What does Structured Time Look Like at the Palmer’s Home.
The Palmer “kid school”
Today I went to “kid school”. That is what my grandchildren call their structured family learning time. It usually starts around 9:30 but today it started at 10:30 because the mentor for today, me, was running late!
Jodie uses a piece of rolling luggage for her Spark Station. There are two reasons that she does that. One, it doesn’t take much to fill and two, it moves from the bedroom to the family room easily. Today she had added the book Ginger Bear to her Spark Station. It is Jack and Maggie’s favorite book and is usually on the library shelf. Today it was in The Sprk Station because the last time they read it Jodie told Jack that grandma knows how to make ginger bears. He promptly called me, with help from mom, and asked me if I would come and make ginger bears. So today I went.
I want to share how their “kid school” goes. First, everyone goes into the family room. They all choose a hat from the pegs on the wall. Then they sing the Hello song. Hello to Maggie, were so glad to see you……
Maggie “painting” her bear
Then we all trooped into the kitchen to make ginger bears. We started by reading the book. Jack and Maggie would shout out all the parts they knew by heart, especially the “NO HORACE” parts. Even Mary, the nine months old got
Mary, minus the book
involved grabbing the pages and bending them just a tad!
We passed dough all around (yes I had made it ahead. I calculated my energy level you know!) Then we patted and rolled and cut out our
Putting raisin eyes on the ginger bears
ginger bears. Raisin eyes were added. They were painted with egg white paint for a shiny look and so the sprinkles would stay on. Then they were cooked two at a time while another batch of two was made. We had a wonderful time. It was really fun.
Our next “subject” was science. Jack and Maggie have a dear friend who just
Letting Balloons Fly
had a 90th birthday party. He gave them a HUGE bunch of helium filled balloons. We took the balloons to the front yard and cut them from their strings one at a time. As they flew into the air I had a “Familiar conversation with Jack, who is two and Maggie, who is four. It went something like this. “Do you know why
Maggie and Jack
the balloon flies into the air? Well, it has gas inside called Helium. It makes the balloon go up.” That’s it, that’s all there was to science today. Well, there was also lots of laughing and giggling going on.
We returned to the family room, gathered in a circle of sorts and sang the goodbye song. Goodbye, so long, farewell my friends…… And so ends another “kid school” day at the Palmers. It lasted about one hour and forty minutes. Most days it lasts about thirty minutes.
Maggie licking up sprinkles
When mom says, “Its time for “kid school”, Jack jumps up and down yelling Yeaaaaaaaa and Maggie grins ear to ear. They LOVE “kid school”, they love their mom who is present with them, they love the consistency and knowing what to expect. The structure is always the same but the content is always a surprise. They LOVE it!
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