Today’s guest blogger is Kaitlyn, a former 1st grade teacher turned stay-at-home mom to a spunky little 2-year old girl. She brings her love of the classroom and all things education “home” to her little on their RV where they live full-time. Kaitlyn loves to share how she makes school simple and meaningful in her small space over at The Stay-at-Home Teacher.
As a former teacher-turned-SAHM (stay at home mom), I’m often asked how I approach learning with my 2.5 year old daughter. There are so many methods and opinions about how and when to start teaching, but my motto is this – let them play to learn. Playing is where the magic happens!
Some of my very favorite go-to resources to use with my little one come from amazing Special Education teachers. These teachers know that developmentally appropriate, hands-on activities are a game changer in a child’s learning. One of my favorite examples is this Basic Skills Task Box set from Michaela.
These Basic Skills task boxes are ANYTHING but “basic”. Michaela included so many fundamental skills for little learners! From colors and shapes, to emotions and science tools – she thought of it all!
There are so many different boxes included in this set, and I truly wish I could have every single one of them prepped and ready to go! Unfortunately, our family is very limited on space as we are full-time RVers and travel several times a year. So to make these boxes work for us, I only print and prep a few skills at a time.
I keep the prepped task cards stored in the obsession-worthy Iris photo boxes. I keep several prepped boxes ready to go until my daughter has shown she is ready to move on to new skills. Then, I store those cards in baggies to switch out at a later time and fill the boxes back up with new skills. This allows me to keep her learning fresh by rotating skills and makes it easier for me to store all the materials in such a small space.
We have found lots of ways to play with these task cards! (YES – I said “play”!) Some of our favorites include:
- Taping or placing the small cards around the room to find on a scavenger hunt.
- Adding cards to our sensory bins to dig for and match up.
- Playing “Memory” by turning all the cards upside down and flipping over to find matches.
Just like the skills included, the possibilities for playing and learning with this amazing set of task boxes are endless!
Be sure to follow Kaitlyn at @thestayathometeacher
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