How We Schedule Tot School || Day in the Life with Timberdoodle Curriculum Kits

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I have a 6-month-old son who I’m tot-schooling, and a 1st-grade daughter who’s homeschooling. Our days vary based on co-op classes, my work schedule, church activities, appointments, and errands, but on a day when we are home most of the day, here’s a taste of a Day in the Life using Timberdoodle’s Tiny Tots Kit.

A special thanks to Timberdoodle Company for sponsoring this homeschool series of posts by graciously sending us this complimentary curriculum kit to see what we think. All opinions are our own!

An important note…we don’t try to do everything every day. And some days when life is busy, we don’t have time to do any extras–and that’s okay! The beauty of these materials is their ability to be incorporated into everyday life. Just like we show here!

We have the Birth to Two Tiny Tots Kit, but there are also individual Infant or Toddler kits available.

5:00 AM

Some mornings I’m lucky and the baby stays asleep until close to 7:00 AM, but more often than not, that’s not the case. On those lucky days, I’m able to get up at 5:00, get breakfast, read my Bible, and get some computer work done in peace.

On other days, the Tot Schooling starts early! When baby wakes, I get him up and change him, then he’ll sit beside me while I work and I offer a few of our favorite Timberdoodle materials. Whirly Squigz, Flower Whistle, and Baby Grabber are perfect quiet toys that he can manipulate himself while getting sensory and STEM input!

7:00 AM

Once baby has been up for about an hour, he’s ready for a short nap, and I get few moments to spend with my husband before the busy day begins. It’s all too easy to neglect communication and connection in marriage with littles, and it’s something we are always trying to work on.

8:00 AM

If my daughter hasn’t woken on her own by 8:00 AM, I wake her up and get her breakfast. Baby usually has woken from his nap too. After feeding and changing him, he’ll sit in his infant-to-toddler rocker in the kitchen and play with a few more Timberdoodle toys.

Play Together Caterpillar with its furry tail and jingly bell, playsilks, and Mobi Peeka Mirror are my go-tos so he has more sensory input (particularly some audio input this time), and some emotional intelligence interaction.

9:00 AM

Laundry, dishes, and the evergrowing pile of toys on the floor always need my attention (haha). I set baby down for some tummy time while I work. Timberdoodle has soo many amazing options for tummy time, but some favorites of ours right now are the Plan Toys Stacking Rocket (knocking things down, yay!), the Sensory Tissue Box, and Indestructibles books.

I’ll also usually put a teether like Lil Dimpl or Baby Grabber next to him in case he prefers that. Mobi Peeka Mirror is also fantastic tummy-time entertainment!

10:00 AM

Time for big sister’s school lessons. Some days baby happens to be napping for part of the time, and other days he’s sitting with us at the table. If he’s awake, I pull out Lil Dimpl, Whirly Squigz, and Baby Grabber so he can gnaw on some teethers while he bangs on the high chair table and jabbers away.

11:30 AM

After his nap, sister or dad plays with him for a little, while I prepare lunch. Today it’s grilled cheese, fruit, and baby carrots and we keep it simple!

1:00 PM

With lunch done and cleaned up, I’ll sit down with baby for some interactive time. We look at books together like Don’t Tickle the Tiger or the Ditty Bird books. Timberdoodle has a wide selection of books in their kit so it’s easy to rotate them and provide new pictures to look at and words to listen to as baby grows!

The Visual Perception board books are beautiful black-and-white books with a pop of color and baby loves to stare at them. The emotional intelligence book Making Faces is also beloved as we talk about facial expressions and what they mean. I don’t let him have the board books unsupervised so they don’t get eaten (made that mistake with my oldest when she was a baby), but I do let him sink his teeth into the Indestructibles books and they are simply amazing!

2:00 PM

All this learning is exhausting and it’s time for another nap.

2:30 PM

Our cat naps are short, so it’s back to the floor for some sitting time surrounded by allllll our favorite toys!

3:00 PM

We try to get some outside time each day, whether it’s at a park, a walk around town, or some errands. In the stroller or car seat, our teether friends (Lil Dimpl, Baby Grabber, Flower Whistle) are always with us!

If the weather isn’t cooperating or we just can’t make it out the door, I’ll often have a little more one-on-one time with baby exploring Dimpl Stack, working on Baby Sign Language, or looking at the Touch and Feel flashcards together.

4:00 PM

It’s time to start dinner and sometimes baby will play with sister or sit in his rocker in the kitchen with his teethers and toys, but oftentimes, I end up babywearing in my Beco Gemini carrier. Often he ends up napping while in the carrier, and thankfully it’s a longer nap than when I try to put him down elsewhere.

5:00 PM

Dinner time with a new eater is always fun. We are just starting to incorporate the textures on the “Not Just Teethers” flat spoons and straw teether at mealtimes.

6:30 PM

After dinner baby is winding down and getting a little fussy. I find this is a good time to distract him with motor skills! This is when I pull out the Gymnic Physio-Roll peanut ball and Over ball.

I use the exercises in Active Baby, Healthy Brain to bounce, roll and move him around.

7:30 PM

Time for bed! Another day is done and we are all ready for sleep. Tomorrow, we learn some more!

How We Store Tot School Materials

I love these storage bins at Target and have labeled them and stack them in our living room. I store our Tiny Tots Kit Curriculum components primarily by area of study–Language Arts & Math, STEM, Sensory & Emotional Intelligence, and Motor Skills.

In each bin are the larger pieces and also the toddler materials that we rarely use or haven’t used at all yet. The larger sets like Blockaroo Once Upon a STEM and Playmobil Community also each have their own bin.

All the books, regardless of skill focus, are in another one of my favorite bins from Target. This makes it easy for me, or big sister, to grab books and read them throughout the day. Most of the books in the bin are from Timberdoodle, but some are from our personal collection as well.

Finally, all of our most used materials are in our toy bin that lives on the living room floor so we can easily grab them all day long. Teethers, Indestructibles books, Sensory Tissue Box, Whirly Squigz, Playsilks, and more are used multiple times a day, so easy access is key!

Final Thoughts on How We Schedule Tot School

As you can see, we don’t follow a specific schedule, but rather follow a rhythm of how our day is going. Tot School is fluid, especially for infants and toddlers. More structure can come in preschool for sure, but until then, we fit learning into our daily life moments!

As baby grows, we will use more of the toddler materials, many of which are more structured, like math skills and beginning art. At that time, I will plan about 15 minutes a day to do a math or art activity and another 15 minute chunk to work on building and playing with blocks or Playmobil.

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