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Friday, December 23, 2011

Is it just me?

My older ones are struggling to keep up on their studies. Is it just me? With a houseful of nine kids, there is always activity. I'm trying to figure out a way to keep things quiet with a baby, two preschoolers, a kindergartner and a first grader.
Usually I have an older kid on duty to play with the little kids, but that has digressed to "We don't know what to do, so we'll play hide and seek." Needless to say it's very distracting for the older ones trying to study for exams. TV with us usually brings quiet but the TV itself distracts and the other toddler who we watch during the week wants to play tag even when the TV is on. So I have been looking at catalogs and seeing little people puzzles and games. Those seem like they would help, if an older child was playing with them or if I was.
I can't really leave the school scene too much or they get sidetracked as well. So I'm still working on this. How do I allow for little people to wiggle and be kids and the older ones the ability to concentrate. Anybody have any suggestions?
I'm committing to limiting the TV and to only turning it on after everyone is done with school, but I have to fill the hours with productive and enjoyable work for the little ones.

2 comments:

  1. Steph- what about books on tape? When my little ones were in pre-school they had little rotating stations and one was for quiet arts (coloring, etc) but another one was a quiet story center with picture/story books recorded on tape or cd so that the little ones could listen to the story on headphones and still flip pages and follow along. Maybe the big kids could be the "recording artists" for their favorites for the smaller ones-- my seventh grader Alex just finished researching,writing and illustrating a story about India for a first grader as a social studies project at school and she absolutely loved it. Just a thought---I really enjoy keeping up with your family! Love Helen.

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  2. Thank you, Helen! I appreciate your input. I have an eighth grader who wants to be a writer and a seventh grader who wants to draw, maybe I'll put their talents together and they can come up with something. Another idea for adding to their activities of the day. Always trying to come up with something for that.

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