Have you felt guilty not spending much time with your child/ren in pursuit of personal growth, career progression or even just plain self-care? I know I did and it usually sprouts quite regularly.
Our modern world has shifted its thinking to the idea that more is better - a world where the collective strives to have bigger, better and more of every little thing, a world where the collective glorifies busyness.
We pack our days with endless activities and commitments. More often than not, they leave us breathless; huffing and puffing to get to the next big thing until we find ourselves stressed out and overworked and we wonder why.
Reading books about topics I find interesting was put on a back burner for quite sometime before the whole world went into pandemic. When the pandemic forced businesses to take a break; workers to work from home and people to stay indoors, I found having more time in my pocket that I could possibly ask for. I rediscovered my love for reading and incorporated it back again in my daily life.
One of the things I am still slowly working on as of this moment is placing child-sized furniture and tools around the home for Kimi. I wanted my son to develop a sense of independence at an early age, and one of the easiest ways that I can encourage this in our home is by providing furniture that are child-appropriate and are of the same height as him.
We recently added a set of peg dolls, some wooden balls and building boards to complement our existing open-ended toys in the home.
I added the semi circles to widen the possibilities and iterations that he can do with his building.
When I was just starting out my journey on setting up spaces in our home conducive for Kimi, I joined an e-course entitled Setting Up Your Home Montessori-style being run by Simone Davies of The Montessori Notebook.
As mentioned in my previous blog post, I recently joined an online membership community called Hands-on Kids Activities (HOKA) Club in which parents/educators are given access to thematic resources every month. No more endless researching and going down the rabbit hole (aka the internet) for me in search of activities or printables that would supplement Kimi’s learning.
When I started changing our home environment to adapt to Kimi’s need for exploration and learning, I began looking for activities that I can offer him.
The main reason why I wanted to setup a kitchen for Kimi is I wanted him to learn to wash his hands by himself. That was it! There was a lot of process involved before he can wash his hands.
