Category: Lifelong learning

Originally published at tigersquirrels.net. You can comment here or there.

I’ve had a few people wonder how I get everything done on themed days. So here I am explaining:

I made the list of themed days about a month ago and gave it only the tiniest bit of thought as to what I’d be doing for each day at that point. So it comes down to this: every morning I get up, turn on Thomas the Tank Engine for the early rising midkid, and spend about twenty minutes on the internet looking up stuff for the day* (by “stuff” I mean wikipedia entries, worksheets, craft ideas, science experiments for kids, etc). Then I wander the house to see what supplies we have. By that point the rest of the family is up. I feed people, explain what the theme for the day is, and then we start the fun. We do something crafty and I explain facts to them. Then the kids ask bizarre questions and we go back to the computer to look up that info, along with other “stuff” to go with that if it’s interesting.

At some point no one is interested in the theme any more, so we take a break to play outdoors first, eat lunch, then indoor play/reading/rest. After that they’re usually interested in more theme time, so we do something else theme related, like coloring sheets I’ve printed off the internet or building something with legos. By late afternoon the house is a wreck, so we have races to see who can put away the most whatever-is-out. They race, I wash dishes. When someone wins they get something special, like getting to choose what color plate they eat dinner off of or what kind of dinner beverage.

And what does the baby do while all this is going on? Smashing his hands into play-doh or getting paint on his hands or eating construction paper or toppling all the blocks or taking apart the train tracks as fast as the boys lay them down. He’s busy.

*I’ve gone back on the previous themed days and put up links to websites where I got ideas from.