Preschool and Totschool Routine

You may have noticed a plethora of preschool posts over the Easter break.  This is because I have wanted to nudge the little ones into a routine and I needed to work on finding some activities which were easy for them to do by themselves.  We have always had a strict routine, ever since the older ones were first born.  With three under a year, it seemed the only way to cope.  We have thrived ever since.  When B2 came along, she was an entirely different kind of baby, beating to her own drum.  We have very slowly been inching her towards a rhythm which meets her needs whilst fitting in with the rest of the family.  It has been slow progress.  However, things seem to be finally falling into place.

This is how our schedule has looked for a few weeks for my pre-schoolers:

Before 830am:     Dress, bedroom chores and breakfast

830-900am:           Snack and morning meeting

900-930am:           B2 goes for a walk with Granny to feed the ducks

A4 does phonics and maths with me

930-1030am:   

Monday: Young Scientists at Play- a one hour opportunity to play scientists, complete with goggles and lab coat:

I have many, many ideas for an hour of science fun every Monday.

Tuesday: Young Artists at Play – an opportunity for open-ended art play where the focus is on the process not the product.

Wednesday: Young Inventors at Play – this will be glorified junk modelling for an hour, again process not product.  I will save rubbish each week for them to use and supply them with glue, tape, double-sided tape.  This will mean that each week will be different depending on the rubbish collected:

Thursday: Young Explorers at Play – This will be an opportunity for my little ones to explore something.  It might be water, magnets, sand dough, volumes and weights.  Again, as with all these one hour sessions I will provide the material, they need to simply explore.  They will learn the properties of water through play, magnets, through play.  I will not be giving any instruction or lesson.

Friday:  Young Naturalists at Play – This will be slightly different to the other Young People at Play sessions in that it will be task driven.  It will be an opportunity for preschool gardening, growing of seeds, nature exploration and anything else I can think of that has anything remotely to do with nature.  They are used to taking part in our pond study, but I wanted something less overwhelming for them, nature study for my littles with a bit of gardening thrown in for good measure.

1030-1000:

Everyone outside for play

1100-1200am:

B4FIAR activities with one of the older children.  This will include more directed play all linked into the chosen theme to go with the B4FIAR book.  It will be mostly tray activities:

1200-1230pm:         We will all have lunch, cooked by one of the older children

1230-100pm:            I will put B2 to bed for a nap, whilst A4 helps the older girls with

lunch time clear up.

100-200pm:             B2 asleep

          A2 in quiet time in my room, with quiet time basket:

200-400pm:            Everyone free to do whatever they want, within reason!

400-500pm:            Little girls have special time with Daddy, whilst I do hands on school

with the older ones

I know schedules don’t suit everyone, but they have always worked really well for us.  There has been a collective sigh of relief from everyone, including Gary and myself.  Life is returning to ‘normal’, whatever that means.  I’ll be posting my older one’s schedule in a few days, but that is also working a treat!