I used to think I was really good at this, but I'm wearing thin on this front. Maybe several could share ideas. I have four school aged people who need frequent prompting or assistance, and an almost 3 yr old and a five yr old. I feel guilty that the little people often have to fend for themselves a lot of the day. I used to be the queen of fun, messy hands-on activities, but I truly can't keep up with that anymore.

1) I think I'll get cool stuff at the thrift store that will be new fresh material and has to be "checked out" of my closet and returned in it's container so we don't have more mess.

2) I think I'll insist they sit on their blankets and listen to the LG reading instead of bickering or whooping it up in their room.

Any other great ideas so the little people don't feel marginalized?!

This discussion may have already happened, feel free to redirect me, I didn't see it yet.

Thanks,

I have two older kids (10/9) and one 3 yr old. I find it most helpful to have the older ones take 20 minutes each morning to play one on one with him. That 20 minutes is enough time for me to listen to them read/answer questions etc.

So a "normal" morning goes:
Older one go do science readings together while I spend time reading to the little guy
Then an older sibling takes 20 minutes to do an activity with the young one. (I have a preschool curriculum - so I direct the activity)
After 20 minutes - we switch older kiddos
Then I have some time with him again where I give him a more self directed activity.
I find that it is most helpful to do the TOG readings after lunch when our little guy is down for a nap. It was way too distracting to have him awake. I have one that has a APD issue and the disctraction of noise was just too much.

I hope this makes sense! I am sure there are others with more ideas

Teresa

I also have a preschooler who often spends way too much time on her own for my comfort. I have tried to improve this by setting up a loose (very loose some days) schedule for my time.
1st hr of school day is spent with 12yo son who needs help getting his day in the right direction. Preschooler is content to start the day on her own.
2nd hr is preschooler's hour. we play "school games" that only come out during this time and are somewhat educational yet engaging
3rd hour is 14yo daughter's time and preschooler is back on her own. if oldest doesn't need me,and she has many days that she doesn't, preschooler may help with lunch prep, or she may choose to play alone, or she may watch tv for 30 min in my room. We repeat this until we're done for the day.
During the hour that belongs to a particular kid the others aren't supposed to interupt. This makes the 5yo feel special in that she has her time when Mom is off limits to anyone else. It also helps me because she is able to entertain herself for those hours if she knows there is an end to time on her own, and I'm able to focus with the olders when they need me.
Here is a list of activities I've copied from various web sites. I've tried some of them but not all.They are worded as I found them. Maybe this will get your ideas flowing.
1. A mini Corolle doll or baby doll with outfits that velcro and bottles, blankets, and other accessories.
2. Play dough, cutters, plastic knives, etc. I prefer homemade play dough as it seems much easier to handle than the store-bought kind. You also can't beat all of those cool Tupperware gadget give-aways for adding to the realism. My kids liked the little tongs I brought home from a party one time that were supposed to be for pickles. The orange peelers make a great safety knife (the reverse end) and they like to put creations into the little smidget containers. The best thing is, the Tupperware lasts and lasts and can go in the dishwasher. I can't stand some of the sets on the market today made for play dough that are hard plastic that cracks with use and the pieces are impossible to clean when the dough gets down in the pushers. I really don't have time for that. Likewise for the toy wooden rolling pins that the dough adheres to permanently.
The best gadget in our play dough box is an inexpensive metal garlic press. The kids use it to make hair, spaghetti, or whatever else they can think of and when they are done, it just goes in the dishwasher with the rest of the stuff. Zany Brainy also has a couple of great sets that go with their Soft Stuff (their version of play dough) line. The sets can turn a blob of play dough into just about anything. They work along the lines of the Mr. Potato head toy only you start with a blob of dough for the body. The animal set supplies wings, ears, feet, and other animal parts to stick into the dough and the people one supplies various arms, feet, eyes, ears and hats, etc.. The combinations are nearly endless and the kids can make whatever wacky characters come to mind
3. A special Lego set. My daughter really likes the Lego with Minnie and Mickey where there are pieces that she can already identify like cars and birthday cakes as well as the characters. Younger kids often find it difficult to look at a pile of random Lego pieces and actually create something with them. The more pieces that look like something or the more you can create to get them started sometimes, the better.
4. Mr. And Mrs. Potato head. My daughter thought this was the greatest toy ever made and played with it for hours.
5. Any collection of little toys from restaurants and other places. It doesn't matter if they are in the same series. Kids can make up all kinds of their own stories to lead them in.
6. Kid's rubber stamps, paper and colored pencils. When my daughter was younger, I found that the pre-inked stamps worked best so she didn't mix the colors on the stamp pads.
7. Lauri sells a Primer Pack which includes an alphabet puzzle, lacing shapes with cords, 4 fit-a-space puzzles and loctagons (foam octagon construction pieces) all in its own tote. They also sell a simpler kit for toddlers.
8. Any collection of puzzles, especially wooden ones or ones in frames, that are at your child's level. We like the graduation of the Ravensburger tray puzzles or also the wooden ones produced by Lights! Camera! Interaction! which has wooden tray puzzles with up to 100 pieces.
9. Woodkins dolls, especially for girls. I collected extra fabric scraps of thin material and my daughter could make many different styles of outfits for her doll. The biggest problem was having her want to "share" each combination with me while I was doing something else.
10. Flannel board and felt shapes. I made my own with designs traced from cookie cutters, alphabet, numbers, shapes, etc. Of course now there are many FELTKids boards and accessories or, if you want to get really fancy, the Betty Luken Bible Felts.
11. Magnetic boards and letters. You can also find magnetic items in the shapes of trees, fences, houses, etc. for doing story pictures.
12. Colorforms sets, if your child likes them, are a nice quiet activity. I found my daughter didn't really take to them, but as a child, I remember playing with a version of them quite a bit.
13. Stickers. We have so many stickers. We get them as gifts, we get them at the doctor's office, the dentist's office, they come in the mail, and we even buy them. My daughter loves to put stickers on papers and decorate them into cards or pictures for anyone and it is one way to use up all of the excess stickers that we really would never use otherwise.
14. Take a preschooler, a sturdy stool, a bathroom or kitchen sink filled with water and bubbles, and some toys that need washing (especially play dishes) and what do you have? Firstly, a mess, but mostly, lots of entertaining fun that last for a long time. In the end, the kid is clean, the kitchen floor is clean and so are the toys. I can't think of an activity that my son enjoyed more. Close supervision is recommended which is why I prefer the kitchen sink when we are working at the kitchen table. Plus, the kitchen sink is deeper, which in theory, results in less mess.
15. Animals and cars. One thing that I loved as a child was a set of dominoes or blocks and a collection of little animals. I remember building all types of enclosures for the animals and sorting them by mothers and babies or animals that could be together without eating each other, etc. Lots of boys love playing with collections of dinosaurs and there seems to be no end to the "pet shop" style of toys for girls where you get all kinds of little stuffed animals with pretend blankets, food dishes, brushes, etc. You could also put together a special collection of cars and the blocks could be used to make garages and roads. There are also little plastic or wooden street signs available and the ever-popular piece of cardboard or book for a ramp to run the cars down.
16. Cut and paste box. Take a catalogue of things of interest to your child, a pair of safety scissors, a glue stick and some paper. Let your child build their cutting and pasting skills by choosing things that they like to stick on the paper. You could give them a little more guidance and tell them to find pictures of things that start with a certain letter sound or finding pictures of things they would like to eat.
17. The other thing my son enjoyed playing with was Ooblek. It was a recipe I found in a book where you mix four parts of cornstarch and one part water and stir it up. Depending on what you do, it changes between a solid and a liquid. This is messy, which really attracted my son, but it cleans up easily, being that it is only cornstarch and water. My son would scoop it up in a spoon and it would become a solid. He would dump it into a funnel and it would become a liquid and flow right through. It is really cool stuff.
18. One of my son's favorite things to do when it was warm out was to take a paintbrush I had bought for him and a small pail of water and "paint" the house or the deck or whatever.
19. Make some fish out of construction paper. Put paperclips on them. Make a fishing pole with a stick, string & magnet. It may keep him busy for awhile.
20 I got a small, inflatable kiddie pool for $2 on clearance. It's my 3yo's indoor playground.
He can play with one color of Playdoh and a Tupperware container of accessories (cookie cutters, etc.) that I put in his pool. The rule is that he must stay in the pool while playing with his activities. I let him play with rice as well, as long as he keeps it in the pool, and not with the Playdoh.
I set his little table inside the pool and he just sits there and colors, finger paints, puts stickers on paper, stamps, water paints, uses his spray bottle to clean the table and chair, cuts paper with his special scissors, or any project that I use to keep him entertained. He will usually last close to an hour playing in there. I keep it right by the kitchen table so that I'm able to keep an eye on him, he doesn't feel left out, and I can work with my older son at the kitchen table.
When he's finished, I just shake the pool outside and store it in the garage against a wall, so there is no mess for me to clean inside the house. If it's really messy, like the cornstarch and water mixture from a few weeks ago, I just spray it down outside and let it dry before storing it.Best $2 investment ever!
21. a cloth measuring tape to measure with (the metal ones have sharp edges)
22. a can of shaving cream. We'd spray a big glop onto the kitchen counter and he was allowed to draw letters or numbers into the shaving cream
23. LANGUAGE ARTS
All my activity bags for this subject shared the same goal - to teach DS beginning consonant sounds. I mainly used a variety of pictures clear-taped onto index cards and a set of plastic letters (like the magnet type used on ‘fridge.) Then I'd have him do matching activities. The reverse of the card always had the correct letter so this was self correcting. The best place to get lots of pictures (you need LOTS for this) is to buy alphabet books from yard sales at 10c to 20c each, then just cut them up! I got some from magazines but that's harder and more work! He especially liked to "work on the fridge" for this, so I had a bunch of plain magnets to attach the index cards to the fridge. I'd stick up the "B" magnet and have him go through the cards finding all the pictures that start with "buh, buh, buh."
Make it harder by making cards for consonant blends, ending consonants, etc.
24. I SPY bottle-fill clear 2 liter bottle ¾ full with bird seed then add small items (paper clip, odd Barbie shoe, button, etc.) Tape list of items to outside of bottle as answer key.
25. Pattern matching / recognition. String some plastic pony beads onto a plastic drinking straw in an easy pattern of alternating colors. Hot glue the first & last beads so they are permanent and won't come off. Provide child with another plastic drinking straw and supply of pony beads in various colors. Have the child attempt to create string(s) of beads to match your sample(s). The straws are easier to thread than string and the samples lay flat on the table. I used colored straws for my samples and provided white straws for the child's use so he knew right away which ones where the samples (and wouldn't try to pull off the glued ones.) You can make this easier/harder by making more complicated patterns, ask "what comes next in the pattern," and so on.
26. Chalk on dark construction paper.
27. Mini-sandbox: Put a layer of sand in a box the size of a banana box. Add trucks, cars, popsicle sticks
28. Draw roads, houses, etc. on large paper or cardboard. Use cars and trucks on it.
29. Find ten or more household objects -- two of each kind. For example: spools of thread (preferably the same size), small plastic container lids, measuring spoons, cotton balls, small balls (not small enough to swallow), small packages of candy, pocket combs, napkin rings, small plastic toys, blocks, erasers, a drinking straw cut in half, and cotton-tipped swabs.
Place one of each kind of item on a tray or cookie sheet. Place the other identical items in a paper bag. Have the child select one item from the tray. Encourage him to feel it carefully and set it aside from all the other objects. Then tell him to reach inside the paper bag without looking and feel around for the same object.
Have him remove the object from the bag and see if it matches the object he set aside. If the objects match, he can put the two objects together on the table. If the objects do no match, have him put the object back in the paper bag.
Then he can try again by feeling for the correct object in the paper bag. He can try until he finds the matching object. Once this is accomplished, he can choose another object from the tray and try to find its mate in the paper bag.
Variation: A young child who finds this activity too difficult can have fun matching the objects by sight. For example, set up the activity as directed above, but have the child select an object from the paper bag first. He can then hunt for that same object on the tray. Once he finds it, he can place the two objects together on the tabletop.
30. Stretch a piece of yarn or string from one chair back to another. Secure the yarn to the chair backs. Clip clothespins to the string, and show the child how to clip the doll clothes or other small articles of clothing to the clothespins.The child can hang dry articles of clothing on the line, or she can hang the wet clothing that she has washed.A variation of this activity is to have the child hang paper doll clothes on the line.
31. I save junk mail in a gallon zip top bag. She likes to open the mail, "fill out" any forms inside, use the enclosed envelope to "mail" it back in, using a sticker for a stamp.
Hope some of this helps and you haven't dozed off from boredom from reading this super long post!
Christie

Wow Christie!! Thanks for some great ideas. You are very diligent about keeping everyone entertained at your house. It looks so fun! I definitely want to try some of these to change things up a bit at our house.

I was going to add that, like Teresa, I try to have us all share the job of entertaining the little ones. My kids are 13, 12, 9, 4 and 2. I believe it was actually Marcia who said in one of her speeches that she always tried to ask herself "Who is the youngest child that can handle this job?". That really made an impact on me. So, while you have the primary responsibility for taking care of your kids, others can certainly help out. It's been very freeing to see myself more as the manager around here, rather than responsible for every little detail. Things run smoother and I was able to unleash a lot of hidden potential in my kids when I stepped back. For instance, I've discovered that my 9-year old is great with taking the 2 and 4-year olds off on a creative adventure in the basement. He might build a "covered wagon" with them, or stage a civil war battle. And, since he's done with his work earlier than my older ones, he has the time. This lets me concentrate some time on the older kids' work. If I need to sit down with one child, then another can spend 10 minutes doing a math worksheet or reading a book with my 4-year old. It's not a big chunk of their time and it's a nice break for everyone. More work gets done too! So, we all tend to rotate around helping the little ones and it keeps everyone involved as a family-which is the great part of homeschooling!

Good luck!
--Laura

Wow. This is all very great and inspiring. We DO need more kids involved with eachother. Our little boys are not easy to direct together, and I wilt at the tho't of springing two older kids loose from school at once. We just barely get everything done, and I don't THINK I'm an overachiever, altho' it's possible. I'll think it over and get more organized.

I do appreciate all the ideas and input.

I have been teaching my little boys (and 7yr old girl!) to stay on blanket with books or activities when it isn't a good time to run, whoop and holler. Cuts down on conflicts when I'm not able to deal with them, also. Favorite things for blankets seem to be Mags, coloring and puzzles and magnets.