Gracie's school time

So how do you keep a toddler busy and entertained while schooling older siblings? Well, I have been working on figuring that out!! I try to have several activities for Gracie that are "school only" activities. Meaning, they are meant for busy work and learning for her, to keep her occupied while Mommy works with Luke and Ben. Of course the boys also love most of these activities. They take turns working with Gracie while I work with the other one alone on school work.

Several of these activities I have in Ziplock bags in a drawer that Gracie can reach. That way she can pick an activity of her choice.(I have found that if I use the bags with the actual zip closure Gracie can put the activities away by herself.)

Here are some of our favorites so far.

Transferring pom-poms with tongs. (When the boys do this we up the difficulty and make them sort colors with their non-dominant and dominant hand to increase that fine motor strength for writing, or the boys use tweezers and smaller items like rice to manipulate and transfer.)


Helping Mommy make brownies. I mean, you already know how much this little girl loves chocolate right?? :)


(Okay so this is not an activity, but it is one of Gracie's favorite past times- stealing water out of Mommy's cup when she is busy and not looking! P.S Have I told you how much this little girl loves hats?)



Spooning "jingle bells" into a bowl and then pouring them into a cookie sheet to make lots of noise. Or she pours them into a paper towel or TP roll. She also spoons them into jars of different shapes with lids to shake and make noise. She loves trying to find the right lids for different size/shaped jars too.



Playing with Water: I fill up a bowl in the sink with water. Gracie uses a measuring spoon to transfer the water into a measuring cup and then she pours it back into the bowl. (She also does this with a bowl of rice, but I find water is easier to clean up that little rice kernels!) I am also going to try this activity soon with a sponge, so she can learn to soak up water and squeeze it out, or a baster or medicine dropper.....but we haven't tried those yet!



Peg Board. This is one of the best investments I have made for our school so far. Gracie LOVES this peg board. She will sit and be entertained by it for quite awhile (and so will the boys for that matter!) When the boys use the peg board we work on making patterns and some addition and subtraction.




This is the first time Gracie had the peg board all to herself. She immediately sorted the colors and stacked them all by herself. Smart cookie!! (the picture is from my cell phone so it is a bit blurry!)


Gracie loves the shape/color sorting puzzle as well.



Gracie loves to sort things. She has her own set of Memory Game cards that she spreads out and finds matches. Play dough, coloring, and sorting beads by color are also favorite activities but they require a bit more attention from Mommy since she is still in the "putting things in her mouth stage". Sometimes I just give Gracie a towel or washcloth and ask her to "clean" (furniture, windows, etc.) She loves being Mommy's helper!

This is what Gracie did by herself when left with a bowl of marbles and a board of Chinese checkers!



So, those are a few of our ideas so far. We would love to hear any ideas you have to share too!

(P.S I got a lot of these ideas by just searching for preschool activities online. Even though they are designed for preschool most can be modified for toddlers! :))