My favorite thing about 2013 was Sibling Stations. Sibling Stations was an idea I read in a Friend magazine years ago. Ali and Shad were both very little. I realized that they were too little to do it and that I only had two kids so we could really do stations. So I put it on the back burner in my mind AND actually remember it. In 2013 we had church at 1:00. The idea came back to my mind. I think we did sibling stations around 90% of the Sundays. The kids loved them. And so did the parents.
Each child is assigned to play with another child for a set period of time ( we did either 20 min or 30 min depending on how much time we had available) Then you switched to the next sibling. The activity the siblings do needs to be something they both like to do. If they can't agree, one child picks three things they want to do, and the other child picks one of those three things. We discuss all of the stations activities before we start.
Ali and Liam are playing with Zoobles. They were supposed to play with dolls but after 10 min. they decided to switch. Liam is the hardest one for these stations. He still likes to do his own thing. At the beginning of the year that station was Liam/Chewy. This meant you played with Liam for the first half of the station, and then you played with our dog for the second half. Slowly we added more Liam time.
Shadrach and Enoch are playing imagination. The don't use any props or dress up. I think most of the time they are pretending to be Pokémon, ninjas, superheroes, or bley blades. Whenever I ask them what they are playing, they get really mad/annoyed. I have learned to stop asking. :)
Here is our list that we make before we start. Nothing fancy. I have learned I don't have time for fancy. This just helps me remember who goes with who next and what they should be doing.
Now we have church at 9:00. Today we did stations but without Liam. ( He was taking a nap. One kid played by themselves.) I think next week we will try doing it after Liam's nap.
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