A while ago (around the time Little Bug turned 2) I wrote how I wanted to start having an intentional teaching time with Little Bug every day.

After Sweet Pea was born I just couldn’t get it together. I have continued to read to Little Bug daily and we talk about and learn about letters and the sounds they make every time there is an opportunity.

What I really wanted to start doing was crafty learning lessons to further teach Little Bug her letters and sounds, numbers, etc. I do still plan to do this (eventually!!) once I can get some supplies together and organized to be able to pull it out and do it with her at least once or twice a week (to start with!).

January is always the month where I go through all the closets, drawers and cabinets in the house and gather things to give away while reorganizing everything else.  With Dave working late for the majority of January it helps to pass the time and it gives me a goal to get the whole house gone through by the end of January! (I LOVE doing this. And I promise this has to do with what this post started out about!)

This past week I decided to organize the pantry with Little Bug. I thought about waiting until naptime (because Little Bug isn’t very helpful when it comes to things like this), but I went ahead and got started on the job, figuring if things got out of hand I could always stop and finish up once Little Bug was in bed.

We pulled everything out of the pantry and put it on the kitchen floor. Then I got two baskets I wanted to organize cans with.

And suddenly I realized something: here was a learning lesson on classifying/sorting that I could teach Little Bug while at the same time getting the pantry all organized!!

So Little Bug had to look at the can and figure out if it was a vegetable or a soup and then place it in the appropriate basket.

She did a fabulous job and had fun as well.

And…the pantry got all organized and I taught my kid something!

This reminded me that while it is good to do intentional learning lessons with kids, life is FULL of learning experiences for children!

I’ve just got to be intentional in recognizing these opportunities when they arise!

- Elaine