Creating Independence - first creating an environment that allows Independence

this week was all about starting to plant the seeds of independence for Paddy

to say Paddy is a strong willed child is an understatement and with the terrible twos arriving early i have been reading up on different ways to handle it

i have found myself saying 'no' all the time and i hated that there were only negative interactions between us on some days

that's why i started planning my activities for the week so that we made sure we played together rather than getting lost in the treadmill of every day life

i really connected with the simple montessori principle of focusing on one thing at a time and creating order in our spaces

one way of employing this principle is to teach Paddy to put away his toys after he has finished playing with them

then i looked at his playroom....

granted it was messy but there was so much clutter and there was no way a 2 year old could comprehend putting their things away in that space

so this morning my mission was to simplify and cut back the stuff in Paddy's play area

this is the result....

i cut back on all the playthings

i put like toys in baskets so it is easier for Paddy to put them back

a music basket

a lego basket

a ball basket

and all his cars in one basket under the table

i also cleared the table and put his blackboard there for Paddy to sit and do drawing

i think we had at least 50 books in a bookcase in the corner

i packed them all up and laid out 5 books and will rotate those every week or so

the cushions also make a nice quiet reading corner too

i cleared off these shelves and put one game per cubicle

this might help Paddy play with one thing at a time

i am not a mumma who buys a lot of toys - in fact 90% of Paddy's playthings are from garage sales and the other 10% are from friends

i don't believe in a lot of playthings so i could not believe the amount of stuff i pulled out of Paddy's playroom

huge wakeup call!

i feel good about this