Rotate!

Today we received our latest order from Lakeshore.  Of course the kids all were excited to play with the new stuff.  And I could see that it would quickly turn into a battle.  So I came up with a great idea!

Each child was given one activity to do. 

1. New bucket-balance with teddy bear counters.

 2. New playdough with mold in the lid.

3. Old favorite: Geo board.

Then I turned on an almost 4 minute fun kids' song and let them explore with their assigned toy.  When the song was over we would announce, "Rotate!"  Then they gladly passed their toy around the table and then the song begun again. 

I had to have them rotate after only one song because Tertius' attention span is so short and he was anxious to play with everything.  We ended up rotating 9 times (so they each got to play with each toy 3 times) before they all decided they just wanted to play with playdough. 

It was a great success!  I am so impressed that they all (even the baby!) went along with it so well.  There was absolutely no fighting over what they were given to start with or what order things were rotated.  We'll have to do this kind of thing more in the future and maybe I can work them up to longer time in between rotations.