Category: Development

5 FREE Outings for a Classroom Like Experiences

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Every morning Josiah asks me the same question, “Mom, where are we going today?”  He loves getting out of the house and as a stay-at-home mom I do too! I actually need to get out of the house or else I’ll go crazy.

I want to give Josiah a feel for preschool even though I am keeping him home. It’s valuable for our kids to learn social implications that accompany classroom like experiences.

My top FREE freeschool outings for a classroom like experience are:

  1. Library story times
  2. Church Sunday school
  3. Bible study and Mom’s groups where the kids have teachers and a curriculum
  4. Community center kid craft times
  5. Home Depot & Lowes kids’ workshops

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These experiences all have an adult teacher figure and other students. Your little will have to learn to follow instructions, deal with distractions in the classroom, participate appropriately, and abide by the rules.

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These experiences and the skills they produce are vital to your child’s development and future success.  Kindergarden readiness is the goal.  Consider every experience you can give your little a step towards the end goal.

8 Developmental Benefits to a Responsibility Chart

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As our little grow up, we must impart responsibilities on them. They actually crave it.  They see the grown ups doing chores and want to contribute to the family as well.

As soon as Josiah could walk, he wanted to help me vacuum. His little hands would grab on to the bottom of the handle and he’d push with me. Of course, this took much longer than I would have liked, but he was engaged and excited. He was contributing.

Now that he is three, he has a responsibility chart. He loves it.  Every day he checks to see what he has to do.  He’s so honest when it comes to putting up magnets for his accomplishments (and short comings).  He is motivated to help, knowing that he will get a magnet at the completion of a task.

We don’t reward Josiah for his responsibilities because we believe that’s just part of being part of the family, but the satisfaction of a job well done is reward in and of itself.

Benefits of a responsibility chart:

  1. Develop self-awareness
  2. Accountability
  3. Clear expectations
  4. Creates structures
  5. Develops awareness of surroundings
  6. Gross motor skills as tasks are accomplished
  7. Fine motor skills and tracking (early literacy skill)as chart is filled in
  8. Self-confidence for a job well done

We love and highly recommend our Melissa & Doug Responsibility Chart.  It includes pre-made magnets for both chores and behavior issues which has proven to be extremely beneficial to Josiah.  However, Target currently has these charts for $3 each. If you want to test the waters, I’d recommend hitting up the Target dollar section before they are all gone.

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