Just getting caught up on this thread and it is amazing to me how many of the suggestions I've tried myself these past few years... and, yes, I'll weigh in as one more and validate that you are not alone -- as you already know! Parenting HG+ kiddos has been exhausting for me! Before I realized that ours are a bit more intense than many of our friends' little ones, I was always stunned. The questions our kiddos are asking are simply more exhaustive... and, thus, exhausting.
We had both the saxoflute and the water flutes and those were huge hits! (Pretty much anything with music is around here, though!) So, lots of singing, dancing... family band is a huge hit... and, as was mentioned by someone, the Dr. Seuss books just lend themselves to singing!
A huge hit for almost 3y.o. is "baking" with colored water. She gets bowls full of different colors of water and tsps, tbsps and cup measures to create with. if needed, I can quickly print out recipes, e.g. 22 tsps "blueberries", 3/4 rose water, etc. She LOVES the counting and measuring!
They've all loved creating the backdrops for stickers, since they get frustrated with the lack of detail in their own sketches at that age. A favorite was creating "habitats" for each animal and adding in animal stickers.
Hmm, when ds6 was about 3.5, i'd give him a cookbook and ask him to select something for snack. He would read dozens of recipes aloud (while i did whatever) before making his selection, which was a life saver! Literally, sometimes he'd read them for almost two hours, providing quite a nice mental break for me.
Hmm, I suppose once DS (PG) could read to himself, things did become a bit easier on me, provided I kept him stocked with non-fiction! (Hang in there!)
Lastly, I'll add that we had our three kids very close together and while I find parenting them to be exhausting, they have way more fun together than they do with any of their other playmates. It has been a blessing that they can keep up with one another!
Oh, and I love your ideas for your school. Can we sign up?
