Contain the Mess

 I owe a debt of gratitude to my friend for this tip. We were at her house several years ago and she pulled out a tray to do a messy science experiment on. I immediately went home and put some on my wishlist. I couldn't believe that in all my years of homeschooling it had never occurred to me to use a basic cafeteria tray for mess containment. 

We use these for EVERYTHING. Playdoh, painting, coloring outside, science experiments, clay, beads, LEGOs, K'nex. We keep them on a shelf by our school stuff and even the two year old knows to get a tray out for messy activities.

We have these but you can find other colors and sizes. They wash off easily and help keep working areas contained!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Little Sensory Bin!

Image
 Today, we made a thing! I don't usually go in for attempts at pinterest or instagram crafts, but pocketofpreschool  posted this great (and cheap!) little sensory kit and I decided to try it. I snagged about $1.50 of paint (we didn't use all of it), a bag of dried pinto beans, a $1 pencil box, and a few little containers, shells, kid tongs from the Dollar Tree. I didn't use all the containers, so it was like 25 cents worth of the $2 I spent. We had some plastic animals already.  I went sort of all out for this because I was in the mood, but you could easily just give a kid some plain dried beans or rice, a regular spoon or tablespoon measure, and a cup. Little cups cut off egg cartons are a great size for this. The goal is just letting them explore textures and movement.
Read more

Math Manipulatives

Image
 A lot of curricula for young students requires manipulatives. If you're only teaching for a semester or two, only have one student, or don't have a lot of money, you might be reluctant to pour a lot into hands-on tools for math. The good news is, you can count with almost anything! We've used all of these (and more!) to do addition, subtraction, grouping in sets, counting by twos and fives, etc.  I store most of my math manipulatives in one box for easy grabbing. I keep a stack of LEGO bricks in here so I don't have to go hunting for them.  www.themathworksheetsite.com also has a free hundred board printable, here . This site has a mix of free and subscription-only printables, but is only a few dollars a month. A lot of what you need for elementary math is free! A hundred board can be used to help kids visualize and track addition, subtraction, sets, and more.  The kid in our household with the more severe ADHD needed this for math everyday for a while, tracking add...
Read more

swiss army backpack

Image
Last week, someone asked me for a demonstration of how I packed my diaper bag. It resulted in me sitting on the floor pulling everything out of my bag. It took me under thirty seconds to repack the entire thing, because my diaper bag is actually full of smaller bags. Also, my diaper bag isn't a diaper bag. It's a backpack. A family I grew up with used L.L. Bean backpacks for their kids. Each baby got a backpack with their name on it, and when they'd outgrow a diaper bag, the bag became their regular use backpack. In high school, I remember thinking, "I'm going to do that. I love backpacks." We adapted, however, and got one backpack with our surname slapped across the front. If you have a bag you already love, or want to use a backpack you already have, that's cool. The rest of this tool still works. Here's everything I had in my bag last night: That's it. That's all of it. Confession: I did throw away two receipts wadded in...
Read more