Special Time - For Young Mums And Pre-Schoolers

This is a simple idea, but one that helped to keep me and our children sane and happy through some of the challenging pre-schooler years.  Our first three children were born in under two and a half years, so home was pretty busy for a while there.  (When our eldest was four, I also looked after three other children each day, making six children aged four and under altogether.) Special Time was kind of how we coped and had fun along the way.

http://fayettewoman.com/decorating-childrens-art.html

Every morning I was up early.  After dressing the children, doing their hair and teeth, and having breakfast, I liked to clean up the kitchen right away, then clean the house through.  While I did this the children were mostly great about playing with whatever toys I had put out for them.  I mean - I was constantly there, but they were very good about allowing me to get onto my morning jobs fairly uninterrupted..   And why would they do that, you might ask?

Special Time!  :)

After breakfast I usually had a couple of hours to get all my jobs done, in time to then spend a couple of hours each morning - from about 10am - midday,  devoted to just playing with the children.  They knew I needed to get things done so that we could have Special Time, so they were willing to play happily while they waited for me to be ready.  We didn't have a television or DVD player back then (although we usually played music to work and play along to).  If we had we might have watched Playschool or Sesame St.  Instead, I tried to create our own fun learning time.

Every morning we enjoyed a different activity.  From 10am - midday we might do any of the following: bubble painting, string painting, water painting, finger-painting, cutting out and making a collage, collecting leaves and 'rubbing' them on to sheets of paper, using fabric off-cuts to make pictures that we would glue with home-made paste, cooking, making salt-dough jewelry, making and playing with play-dough, making cubby houses under the dining table or other furniture, setting up a shop/obstacle course/ dolls' hospital/ school, making and playing home-made instruments, making paper mache, putting on a play, etc, etc, etc, etc.  We painted eggs, did crayon rubbings, made pipe-cleaner animals and potato stamps, sang, danced, played home-made instruments, and enjoyed one another. If we could afford it I might do something like emptying a can or two of shaving cream into a kiddie's play pool and add food colouring for the children to paint themselves.  Mostly we didn't have too much money to spare, but most activities were inexpensive.

After cleaning up from the morning fun, it was lunchtime, then nap-time, then bath-time, then dinner-time and Daddy-come-home-time and story-time and bed-time.  And there went the day! Happily, for the most part  :)

And our kitchen cupboards were covered in art work that the children loved to see on display, and that I loved to see too  :)

By Sandy Munro