This morning I just know that some fairy was going to come into our house and start playing revely on a trumpet to wake us all up. But that didn’t happen even though my kitchen is seeing camo colors. I have not posted since last Wednesday, not because we haven’t done tot school, but because I was working on a project and I didn’t have time to blog. My project has nothing to do with a specific tot school idea. It is a fort that is to be used for fun. I’m sure I can find ways to incorporate it into some great learning fun, but its main purpose is just for fun. I have been putting a bed sheet over the kitchen table so the twins can have a fort. With all the crawling through that the boys do, the sheet just kept falling off. I tried putting heavy objects on the top and nothing was working. When I started getting frustrated and sometimes mad that the boys kept pulling off the sheet, I decided to do something about it so it would stay fun for everyone. Warning, if you are a little Martha Stewart, don’t look to hard at my sewing or laugh that it took me several days to make this. I already can name several of my friends that could knock this out beautifully in one afternoon with more embellishments added.
Yesterday, I finished this fort, name plate and all, and put it over the kitchen table. When the boys woke up from their nap they walked into the kitchen for their snack. The biggest smiles spread over their faces as they saw it. Success!!! They don’t care that the name plate didn’t get centered right or there’s some puckering at the seams. They just love that it’s their little space to play and imagine. I actually planned ahead and had put their milk and bowls of grapes inside the fort for snack time sitting on the floor. They giggled, ate and peered out at me and the smiles never left their little faces. Eating snacks in the fort will be a special occasional treat and the fort won’t be out all day either. It will be a great place for the boys to crawl, hide out and dream every so often. If it stays out all the time it will be another thing that disappears into our complacency about what we have.
Even if you aren’t a sewer, I’m not a good one, consider making a fitted fort so your little ones can have a place to do some special imagining. I’m thinking that they might like it. And remember, like I need to remember too, not ever bit of play has to be educational. Unstructured play lets your kids just be kids with budding imaginations.
Mercies Raining Down 