I decided to document everything (most everything at least) we did today with our camera to show what a typical day is like for us. We often have outings (play dates, activities around town, errands) in the mornings but on days when we are here all morning this is what would be pretty typical for us.I thought I would start by showing what Kyle's playroom looks like. The above view is from the doorway area.
This shelf mainly contains toys, mostly store bought (actually, mostly gifts or consignment sale) items. We typically keep one toy item per shelf so that he doesn't get overwhelmed and we rotate toys every few weeks or so. The train, truck, and megablock boxes, musical items/toys, and puppets always stay out though since they allow for more creativity.
This is our workspace area and I absolutely love it. It allows us to get great light and see all that is going on outside our window. We put things up on the window depending on what skill(s) we are more focused on. We are working on shapes right now so we have shape window clings up there. Above the window is a string that we hang Kyle's artwork on.
These shelves are more skill based than the toy shelf. I have various activities that are based on play but allow him to work on various skills at the same time in the shelves and craft items, previous skill activities, etc. located on the top shelf. Most of these activities are replaced every couple of weeks based on interest and skills we are working on. Paints, stamps, markers, and crayons always stay out. Kyle can choose at will which activity he wants to do, and sometimes he doesn't always choose to do all of the ones I put out because he isn't interested or he isn't ready for that skill. I don't push him to do those activities but ask him if he wants to try it every couple of days.
Right in front of one of the shelves is our reading nook. We like to cuddle up and read in this area. It isn't the only area we read in but it is one set aside with rotating books and comfortable pillows to encourage reading.I'll include timeframes as much as possible so you can get a sense of when he does each activity.
Woke up around 8:00 (usually wakes up 7:30-8:00)
Got him out of bed, changed diaper, got dressed around 8:20
Upstairs play/activities until about 9:45 - He finally asked to eat around that time. If we aren't on a time crunch we tend to wait until he asks to eat breakfast before heading downstairs.
Got him out of bed, changed diaper, got dressed around 8:20
Upstairs play/activities until about 9:45 - He finally asked to eat around that time. If we aren't on a time crunch we tend to wait until he asks to eat breakfast before heading downstairs.
Sand Art - Karl started this activity with Kyle a few days ago. He always wants to do it first thing in the morning. He has six colors of sand and he names the colors he wants to use (color recognition), asks us to open them, and then squeezes the sand into this used jelly jar (fine motor skills). He adds a little more each day! The sand and containers to hold it were purchased at Michael's with coupons. The jar is a used jelly jar. It sits in a throw away tin pan which sits in the cardboard bottom of a 24 pack of water. I use those cardboard bottoms for any potentially messy activity (paint, sand, stamps) or ones that have pieces that can easily scatter everywhere (beans).
After doing the sand art and putting it back on the shelf he got it from Kyle then chose this activity. A bunch of beans and ten small pieces of poster board paper with the numbers 1-10 are in this used butter container. The numbers are hidden in the beans. Kyle has to use his measuring spoons and hands (fine motor skills) to pour the beans into the tray in order to find the ten numbers. As he finds them we say the number out loud (number recognition) and he then puts them under the same number on the strip of paper next to his tray (matching). After he has all ten placed in the correct spot we say and point to the numbers in order (number recognition). He then has to use his measuring spoons and hands to put the beans back in the container and hide the numbers again (fine motor skills). On this particular day he only wanted to place the 8, 5, and 10. With my encouragement he placed a couple other numbers but after than he wanted nothing to do with the number part so I didn't force it. Somedays he wants to do it all and other days he doesn't. The trays were bought at Dollar General, beans at a grocery store, and measuring spoons at Wal-Mart.
The next activity Kyle chose was this letter recognition/name recognition/matching activity. Super simple for anyone to make...just save water bottle lids! The black tray was from sliced watermelon bought at the grocery store. I traced around 4 lids and spelled his name by writing the letters K y l and e inside each circle. Then I wrote the same 4 letters of his name on the top of water bottle lids. I mix the lids up and he has to match them to the ones on the paper. We say and point to each letter and say that it spells his name, Kyle, over and over during this. He does this very quickly so it is time to add his last name, Mommy, and Daddy!
After doing the name activity Kyle wanted to play with his puppets (imagination play). Kitty is usually his favorite. Lately he has been pretending that the puppets are doing things that he is actually doing. Today he pretended that Kitty (and then duck, puppy, and rooster) picked up and carried all three chairs across the room, lined them up, and carried them back (gross motor skills). I told Kitty, and the others, how strong he must be to be able to carry all those heavy chairs!
After playing with the puppets Kyle asked for music. He has recently learned how to open the CD player, take CDs in and out, close it, push play, and today he learned how to go to the next song and go back to the previous song (fine motor skills). So, we went through all three CDs our friend Kaleigh has given us, Raffi, the Bathtime songs CD from Aunt Maggie, and all of the others we have (music). We didn't really get to listen to any one song completely....just heard the beginning of all of them! When he was done he put all the CDs back onto the spindle we have them on (fine motor skill). By the way, Amy, he still doesn't like Jonas Brothers! It was after this that he finally said he wanted breakfast.Downstairs
Breakfast prep and eating 9:45ish - 10:30ish
Breakfast prep and eating 9:45ish - 10:30ish
Those who really know Kyle know how much he loves kitchens and being able to help as much as he can. So, of course he wanted to help make breakfast. So, he pulled a chair over and climbed up. Today's breakfast was a leftover waffle from the ones Karl made the day before and pears so I didn't need help. While I was getting it ready for him he busied himself with the spice rack, taking each jar out, shaking them, and telling me when one was empty. After taking them all out he then put them back in. Right about this time his meal was ready and he sat in his chair and ate.Post Breakfast
10:30ish - 12:30ish
10:30ish - 12:30ish
While getting things out for breakfast I noticed that we had a thing of biscuits in the refrigerator so I decided to pop them in the oven and cook them. So, Kyle got to help! When I pulled out this pie pan we reviewed the shape it was and did the same with the biscuits (shape recognition). As Kyle placed each one into the pan we counted them (there were ten) and counted them all again (counting) before we placed them in the oven to cook (cooking skills) and setting the timer. While they were cooking Kyle played in his pretend kitchen that is downstairs. When the timer went off we both put on our oven mitts and he moved away from the oven (safety) as I pulled them out.He wanted to eat the hot biscuits right away so to distract him from that I asked him if he wanted to do water balloons again (he did them the day before for the first time). Of course he did so he pulled a chair up to the sink and dumped all 90 of them on the counter for me. I asked him to choose one for me to fill with water and tell me the color (color recognition). I filled that one and asked for the next. After about three I noticed he was getting antsy while waiting for me to fill them so I gave him 6 cups and asked him to sort the remaining 87 of them by color (sorting, color recognition). He did this for about a quarter of them before dumping them into a big pile. I then asked him to help me count how many we had filled up. He helped me count to seven (counting). I suggested that we make ten and said we would need three more to add to the seven we had to make ten (addition) so he chose three more colors. After finishing the tenth one we counted them all again. I then asked him to put all the remaining balloons into one of the cups. He thought it would be more fun to dump them all over the ground as you see in the picture below.
I then told him he needed to pick them up and put them either into the cup or a ziploc bag before we would go outside and throw them down on the ground. He smiled and walked around them to spread them around more. I told him I would be getting dressed and ready to go outside while he picks them up and reminded him that we couldn't go outside until they were picked up. I go and get ready and he went back to play with his toys. I was ready and told him I would be in my room (door open allows me to see his play area downstairs) until he had done what I asked and was ready to go outside. He decided to not pick them up still and, instead, dumped out all of his play food, sat in the basket it was in, then tasted and sorted the pieces of food. After about 8 minutes of me lying on the bed resting and watching him do this he came to me and said, "Outside." I reminded him that we couldn't go outside until he picked up all the balloons. He said, "Mommy help." I told him I wouldn't help him pick them up because he made the mess by dumping them on the floor so he had to pick them up but I would hold the bag open for him (responsibility). He accepted this and off to the kitchen we went. He put one in the bag then began to scatter them all over. At this point I was ready to pick them up and be done with this but knew it was important for him to do it. So, I made it a bit more fun by asking him to find me the four blue balloons (color recognition, counting). He got a big smile and began looking for them and put them all in the bag as I counted them. I then asked for 6 green. He did the same with green. After that he began to grab handfuls of balloons (picture below) and we got the rest quickly put away. After putting on shoes, hat, and sunscreen we then took our water and water balloons and headed outside!
Kyle began throwing the balloons down but wasn't getting any to splash. They would bounce and roll back down to him because of the slight incline we have in our driveway. He thought it was a lot of fun to catch them because they bounced around so much. He was running all over the place to get them (gross motor skills) and I explained to him why they kept rolling to him (science). After a while he started getting them to splash and we took turns tossing them on the ground. When we finished those ten we picked up the pieces, naming the colors of course, and went in to make more.
Kyle put his sticker from the pirate exhibit the day before on his face....wonder why he wanted it there.
After our second round of water balloons Kyle took a break to check out the plant next to our driveway. He pulled off a few of these berry type things. I talked to him about not pulling things off plants because of them being living things and them needing all their parts to grow strong (science in toddler language) but I still don't think it has sunk in.
Kyle then put the berry things down this drainage pipe we have (fine motor skills).
When we got our third batch of water balloons out Kyle tried a new method to make them pop open (experimentation) and found that this was successful, too!
He wanted to bring out his ball popper and Elmo truck this time. He pretended the ball popper was a vaccum cleaner and vaccumed up the remaining water balloons and the pieces that were still out (imagination) before going up and down the driveway with the ball popper (gross motor skills).
After the ball popper came the Elmo truck. He first played with all the little knobs and buttons on it that can be turned and pressed to make music and sounds (fine motor skills) and then drove his truck backwards up the driveway while saying "Bye mommy" then zoomed back down, lifting his feet at the end to get some good speed!
12:30ish - 1:30ish
After all our adventures we came in to cool off and watched a Barney video about reading. He doesn't watch much TV. At most he will watch one Barney video a day, if that, usually after being active and busy outside for a long time or while I am cooking dinner. After Barney he ate lunch and around 1:30 we headed upstairs to get ready for nap. He fell asleep around 2:00 and slept until almost 5:30!!! That is not typical. Lately he has been sleeping two hours during his nap, between two and three at the most.5:30-7:15ish
On this particular day we went over to our friends' (Amy, Kaleigh, and Brynn) house for dinner. It worked out perfectly because both Karl and her husband were golfing and wouldn't be home for dinner. By the time we got there it was 6:00 and her girls had already eaten so the kids played for a while before Kyle and I sat down to eat just after 6:30, followed by a bit more play.
7:15ish-9:15ish
Kyle and I headed to Target to get a few things then met up with other friends, Michelle and Amina, to listen to a free outdoor concert. I don't think Kyle has ever been out this late at night but since he slept till 5:30 and he was having such a great time I figured no harm in it since he wouldn't be going to sleep anyway.
9:15ish-10:00ish
Headed home, bath, teeth, got dressed, read 'Naked Baby' and 'Goodnight Moon' and tucked Kyle into bed. Good night to him! :)
Our usual afternoon/evening is when he wakes up from his nap at 4:00. He plays independently with me nearby at that time (I am watching one show that I like to watch then) and around 5:00-5:30 we start preparing dinner so that we can eat around 6:00/6:30. We tend to make phone calls to family members after dinner then play inside as a family, water plants, play outside in the yard, hang out with the neighborhood kids, go for a bike ride until about 8:00. Around that time we begin his nightly routine and get him to bed by 8:30. The timing of all of our afternoon/evening stuff shifts up and down based on what time he wakes up from his nap.
Our usual afternoon/evening is when he wakes up from his nap at 4:00. He plays independently with me nearby at that time (I am watching one show that I like to watch then) and around 5:00-5:30 we start preparing dinner so that we can eat around 6:00/6:30. We tend to make phone calls to family members after dinner then play inside as a family, water plants, play outside in the yard, hang out with the neighborhood kids, go for a bike ride until about 8:00. Around that time we begin his nightly routine and get him to bed by 8:30. The timing of all of our afternoon/evening stuff shifts up and down based on what time he wakes up from his nap.
So, that is a day in the life of Kyle when we don't go anywhere in the morning. If we do go somewhere there is just less of all of the stuff we did before lunch. I am loving this age he is at because it allows me to use more of my teacher skills and because he is just able to do so much more now. Something new is added to his list of "Can Do" every day it seems like! Hope you enjoyed getting an in depth peek into our day to day life!
