STATIONS!

Several years ago, a friend told me about how she set up "stations" around her house for her child to go through. These stations are educational places that provide opportunities for learning. I'm not exactly sure how she set up her stations, but the idea sounded grand, so I ran with it!

I wanted to give life to the resources in the house that were being neglected and that I knew the children would enjoy spending time with. I found a bunch of hands-on resources, set each thing up in it's own place and gave it a number. I have always made twenty stations, but you can make as many or as few as you want. Twenty stations gave me enough time to get some things done around the house. Since the children could do most of these activities independently, this was a time for me to unload the dishwasher, fold a basket of clothes, etc. I was close by if they needed me, but still able to be productive around the house.

I then made a page of directions for each child. They had to read the directions for each station and check off each station as soon as they completed it. One child carried the directions with him from station to station while the other left the directions in one spot and came back to it in between stations. Also, one child would go in order from 1 - 20 while the other hopped around to wherever he wanted to go next. The point is to give them a fun and extraordinary learning experience, so I was flexible and let each child do it the way they wanted to. My children LOVED stations, and I wish I would have done it more often.

I've done this several times, and some of the stations are the same but not all of them. I changed it up as the children grew older and as our interests and studies changed. It's been since 2010 since we've done stations, but after writing this post I feel inspired to see what I can come up with if anything. My children are older now, so we have little time for these fun, little extras. Here are some pictures from one of our days doing STATIONS!