I'm going to write a book

[mrsbrown]

It will be a collection of all the things you can do around the house, with a toddler in tow. It will include only activities that you have to do anyway, and instructions for how to include the child in your life. It's the stuff nobody tells you, but you have to learn in self defence. I have never seen a book like it. If you look through the shelves in a bookshop or library, you could come away with the impression that stay at home parents spend their days finding ways to amuse their children and never get anything done. I can see it would be very popular with the Rudolph Steiner set.

1. On a really hot day, defrost the freezer. Allow your toddler (or older child) to play with the ice and the plastic ice pick thingy. Let them sit on the icey cold towel you put on the floor to catch the water.

It's not hot today, but I realised in the middle of it that it really is an ideal hot weather toddler amusement activity. It kept my 14 year old amused for at least 20min too. It must be more exciting than I thought.

Also, I want to keep this in mind:

Kinder and Prep

During the first seven years children are physically forming and live very much in their imagination. This great capacity to enter into imaginative pictures and stories is a good place to begin the process of learning. Free, creative play is considered the best preparation for self-realising adult life.

The teacher endeavours to create an environment that gives children time to play and encourages them to exercise their imagination and learn to conjure up ideas from within themselves. Simple homely tasks and artistic activities to both do and see are balanced with story telling, singing games and generous play times. A rich supply of natural materials provides scope for imagination in play, which refined toys often deny.

Activities offered for the four to six year olds are based on the house and garden. These include sweeping, gardening, cooking, building cubbies, looking after animals, singing, listening to stories, helping to prepare the meal table, cutting fruit, painting, clay modelling and drawing. Children learn to enjoy building, using the natural materials in the room to make their own constructions and patterns. Practical experience helps the child develop confidence and capabilities.

Steiner education seeks to nurture the senses through water-colour painting and singing, beeswax and clay modelling. The teacher works consistently to provide rhythm and structure to the day, week, year and whole curriculum, to harmonise with the child’s natural rhythms.

At this age, children are discovering how to relate socially with a peer group and take part in fundamental life tasks. Through meeting and playing creatively together, children learn vital interpersonal skills. The teacher plays an important role in enabling relationships between children to strengthen through play.

Young children develop primarily in their doing, learning through imitation and physical activity. The role of the teacher is to provide a model for the children and a secure space in which to discover the world. They are not yet ready for more formal classes. Thus, the teacher reserves the formal teaching of numbers and letters for the child’s next developmental stage, signalled physically by the change of teeth, at about the age of seven.

From http://www.steiner-australia.org/other/overview.html