Maid Service, Please
by Tammy Harrison

Every day is an adventure in our house. We never know who will come up with what when three kids are involved! 

In order to keep each day moving along without the "I'm bored" or "What can I do, Mom?" I have taken the time to work out an adventure calendar. 

We have themes for the kids. I work very hard at incorporating learning ideas into our daily grind, such as letters from the alphabet and math fun. No learning opportunity gets by us!

First, the kids and I made a calendar big enough for them to read and write on. Boy, did we have fun with 12 months of numbers! By the time we were finished, they were able to enjoy the 'days of the week 'and the 'months of the year' songs they had learned at preschool!

Then, I spent $29.95 on nine CD's containing over 200,000 clipart images. We spent an entire week just looking at all of the fun pictures and making lists of what type of adventures we could enjoy with the images.

We choose three themes for the week. Monday this week was train fun and we played with trains and the kids played dress-up in their overalls. We printed out some train color pages and we looked at all different kinds of trains in books and on the internet. We even jumped in the car and went looking for trains so they could figure out what each car was called and then we really let our imaginations run wild by making up things that could be carried in each car. 

Last week, we had two princesses and one prince prancing around the house. We found some t-shirt dresses on sale and used iron-on inkjet transfer paper to decorate our costumes. We made crowns out of construction paper and glued jewels on them. We read books on medieval history and the kids helped prepare a meal fit for a king! 

I also sent the calendar to the family who regularly purchase gifts for us. That way, they can buy the kids books or toys that fit with our themes and nothing goes to waste!

My children are so much fun when their imaginations run wild and I truly enjoy putting together fun and inexpensive themes to help expand their knowledge. The only time I have to worry about the "I'm bored" statements is on the weekend when their dad is home and I'm trying to catch up on the housework--we have yet to plan "maid" theme!

©2000 Tammy Harrison. 

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