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How do I balance antsy hands with my desire to include read-alouds and educational videos in our school days?
I do not require my children (or myself) to sit completely still and just listen. I provide a wide variety of quiet activities that can be done during read-alouds or educational videos for my children. In our homeschool, busy hands help my energetic boys to focus on a book or video. Busy hands help my daughter and I to be productive and multi-task during our school days.
A wide variety of quiet activities can be pursued during read-alouds, depending on the age and skills of your children. For example, my teenage daughter often knits during our read-alouds and educational videos. One winter, she knitted a multitude of beautiful hats for Christmas presents. Lately, she has been knitting baby hats for a local pregnancy crisis center.
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I am usually the one reading the read-aloud book but if we’re watching an educational video, I usually keep my hands busy with cutting. Yes, cutting. We use lapbooks as part of our studies, so I usually have mini-books that can be prepared ahead of time.
My boys (10 and 12), on the other hand, engage in a wide range of quiet activities during read-alouds and educational videos.
Modeling with Sculpey III clay
Sculpey III is a wonderfully easy, non-messy clay perfect for making an infinite variety of imaginative creations – think Play-Doh for older children. Finished projects can be baked in the oven to harden them. My children have been sculpting with Sculpey III for years now and they still enjoy the creative process. To get your children’s creative juices flowing, I recommend the Sculpey website and books like The Incredible Clay Book.
If you have younger children, Play-Doh or homemade play-clay would be a perfect quiet activity during read-alouds.
Patterning with Perler Beads
Perler beads are fun and relatively inexpensive. After the pattern is created on the pegboard, an adult covers the pattern with the paper included in any Perler bead kit and irons it according to the directions. The beads fuse together and make a small piece of art. Endless patterns can be found on the internet for everything from food to holiday themed pieces to animated characters and video game favorites. Our favorite site for Perler bead patterns is Making Friends.
Perler beads also makes a line of Biggie Beads for younger children.
A wide variety of different building blocks could be used to keep hands busy and minds engaged. My youngest enjoys building different patterns with a pegboard block kit. While both of my boys enjoy building with Legos, we have found that building with Legos is too noisy during read-alouds and videos. The digging through the box of Legos sounds are simply too distracting.
I highly recommend this incredible kit for keeping little hands busy for long stretches of time. Using the blocks, a child builds a three-dimensional structure using the patterns. Some of the patterns are VERY challenging! Of course, a child can also use the blocks for creative building of their own design as well.
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Great ideas! My kids are older now, but my middle son was one who HAD to be moving in order to pay attention when he was young. If I asked him to sit perfectly still and listen, then he had to concentrate so hard on sitting still that he couldn’t listen to what I was reading. But if I allowed him to color or build with blocks or roll a tennis ball across the floor, then he could focus on what he was hearing. Sketchpads, black Flair pens or Sharpies, and Prismacolor colored pencils were good for doodling/drawing during read-alouds. Also hand exercisers – either the little squishy balls or the spring-type – were helpful sometimes.
I love these ideas! I’m ordering some modeling beeswax for my oldest and I was wondering what I could use with the 3 yr old to keep her quiet & busy during read-a-louds, because I think the beeswax might be too hard for her, even if I warm it first. Why didn’t I think of play dough? Ha! Maybe because I need to make a fresh batch. 🙂
Great ideas! Sometimes I give my daughter a knotty fleece blanket to work on.
I love this idea. I think I will have to use it with our son! It would be a great Christmas gift too.
Thank you so much for these great ideas. I am thinking I will have to try some of them with our active boys!
those are some really good ideas for the moving learner. Love it!
Great ideas! I run a small preschool with a class of six 2 year olds and a class of eight 3 year olds. I have found that they respond well with stuffed beanine baby bears or stress balls. With the bears, they have somebody to snuggle & to help “keep quiet” during the story. The stress balls give fidgeting fingers something to occupy them.
My daughter knits, too! We also like puzzles, playdoh, legos, train sets, and building blocks. We use Sonlight, so there’s lots of read-aloud time.
Thanks for the new ideas!
I always had a problem with this until I understood my boys just couldn’t help it… I have another addition to what helps my boys… Snack – Something to chew on maybe fruit or crackers while Im reading too!! We enjoy play doh and knitting during as well!! Great ideas to help me out!