Cutting the Chaos - Educational Activities for Kids!

Hello everyone!! I hope you all had a wonderful long weekend! We definitely did, and after a little blogging break I am ready to share some fun things this week. I thought I would start off today by showing one of the ways I am trying to Cut the Chaos in my home :)

If you have read my blog for any amount of time, you probably know I LOVE doing fun, educational activities with my kids. It helps me get more involved with them, I love to see them learn something new, and I feel great anytime the screens are OFF and we are spending quality time together.

Some weeks this goes a lot smoother than others. I always try to have a weekly theme, this helps focus me and better plan things for my kids. Some weeks I am SO on top of it, not many...but some :) Other weeks we hardly do anything and thats ok too. That's reality. But instead of being all or nothing, I tried to come up with a way that will really simplify and Cut the Chaos so I can enjoy this time with my kids. Here we go! :)

I put this together last night and am thrilled with it so far! I grabbed a towel holder thing I had laying around in the basement that has 3 spots on it. In the first holder I placed a framed print that says Letter of the Week. Every Sunday night before I go to bed I can quickly use a dry erase marker to write what letter we will be focusing on that upcoming week.

In the bottom holder I placed another framed print that says This week we are learning all about...and then I write our theme for the week.

In the middle spot I place a book that we either have or borrowed from the library that we will read throughout the week that spotlights our theme and reinforces it.

In case anyone is interested, here are the printables I made. It took about 5 seconds to stick them in frames I already had and instantly my kids will know what we are learning for the week and will be reminded every time they sit at the table.

SO simple...right?!

The next part is my favorite though :) There are SO many great educational resources on different websites and blogs, you really can just click and print to provide your kids with fun, themed, educational activities. This takes a little bit of time, but know that I have my system down it is under one hour and I have a weeks full of activities ready to go!

I simply got binders for each of my children. Then I stuck in them a bunch of page protectors. All of the worksheets I print off go in a page protector and the kids use dry erase markers on them. Then when our week is over I just take out the worksheets, file them under the theme of that week, and I have them FOREVER!! Now when Britton is older and can do the Kindergarten worksheets that Kendall is doing this year I will just have to pull them out of my file. Love it! I don't mind the work half as much when I know I will have it forever :)

So here is how I set up my binders:

In the front pocket I place any coloring pages the kids can use throughout the week.

If there are any games, shape sorts, or anything else with small pieces I laminate them and place them in the pencil holder. It takes a little while to laminate them but once again...once you do it you have them forever!!

Every week I print out a tracer page for the letter of the week. Its great practice for the older kids and good for the little ones to become familiar with the alphabet.

Finally I place all the different worksheets in their own page protector to be used again and again!

I know it probably seems like such a little thing, but the amount of Chaos this Cut is amazing!! Now even on those weeks that seem to get away from me, when my kids are bored instead of always turning on the tv they can pull out their binders, color some pages, play some matching game, work on the alphabet etc! And on those rare weeks that I AM on top of things, these binders are a great addition to any fun things we have planned.

Since we are learning all about TEETH this week I thought I would share some of the places I got all these great printables:

Dental Theme for PreK and Kindergarten

Worksheets for 1st grade and up

Letter Tracing Pages

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I am looking forward to sharing some fun St. Patricks Day ideas, some great TEETH activities and more this week. Have a wonderful day!!