Centers!

The kids had no school today.

Thank you, Dr. King, for what you did for our country.

But what to do? I was NOT about to take 4 kids out for fun -

stressing about being home every 1 1/2 hours for naptime

(yes, he sleeps that often!)

By 9:30, I could tell it was going to be a LONG day -

a very LOOOOOOONG day if I did not do something to entertain these kids.

A light bulb clicked on - CENTERS!!

William often tells me about how he did "centers" at school and how much he enjoys them.

For those who aren't familiar, the idea is simple. Just set up different activities for the kids to do around the house, and rotate every 10 - 15 minutes (or as needed!)

We had 5 different centers this morning:

Reading

Wipe-Off Activity Boards

Art

Spelling

Yogo Math (sorting and counting Yogos by color)

It was a HIT! William was so excited to help get the centers all ready. The kids rotated every 12 minutes and we had a fun, quiet hour, with the kids all working independently.

Took a break for a couple of hours (I had a lunch meeting) and then shortly after getting back home, they were literally BEGGING to do MORE centers!

So this afternoon we did:

Building (blocks & legos)

Reading (yes, again - we love books!)

File Folder Games

Puzzles

Art (again!)

Play-doh

Jello Jiggler Making with Mom

All while listening to some fun kid music!

There are SO many different things you can do for this! The kids LOVED it, had a fun day where we even incorporated learning into it, they got their reading done for the day, and I was able to get some things done (in 12 minute increments!) on my own.

The main thing is to have things that all of your children can do at their level. My art table was simple - lots of construction paper, crayons, markers, kid scissors, glue, and a kid safe paper cutter (Tabitha LOVED this!) - if you aren't comfortable with your kids using scissors, you can do something as simple as coloring books or pages. At our math center, Gabriella had some real math problems to solve with her yogos, while William and Tabitha just counted out the different colors. Smaller kids could even just sort the colors or shapes or whatever! Just make it fun!

We will DEFINITELY be doing Centers again on another No School day!