Clean Up Song

Like a lot of mums i struggle with getting my kids to pick up after themselves. The older ones are only 5 & 3, so i don't expect too much from them, but i think they are old enough to pack up their toys (which they have way too many of, but that's a whole other post, lol).

So, as mentioned earlier, i am quite interested in 'Waldorf' education, toys, rhythm etc and am trying to implement some of these techniques with my kids. One of the things i read quite frequently is the use of singing for different events and  transitions in the day. Now, i will admit i kind thought it would be a bit odd to sing our way through the day and i'm not so keen about singing for everything. But, i tried it out today in an attempt to get the kids to help pack up without too many grumbles and what do you know...it worked!!

So i thought i would share our little cleaning up song with you, it's amazing  how quick the kids picked it up and soon we were all singing together:

Cleaning up Song

It's time to pack up, it's time to pack up

It's time to put away

It's time to pack up, It's time to pack up

We've had a lovely day

When we do the work together

It makes it so much fun

When we do the work together

It's easy to get the job done

and repeat, and repeat, and repeat till your playroom, bedroom, etc is all clean! Make up any tune you want.

Hope it works for you!

Play Silks

We are very inspired by Steiner (also known as Waldorf) play, toys, rhythms, etc. We are hoping to start attending a little Steiner playgroup soon. I particularly like the use of open ended toys, so i thought I'd share some pictures of our recent play silk dyeing activity.

 

You can find so many tutorials (they all vary) on how to dye silks, so i won't repeat, but i followed the very simple instructions here. It was a lot of  fun making them and both Miss E (5) and Master T (nearly 3) helped out. I can't wait to make some more. I'm going to attempt a rainbow one next for Baby J as he loves to hold onto one as he drifts off to sleep.

 

My children have already had so much fun with them. It's great to see all the different ways they will use a simple piece of cloth. Best of all, they were relatively cheap to make.