Several of my subscribers have inquired about our daily schedule, a description of a typical day and also planning techniques. Occasionally these emails pull my heart strings, especially when a well meaning mom is really hard on herself about whether or not she's doing enough with her child. My answer is simple. You are doing your best if you are being the most loving, caring and attentive mom you can be. That's the standard I have set for myself. Am I perfect? No. Am I intentional? Indeed I am. My goal is nothing more than to be the best mom to Little as possible. Although her development will occur with or without me, I intentionally provide opportunities to support it e.g. emotional, social, cognitive, linguistic, physical because I firmly believe environment shapes intelligence.
In terms of planning, I encourage moms to keep those areas of development in mind. Though I have tried, I don't follow a lesson plan or strict schedule for two reasons:
1. I don't like to feel limited or pressured.
2. She's only 15 months.
I've found it easiet to set learning goals, create and organize activities according to the aforementioned categories, then simply make activities available for exploration. Although people may think I spend globs of time lecturing, I don't. I do however model when neccessary and most times that is in the form of very quiet deliberate movement rather than saying anything at all. Once I have an activity, I provide an invitation to play, shelf activity or pretend play together. I make it a point to always observe and seize teachable moments.
During the school year, I work three days a week and the other four days are spent with Little. Two of those days are week days during which we spend time together either out about the town or home. Our day usually starts early which I particularly prefer because I like to allow her to explore her prepared environment as much as possible before we go out. On days with outings we leave in time to return for nap. Now that it's summer, we spend 3 days home and no more than two days out and about. Weekends are reserved for family time and preparing for our week ahead.
On a day with no outings if I had a written schedule it would look like this:
7:30 am Self Care/hygiene/dressing
8:00 am Breakfast
8:30 am Self Care (hand washing/toilet check)
8:45 am Presentations/self-selected learning stations/reading
10:00am Snack Time/hygiene
10:15am Free Play/Self selected Sensory Work (art, water play, playground, etc.)
11:15am Lunch
11: 45am Self Care/hygiene/relax/read
12:15-2:30pm nap
2:30pm Self Care/hygiene/snack
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Bedtime routine (bath/hygiene/music/books)
7:30 Sleep
Here's an example of a typical day with an outing. We wake up, take care of hygiene and have breakfast. This particular morning our breakfast was watermelon. We talked about its attributes such as the color red, wet, sweet and I allowed Little to eat with her hands so she could absorb all the knowledge this sensory experience had to offer.
In terms of planning, I encourage moms to keep those areas of development in mind. Though I have tried, I don't follow a lesson plan or strict schedule for two reasons:
1. I don't like to feel limited or pressured.
2. She's only 15 months.
I've found it easiet to set learning goals, create and organize activities according to the aforementioned categories, then simply make activities available for exploration. Although people may think I spend globs of time lecturing, I don't. I do however model when neccessary and most times that is in the form of very quiet deliberate movement rather than saying anything at all. Once I have an activity, I provide an invitation to play, shelf activity or pretend play together. I make it a point to always observe and seize teachable moments.
During the school year, I work three days a week and the other four days are spent with Little. Two of those days are week days during which we spend time together either out about the town or home. Our day usually starts early which I particularly prefer because I like to allow her to explore her prepared environment as much as possible before we go out. On days with outings we leave in time to return for nap. Now that it's summer, we spend 3 days home and no more than two days out and about. Weekends are reserved for family time and preparing for our week ahead.
On a day with no outings if I had a written schedule it would look like this:
7:30 am Self Care/hygiene/dressing
8:00 am Breakfast
8:30 am Self Care (hand washing/toilet check)
8:45 am Presentations/self-selected learning stations/reading
10:00am Snack Time/hygiene
10:15am Free Play/Self selected Sensory Work (art, water play, playground, etc.)
11:15am Lunch
11: 45am Self Care/hygiene/relax/read
12:15-2:30pm nap
2:30pm Self Care/hygiene/snack
5:30 Dinner
6:00 Bedtime routine (bath/hygiene/music/books)
7:30 Sleep
Here's an example of a typical day with an outing. We wake up, take care of hygiene and have breakfast. This particular morning our breakfast was watermelon. We talked about its attributes such as the color red, wet, sweet and I allowed Little to eat with her hands so she could absorb all the knowledge this sensory experience had to offer.
I have an assortment of sensory bags I've prepared. Before going outside, I grabbed the "water play" bag because I'd planned to talk about wet/dry, and revisit the concepts of sinking/floating and pouring.
Once done, I changed her clothes and we spent time in the LOS which is set up according to areas I mentioned before. It also has self care, music, and cultural activities all of which I prepare and rotate at least once every two weeks. This morning Little chose the toothpicks and clay from the fine motor shelf. She wasn't very interested in molding, instead she spent about 10 minutes poking the toothpicks into the molding clay.
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As I observed, I noticed she matched the toothpick and clay by color which is actually a great pre math skill. It also covers problem solving, visual discrimination and concentration skills.
The next activity she chose was from the Language shelf. She spent about three minutes matching the replicas of fruit to the pictures. We talked about the fruit and their physical properties: color, shape, texture, etc.
The next activity she chose was from the Language shelf. She spent about three minutes matching the replicas of fruit to the pictures. We talked about the fruit and their physical properties: color, shape, texture, etc.
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Afterwards, we went to a neighboring town for toddler story time at the library. If you have one in your area, you really should take advantage of it because these story hours are great oral language experiences. During what seems like 30 minutes of singing, reading and baby dancing a variety of pre-reading skills are covered e.g. rhyming, reading, music and rhythm, directional words and many more. As you can see, she was quite involved.
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Then off to the park we went to play, which translates to me as gross motor development. Little tested her newly acquired walking skill as much as she could. She ran, climbed, crawled, and even took the time out the smell the White Clover she noticed. Well, you know me, I seized the moment! Of course I named the flower, and used the time to review the word aromatic from our sensory vocabulary. Gotta love those teachable moments!
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The day progresses very quickly. During all of this action, we count, measure, name, investigate, and test things all throughout the day.
Originally posted on July 2014 on my former blog.
Originally posted on July 2014 on my former blog.
So much love and fun!
~Witty Little's Mom
