Helping toddlers grasp their ever changing world. This helped channel big emotions during our move. I recommend this project to all families going through major transitions, but let’s face it, learning about the flow of time and the rhythm of their day and week is essential to the healthy adjustment of all little ones. After a move, it provides a great opportunity to discuss with your kids what hobbies and habits they expect to keep from their previous home sweet home. I use as many actual photographs as possible so that it is quickly recognized by my little cupcake. What, you have no photos, you say? Get out the selfie stick and make discovering your new neighborhood a fun family activity.
First we started with the daily routine. You’ll see these permanently glue-sticked across the top of the board. The day begins with reading books in bed while she waits for a grown-up to come get her grin, eating breakfast, watering the plants, eating lunch, nap time, tea time, a blank space for an afternoon activity, picking up toys, eating dinner, reading a bedtime Bible story as a fmaily, talking about our day, and bed time.
Then we added movable weekly activities hung with sticky-tack. This helps her anticipate ongoing events like church night, market day, skype with grandparents, and mommy-daughter-date-night. This became even more important when she would request something “right now” and I could walk over to the calendar and draw it in that way we could do something concrete “right now” even though the activity wouldn’t take place for a couple days.
I’ve been looking for a giant white-board to stick my photos to. It would be nice to have write-on-wipe-off ability in between the regularly occurring events. But since I’m not willing to spend any money, I’ve resorted to printing little photos of even the one-time events. It keeps in the spirit of the actual photo representations, but it sure keeps me on my toes.
Every moment is a Montessori moment.