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I am working on my schedule for the upcoming year and I am planning on assigning time with each older child to play with the youngest one. I wanted to mix up their days so they don't have to do puzzles every day or read books every day. I wanted to mix in some learning videos so they are entertained but also are learning a little as they go. Do any of you have any recommendations? I have LeapFrog and others like that. I also saw someone post that they keep special toys/cabinets that the children can only play with during school time. Any ideas for how to entertain the little guys without them tearing the house apart would be great!

Mary

I have a dd2 and I have some plastic drawers set up and have activities in them for her - some are store bought type things others are homemade or stuff from around the house - she loves the dry erase markers so we put those in there with an eraser and a small board, we have some tongs with a tin foil pan that she uses to move the pompoms around, those counting/sorting bears, blocks, beads - the large wooden ones that she won't swallow, lacing cards - some I found online to print with shoe laces, books, colors, matching game (I used the foam shapes on a piece of cardstock and she matches them) she loves stickers so she has a notebook for stickers and she just randomly sticks them inside however she wants (sometimes she sticks them all over herself lol - I just get random cheap stickers like the garage sale dots and stars and such, puzzles, magnets on a cookie sheet, I am going to order some foam type stuff that has shapes and colors and numbers and different things - we are going to start Little Hands in the fall when she turns 3 and we are going to take our time and go through it so some things to keep her learning while playing...also I found some different types of printables online and I have some shape punches like a tree and a punch for leaves and I set her at the table and give her the pieces and she glues it all on.

I have found that if I put the toys away out of reach then they are much more entertaining. I took my linen closet and turned it into a toy storage area. I bought the plastic shoe boxes and a few larger plastic boxes. I sorted toys and labeled them. I pull them out one bucket at a time and rotate. It really helps to have a plan for the littles just as much as the older ones. These are some of the things I have for my almost 2 and 4 yr old: plastic counting bears with medicine cups, lacing beads, magnetic dolls, magnetic letters (use with a cookie sheet pan), pipe cleaners( weave into a collander and let them pull them out), pom poms with mini cupcake pan to sort and tongs, stacking pegs(from Lauri-My Fathers world sells these), mini dinosaurs. I also grouped up some of the leapfrog toys we have like a picnic basket, letter factory, animal farm magnet set. Oh and the favorite toy of all is a egg carton with easter eggs in it. I put a few snacks in some of the eggs and then put a few random things in the others.
We also do blanket time and I have boxes that have a grouping of toys for this time. Things like a puzzle, board book, baby doll, stacking buckets. You know all the toys that need to keep their pieces together to be played with. That's the type of toys we have in these. I have 6 of these buckets with numbers on them and we rotate them each day.

My little ones schedule looks like this:
Table time (bucket activity) they each get a separate bucket and have to stay in their kitchen table seat. I teach my oldest English and dictation during this time. (30 mins)
Blanket or table time (depending on how well it's going) swap activity. (30 mins) I teach my younger son English/ Dictation
Playroom with a snack (listen to CD music) This is in a room right off from our living room where we are at and do a long school session (45 min) The snack helps occupy them and take longer. I prop our leather ottoman up against the doorway to remind them to stay in the room but I can still hear them well.
Preschool with both littles (30mins)
Bucket activity in Dining room on rug (30 mins) I teach math to one child while one gets the littles started on activity
Swap activity (30 mins) I finish teaching math then make lunch. They play and clean up their activity.
Lunch and clean up
Then finally NAPTIME for the youngest!
My almost 4 yr old naps sometime, has roomtime for almost an hour, I read to her during sometime in the afternoon and then she watches something like Dora or super why.

I also got alot of ideas from this blog post http://www.largefamiliesonpurpose.com/2 ... on-in.html

Amy,
Thanks so much for the link to the blog! She is full of great information! I can see I have some planning to do. We had started out well last year but I have gotten very slack in letting them just do whatever they want during our school time, which as you probably know, results in more fights, discipline and interruptions. Time to pull in the reigns a bit! We can certainly start training for this over the summer and we should be ready to go by the fall.

Thank you for the help!
Mary

There is a lot of great threads on this (but hard to search for). Here's one: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10601&p=77197