Quiet Box: Monday

I've been asked a lot about our quiet boxes, so I am going to do a post about each day's box. First a little background...as of this post my oldest munchkin was 3 years, and 2 months old. She started fighting her naps and having some behavior problems common when you don't get much attention (she has twin 16-month old siblings, so as you can imagine she tends to get attended to last unfortunately). Anyway, I noticed that after being put down around 1:30 after school, she'd finally drift off to sleep around 2:30 or 3 after getting up 18 times despite my stern voice or spankings. After about three weeks of fighting this, I decided something had to change...and that something was me and my routine.

I found these quiet box ideas on Pinterest, and modified a lot of them to make my own based on stuff I had already at the house, and stuff I could find at the Dollar Tree or $1 bin at Target. The result has been pretty impressive so far...we get our her box after I put the twins down when we get home from school by 1:30. I eat a late lunch and sit down to do it with her while I eat. She doesn't usually want my help, she just wants me to watch so she knows she has my full attention. She plays with all the activities (and it takes about 1 activity for every 10 minutes I wanted to keep her occupied).  I have to redirect her some, but not much. She really likes the activities and getting mommy's undivided attention. But like all 3yo, she gets bored and wants to swap activities so the rule is you can move to anything else in the quiet box at any time, but you can only play with the quiet box. It is quiet box or bed time :)  Obviously, she'll go back to the quiet box.

Now, she doesn't fight naps, and sometimes actually tells me she's tired and ready to nap. She usually naps now from 2:30-4:30...hurray!  Plus, her behavior is better. We have less spankings, less arguments and she obeys better...just by getting an hour of mommy time.

So, without further adieu...Monday Quiet Box

• Puzzle
• Flashcards w/ magnetic letters for letter identification and sight word memorization. I weeded out cards w/ three and four letters for now.
• Lego letter building (with the legos needed)
• Safety scissors for cutting w/ cutting worksheets
• Letter tracing worksheets
• Number matching flashcards
• Short book (last activity before nap)
• Workbook (this is our last activity to use if she goes through the other activities faster than anticipated)

If the sheets weren't meant to be written on or cut, I put them in sheet protectors to reuse them one day for my other littles.
Also, I linked to the pins on Pinterest because several of these sites where I found the worksheets require an account...I didn't want you to find a dead link :)

Here's more on my Little Learners Pinterest board.