Last week was a nice week of finishing up some simple projects, reading fun books, and generally having a relaxing time. One of our projects was to reorganize my youngest's toys and incorporate some personal responsibility in school. I found this system at Ikea (one of my favorite places for fun organization finds) and my wheels began to turn. "I realized I am teaching my youngest ones to play."
Those are the words a friend of mine confessed last week and I was struck by those words. In the chaos of juggling school there are moments when I feel more like Elastigirl from the Incredibles than Shelley. During those times, my youngest has taken to a new habit of going outside to play. Now this isn't a completely bad thing UNTIL I realized he was outside more often than not! Uh oh I was teaching him to play instead of teaching him to finish what he started. I needed to retrain this habit. My friend was speaking of how the workbox system has been helpful for her and so I began to read a little more and then began to tweak it. What I decided to do is buy 6 green bins. Each bin has an item of school that Ben can work on independently. I might put a book in one bin and a coloring page with crayons in another; his math workbook and a story he can read. On each item I wrote directions on a post-it note explaining what he needed to do. Each night I "pack" the bins and have been enlisting Ben to help keep the excitement.
By the way, the labels were my son's idea. Maybe I really am rubbing off on my kids!
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