) - Welcome daddy, the girls are supposed to bring him slippers and a glass of water. They usually just attack him and freak out.

5:15- Family dinner at the table.

6:00- Clean up after dinner and then 10 minute Tidy

7:00- Start the girl's night time routine.

8:00- Girls in bed.

10:00- Lights out for Mom and Dad. (Mostly)

Keep them Hopping

Here is an EGG-citing project that is perfect for this time of year. This is an activity jar. Inside this jar are eggs that have an activity listed on it.

Here are some objectives accomplished by our EGG-citing Activity Jar:
1. It answers the question... What should I do now? And it is a great alternative to letting them plop down in front of another episode of Strawberry Shortcake.

2. It reminds us of toys, games and activities that they don't play with every day. I intentionally wrote individual games and things that are tucked away in cupboards so that we remember to get them out and use them.

3. All of these activities inspire creativity and family interaction. This is also a great way to break free from boring ruts. We all know that especially when kids are young repetition is a great learning tool for kids. But it is also great to try something new, or rediscover something you have forgotten. And for the adult who is involved, it can be a refreshing change!

How does it work?
At a designated time of day, or when the time is right, get down the jar from it's shelf. Let the children choose one egg. Sometimes we let both of our daughters choose one each. Then decide which activity to do first. Perform the activity and put the completed egg into a separate jar. That way you won't keep pulling the same eggs out of the jar each time.

What do you need to make this project?
1. A large jar. I used an empty Costco sized Animal Cracker container.
2. Eggs or ping pong balls. I made my jar around Easter time. Go to the $1 store and see if you can find something that would work. I was originally going to use ping pong balls but they didn't have them at the dollar store and I couldn't find them for a cheap enough price.
3. An Inventory List of toys and games, and flash cards you want to include on your eggs. You may also want to add things like: Make a puppet show with stuffed animals behind the couch, or Dance Party!, and Put on a play of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
4. A Permanent Marker. Write on each egg one activity.
5. A shelf. Once you have written on all the eggs and put them in your jar, put them up on a shelf. The activity jar is not down where the kids can get into all the time, or dump it all out. I get it down when it is time to do an activity. Keeping it up actually adds to the excitement! 
A few pointers...

*** You may want to keep a time limit in mind. In our jar the average egg activity lasts from 10 to 30 minutes.

*** You may also like to approach your activity jar from a "Jump Start" perspective. Where you as the parent jump start the kid on the activity and then they complete it independently. This works really well if there is some kind of performance at the end. For example, put on a play and then perform it for mommy in 20 minutes. This also works well with activities like play dough.

However, I have found that the time when the eggs come in the most handy is when the girls need some parental interaction. More often than not, after completing their Egg-citing activity they are ready to do some independent play.

Home school Journal- Month One-- Looking back

Searching for the moon!

Well, I thought it would be a good idea to journal how things have been going each month and note a few things I have learned along the way.

Last year we did the Preperatory Curriculum through the Letter of the Week website. This was an awesome program and really helped me get my feet wet as a homeschooling mom.

When I would tell people that I was doing homeschool preschool with the girls I often got a bit of a negative response. People kept saying, well you don't have to do much with preschoolers. This is true. You don't have to plan a full day of school. In fact an hour a few days a week of focused activities would do it. Here is the thing, you have to plan to do it, or else you won't do it.

The Letter of the Week program gave me enough of a structure so that I was motivated to do things with the girls, but flexible enough to work. Each week we had a theme. I would check out books from the library on that theme and then we would read them through out the week. We also had a learning poster that we could add the letter, shape or color, nursery rhyme, verse and vocabulary word to.

Sometimes we would have structured time where we would put everything on our chart. The program was designed to add things to the chart through out the week.  We would ususally add them all in one day, or sometimes they went straight to our poster review book. I made a book of all the pictures and things we would put on our poster. This is great because we can sit on the couch together and review.

There was a lot of trial and error as I went along. We had to get into the habit of school. I had to find out what times my children were most ready to do an activity with me and most ready to learn. After a while we got into a routine of sorts.

Here are a few things that were invaluable to me:

1. Book Basket: For us the best time of learning was just sitting and reading together. On Monday morning I would fill our book basket up with all new library books that focused on our theme. The theme each week was a surprise which really built excitement.
* Since this worked so well for us, I realized that a literature based home school curriculum would probably be the best choice for us in the future.

2. I tried to do field trips that had to do with the theme through out the year. This was great motivation for us to get out and do things as a family. I also rearranged the order some to meet our scheduling needs. We went on a road trip when we were learning about cars. We visited my Aunt who works at an airport when we were learning about Airplanes. We visited a friend who raises rabbits when we were learning about rabbits. We went to a farmer's market and watched someone spin wool to yarn. These out and about, hands on activities were so much fun. With out having the themes in place I would have never thought to go on those field trips.

We got out Daddy's train set the week our theme was trains.

* I really want to keep this active and adventuresome side of learning alive in our homes schooling. So I was looking for a program that would inspire and get us out and about. If I couldn't find it in a program, I wanted to make sure I planned for it myself through out the year.

3. An activity basket. Children (especially preschoolers) can learn so much by doing things with you. These side by side moments pop up through out the day. The more I can involve them in what I am doing, the more they learn. I also learned that keeping an activity basket on hand worked great. When the children needed some kind of activity I would just grab out the paints and craft supplies and we would start crafting. Having crafts and learning activities on hand made it easy to grab something and do it when the timing was right. This worked much better than trying to sit down for a structured school time.

Doing preschool was as much of a practice and preparing me for school as it was for the girls.

I am thankful for this learning year. It really laid the foundation for our second year. I wanted to take our homeschooling to the next level.

5210 Let's Go!

A couple of years ago I came across an article in Parents magazine that highlighted a program to educated parents and children in order to prevent childhood obesity.
5210 stands for a daily standard of what kids should be doing each day to stay healthy.

5- Five fruits and vegetables a day
2- Two- no more than two hours of television/TV/ or video & computer games per day.
1- One hour of physical activity
0-Zero sweets and foods that have no nutritional value.

It was a very small article, but it really caught my eye... what a simple recipe! I used this concept when developing our family schedule. I also wanted a way to keep track and stay accountable to the 5210 guidelines 
So I created and laminated a chart that I could mark off through out the day. This way the whole family could see where we were in each day.

I added a vitamin check list and my chore list to the chart. Whenever I complete any of those tasks I can just mark them off with the dry erase marker.

Now a couple of years later this program has really caught on and gained notoriety. Our local elementary School is doing this program as a school. There are lots of resources you can use to implement this program into your home.
Check it out: 5210 Let's Go!

(Let me know if you would like a chart of your own. I hope to make my charts available on PDF soon! If you want one it will probably make me get it done faster!)

First Day of School

Making Room for School

When you homes school gearing up for school doesn't just include gathering the school supplies and the curriculum. There is a flurry or preparations that resembles the nesting process that many women go through right before child birth.  You have to prepare to prepare to learn... or something like that. 

I wanted to set systems in place so that when we started our new school year thing could just flow. Part of that was creating this space to learn and play.

With any home project, one change can set a domino affect in motion. This seems especially true when you have a small home. All the pieces are fit together perfectly... change one thing and you have to change it all. This is essentially the process of how we transformed Roses bedroom into the school/play room.

 Objectives I had for this space:

1. Corral all the toys and home school supplies in one room. The other room became the bedroom that contains the bunk beds, clothes and stuffed animals. Everything else needed to fit into this room. Having one room for toys has helped the rest of my house stay cleaner. It has also cut down on the time it takes to tidy up.

2. A space for everything and everything in it's place.  We had to purge and pair down to make the amount of toys fit the amount of space we had. I purchased some bigger storage boxes and put tags on them. This way the girls could find them if they want to play with them, and also know where to put them away. Since we need to use this space for school as well. We needed to be able to put a lot of stuff out of sight to minimize distractions.

3. Functional for our needs. My parents had a counter they were no longer using. We installed it on the far wall. This makes a great puzzle and computer work station. We can also do projects at the counter as well.

4. Personalized. I wanted the girls to feel at home in that room. The Ribbon Art Gallery  really helped make that happen. This is a great way to dry art work and display it for all to see.

Weather Station

Welcome to our Weather Station. This is a spot on the front window of our house that CJ can monitor the weather. (I will hopefully be able to make the Weather Report Card available for you to download for yourself soon.) At the Weather Station she can monitor the temperature, and check the clouds and sky. Then based on the information she finds out she can decide what kind of clothes she should wear to go outside. This also gives her a chance to practice writing numbers. 

This has been a fun little activity.
CJ loves to record things on her Weather Report, especially if she notices a change in the weather.
The was really fun when it snowed. 

In addition it has been a great way to watch the transition between the seasons take place. 

The thermometer is a vinyl cling that attaches to the outside of the window. 

I bought it off of amazon for about $6. My only complaint is that it doesn't show all the numbers in between. But, we have used this as a learning tool, and just counted the tick marks in between the larger numbers.

We may have a meteorologist on our hands! Whatever the future may hold, we have a preschooler who is engaged and learning about her surroundings!