Surrounded By Art, Love, Learning and Encouragement

Since the kids and I are home all day I try and make it as fun as I can. I am also always on the look out for cool new ways to make learning fun. When I happened upon this cool contact paper that is a "chalk board"I became very excited. So my first thought was to turn Boog's bedroom door into a chalk board.

The end result, a place to create lessons for Boog! Each morning I write the letter of the day, a math problem and a place to practices his shapes (even Littles gets involved by adding her own scribbles and a super cute "Meow" for the cat drawing). We use the letter in a word, phrase, and point it out through out the day. As I said before repetition is key for improving Boog's speech delay. The math problem is to encourage his budding skills with numbers, he can count to 10 all by himself. Simple, fun, and educational, just what this Mommy was looking for!

Although education is very important, I also believe giving your children praise and self confidences is equally important. I found an easy way to do this is by proudly displaying their artwork in our home. Yes I do place some of the artwork on our fridge, but I don't stop there!

Little's Art!

Boog's Art

Boog's Art

Boog's Art

I hang their work in paper frames and tell them how wonderful they did, but I also have Boog describe the master pieces by color, shapes, etc. I am always trying to get as many words as possible out of him!

And last but not least, I am a big fan of positive reinforcement. Yes I do tell them "No", "Don't", "Stop" and many more "negative" words to instill correct behavior, but I also tell them "Yes", "good work", "Nice job at being kind to your brother/Sister" and so on. I also do a "good behavior" chart and reward them when they reach their weekly goal (something small like a piece of candy or coins for their piggy banks). I use the chart by Melissa and Doug, pictured below. And yes I am behind on updating the monthly calender, bad mommy!

Please share what you do to surround your children with Art, Love, Learning and Encouragement! I am always looking for neat new ways!