Carol!

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Please know that you and your family are all in my prayers. God Bless you

Joanne

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Sure can, hope it helps. :-)Caroline Skalsky <cskalsky@...> wrote: Hi Carol, May I forward this to my local ds group, you have tons of info here that I know will help others. Thanks so much, Caroline How I have my house set up for 'learning' Someone had asked me off list to explain how I have my house organized with regards to allowing to have max access to learning materials. Good timing on the asking as I have been trying to over-haul the dinning/family/hall/closet area to accomodate my current Montesorri leanings!

What I have done in the past, including infancy, was to make as many toys as possible avaiable to her as much as possible. I did follow age appropiate toys for many things, I would look for modifications for her physical delays so she could play with them. For example- games of cause and effect that didn't take much physical effort for her to work. When she was about 18 months and started to play 'house' with her dollies and all, she was not walking, so I bought her a kitchen and high chair sets you could play with while sitting. I also used! those to encourage her to stand longer by simply placing them up on a table or soft footstool. She always has toys above her developmental/physical level to mess around with as well. Her DT explained it took many interactions with a toy before the child actually played with it, let alone played with it in a way that might yield some learning or theraputic

goals. That seemed to be very true for . I used to have all her toys in one of those organizer bins in primary colors, sorted by activitiy for her. Those colored bins are also wonderful to learn colors and color sorting. Just having her help replace the toys was an excercise in classifying and sorting. The bottom ones were low enough for her to go and take what ever she wanted when ever she wanted. I don't remember what age exactly- 4? She started to dump those all the time and it was just a huge mess. So I ditched those, got rid of 'baby' toys and moved to a plastic drawer tower, lower closed shelves in the bookcase and drawers and we have always had one of those large train tables as our 'coffee table' in the family room. It's been a little people town for a few years now.:-) She has access to more books then the typical children's section of the library through

out the house - we can't seem to toss out a book! I rotate books as well. We have tons...She has a small book case in the family room for her videos, library books , an 'art' caddy with glue, sissors, markers and colors along with various coloring books, pre-school/kdgr work books, writing practice sheets ( which she only does if I sit with her ) cutting projects etc. Her DVD's are stored in one those large three ring binder type holders with the plastic sleeves. I hate those cases! Much easier to page through this book and it takes up a lot less space. She needs no help to find the ones she wants. We have a 'nature table' under the window to display her treasures, where she can also look out and see the bird feeder and our tiny pond with fish, toad, turtle when we have one... etc.. I try to keep the magnifying glass there, but that seems to walk away. Sometimes I manage to make paper labels

for the items. She has a child's set of binnoculors and if something is real interetesting out there, we use the real ones. I am not kidding when I say this girl LOVES field journals. It's darn right weird.... but GREAT!! I was suprised at how many back yard birds she can ID. I made her a set of three part bird cards, which were way too easy for her... need to do another harder set. The bird cards are in the file section. In the main bookcases there are other art supply items typical to any house with kids- construction paper, stickers, pipe cleaners, pom- poms, various stencils and just stuff we have collected or keep up. She will often go and make things all on her own. She LOVES boxes- so far she made a 'Barney House' just a box decorated with cut out pictures, yarn drapped across it, birthday party stuff from a Nickolodean magazine. And another time she made an airplane from a box. She just takes

off and gets all her stuff and goes at it. Like any 6 year old she wants you to help cut the box the way she wants it, which can be a challenge/learning experience with the communication issues. The paint easel typically sits in the dinning room with her tempra/water paints to use anytime. The living room has her doll bed and dress-up box. Her kitchen is in my kitchen. The large book cases hold her Barbies, counting games, electronic games and books etc. Since I put those behind closed doors, she is more likely to take them out to play, rather then to just dump things everywhere. Her puzzles are currently piled up on the plastic drawer and in there are a lot of toys she has out grown and need to be passed on to the nephews! My 'goal' is to sort through all my educational items and group them in to smaller containers- either shoeboxes ( plastic or cardboard) or ziplocs stored in small boxes,

and store those in the the plastic drawers and rotate them on the cleaned off lower shelves of the big bookcase. Even though she does go in the cabinet to help herself to games, I want to be able to 'showcase' the game with the skill we are working on on the open shelf. I have made quite a few filefolder games for her that I currently keep out of reach due to all the small pieces. I want to move those down as she has become very careful with them now and I want her to play with them. I noticed the library made a nifty puzzle shelf using milk crates and old vinyl album holders taped in there sideways. I need one of those for her as right now she takes them ALL off the shelf just to get to the one she wants that may on the bottom. Her larger games are stored in the hall pantry closet where she can reach them if she wants to play a game. The 'center piece' of

learning for her is the big wall in the hallway leading to the bathroom. I love the changing seasons so I use seasonal themes to display new words and information on that wall. I am very slow about changing it, but that seems to work for her! Right now I still have all spring/planting related items up there. I am hoping to get around to changing it and will add fireworks, parades, beach, lakes, pond animals, insects etc. Even though some of those events are history already, she has a much higher interest in things she *has* done then in upcoming events. I don't know for sure, but I feel it really does aide in her learning to reinforce things she has done for awhile after the fact. I also rotate past holiday seasons with her so we can 'remember'. She LOVES real pictures, so I tend to use those in books, or on the wall depicting real life events with her as the star. I often label pictures of her and items in the pictures

using a digital and the computer. She constantly drags all our pictures out of the buffet drawer to look at! And there must be 1000's in there! Dh bought all the kids albums for Christmas last year and we spent the afternoon sorting through them with the kids placing pix they wanted in their own albums- she looks for the everyone's albums to look through. Great for language. Back to my wall.... the one constant is a large calendar. I am using calendar numbers made for pocket holders. Those large colored fabric pieces with pockets of clear plastic you place the cards in. Instead I made mine from a large piece of foam core board with velcro. There is a small weather section as well which I am VERY bad at using.... I tend to just look out the window and comment ;-) Maybe I should move it to the window???? I think I will! By the nature table! The calendar pieces change with

months along with the decorations on them I have the days of the week in butterflies flitting across the wall right now, that will change soon. I made another foam core board ( this one is dark blue and for some reason, the white one stays on the wall much better then the blue one. There is an extra layer on the back of the colored one that tends to rip off ) with velcro that showcases anything from math to 'word walls'. Montesossori has somer really nifty math helps for learning to count to 100 which has moveable pieces that I often have on there. Right now I have a word wall of planting/garden/spring type words along with a 'puzzle' about plant parts. In the past we have had things about caterpillers, snow, snowmen, seasonal words, words for clothing appropiate to the seasons, seasonal activities, sequencial type cards- life cycles of differnt animals'plants, animals, the seasonal themes really help keep it fresh. During the school year, I will put

her art work up and things to compliment the theme school is using. Apples will be in the fall as they always go to the apple orchard- the start of school,school supplies, bus you get the picture. :-) The WHOLE wall is used, not just the foam core boards. She will make something and add it there on her own. Course the fridge and our metal back door are also loaded with art work. :-) It looks like a preschool in here. For gross motor, I keep a small slide in the house, her bike if often in here, best buy I ever made was small round rugs at IKEA in primary colors! Boy you can do a lot with those!!! I want to get one of those scooter boards too....right now we have an old coaster chair she loves to lay on and scoot around with. I don't know if all this helps much. Bottom line I think is she has a lot of stuff and she has access to all of it. I stopped making it all visually

present to her at one time and sectioned things off with doors, drawers and location so she had to move from one area to the next. I am learning that 'presentation' can be everything!! Which reminds me, she also has her own broom in the laundry room, and her own mirror in the bathroom so she can see to brush her teeth, wash her face and comb her hair. Toothpaste is OUT of reach !! Wash clothes and her own clothes are all low so she can help herself. Shoes are in a large shelf by the front door, her coat and backpack on a low hook. She is expected to put these things away and get them herself when we are going somewhere. She also plays on the computer a lot. I do keep those discs out of reach as the fireplace is right here and she sometimes sets them on the brick hearth and then scratches them by accident! Sorry so long... hope this helps?? Carol in IL Want to be your own boss? Learn how on Small Business. __________________________________________________

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So where the heck have you been? Was wondering when you would surface.

What else are you growing besides tomatoes?

Shari