Monday, February 9, 2015

Touchable Tuesday: Tot School Busy Boxes



Tot School with toys! 

I finally got around to putting together some busy boxes for my busy boy!  Play is the best type of school for toddlers.  I've been meaning to pull together a collection of busy boxes for awhile now, to keep Jaren busy while I do about an hour of morning school activities with his sister.  Ever since I started these Tot School boxes, Jaren has been quite content to go in the living room and play- for sometimes up to twenty minutes at a time!  It was worth the effort of pulling it all together!
 



I found some pretty boxes at Costco awhile back and decided to use them for our Tot School Busy Boxes.  We have enough toys, manipulatives, and books that it was fairly easy to pull them all together.  Each box contains two toys or manipulatives, one interactive book, and one educational DVD. 






They are easily stackable, so I keep them all on a top shelf of my linen closet for easy access during our morning school time.  I started out with six boxes, but I found that I had so much that I could easily do twelve- so I now have twelve Tot School Busy Boxes that I rotate through each week.  Some days, Jaren needs two boxes because he isn't as entertained for as long by the toys as usual.  Having twelve gives us plenty of variety.

Jaren is used to the routine now.  We start out the morning with breakfast all together, both kids and I, and read our Bible story and/or devotional.  Then, I will get out Jaren's busy box so that he can be entertained while I do some focused school time with Joelle (reading out of different subject books, phonics practice, and a little math) for half an hour to one hour.  The busy boxes have been working so well at holding Jaren's attention so that he is not constantly interrupting us anymore.

Enjoying his stackable construction vehicles set


Filling a container with pom-poms.  One of my home-made games for him.  He loves this!


Cutting some sliceable fruit!  Great fine motor practice!


Stringing some large beads on pipe cleaners.  He was concentrating very hard on this!


Figuring out the shape and color sorting mice.  He still doesn't always get these, but he loves playing with them anyway!

Jaren is so familiar with the routine now, he will stand by the counter and ask me for one of his toys after our breakfast time together.  I give him one toy at a time, and he knows to take it to the living room and play with it by himself.  He also will put it all back in the gallon bag and bring it back to me, and ask for his next toy, when he is finished.  I'm amazed at how quickly he caught on to this whole routine.  I think he enjoys the busy boxes because he recognizes that they are something special just for him.  Joelle has asked to play with the toys too, and I've told her she is allowed to once school time is over.  But, we only take out one or two boxes a day- and only one toy or book at a time. 

I have a DVD in each box, but I've been surprised that I rarely have to use it.  Normally Jaren is very well entertained by the toys and books- which makes me very happy!


Nesting barrels.  Nesting toys are one of his favorites!

Exploring objects from the red bag.  Another home-made toy from my collection.


Of course, we always include him in some creative art time at least once a week.  The kids love painting time together!


Joelle doing a painting project, filling in her sight words with paint from an eyedropper.  This was super fun for her!


Jaren enjoys painting always!
Tot School Busy Boxes are a success for my family!  What have you done with your toddler to keep them busy?
 
Want one of the items you saw here?  Check in my Amazon store for many of the toys and books shown in this post http://astore.amazon.com/homerevimom-20
 
 


2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the cute ideas!! Where did you get the shape and color sorting mice?

    ReplyDelete

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