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Kids are natural-born inventors.
I’ve seen children invent games together using only their vivid imaginations.
I’ve seen them occupy themselves for hours with a pile of rocks or a piece of ribbon.
As parents and caregivers, we can encourage our kids’ innate creativity even more by providing them the time and materials to pursue their many ideas.
I’m not sure why this simple, homemade game has been such a hit with all of my kids. Maybe it’s the shaking. Maybe it’s the dumping. Whatever the reason, they’ve all loved it!
I wish I could recall where I heard about this game first. I’ve seen variations of it floating around, but I’m not sure who came up with the original idea for Phonogram Sound Shake. Whoever you are, thank you!
Looking for a fun and different project to try with your kids? Look no further!
When I was a kid and we needed a change of pace from our everyday arts and crafts, we brought out our paper-making supplies and always had a blast!
This past summer, I was looking for ways to keep the kids involved in something productive but not too formal (that is, no 24/7 Minecraft allowed… but nothing that would require too much work on my part, either).
Among other things, my plan included intentionally setting out interesting activities for my kids to find and explore if they wanted to (aka “strewing”). If you haven’t yet, check out the prequel post – Our Homeschool Summer Break – Year 5 – for a little more context and my original summer plan. In that post, I promised you an update on how it went and here it is!
Pencils? Check.
Binders? Check.
Pegboard and hardboard panels? What?
They’re probably not the first thing that pops into mind when you think “school supplies.” But these two boards have been some of the most-used tools in our homeschool over the years.
In the last post, we took a look at ways to homeschool successfully even during a messy, unpredictable home renovation.
Here’s one last idea (the best one, in my opinion) for successfully homeschooling in the midst of a remodel project. Drum roll, please.
The idea is to…
Anyone who has homeschooled for more than one hour knows that interruptions are part of the job description.
On my good days, I try and embrace the interruptions – the many opportunities for real life training and modeling grace and patience. I totally agree with the writer of this post who said, “Interruptions are not obstacles to our plan; they are opportunities for us to embrace God’s plan.” So true.
But some seasons bring so many interruptions – so much chaos – it just seems impossible to maintain any semblance of order or sanity, much less get any meaningful homeschooling done.
Over the past four years, we’ve renovated nearly our entire home, room by room. Home renovations are definitely one of those chaos-inflicting seasons – but there ARE things you can do to make it through.
I’m in big trouble.
It’s only the middle of January and we’re already getting cabin fever… what’s a mom to do?!
Thankfully, I’ve got a few tricks up my desperate-homeschool-mom sleeve. One of my all-time favorites is our homemade, indoor mini-sandbox.
No room in the budget for fancy school learning tools?
No problem!
(Even if there IS money available for the latest and greatest educational gizmos, buying more stuff just because you can generally isn’t wise.)
Please don’t feel like you have to OWN every cool-looking manipulative, learning center set and educational toy that exists in order to provide a high-quality education!
Whether you know it or not, you already own countless items you can repurpose to teach many – if not most – concepts. Or often, a DIY option will get the job done just as well as expensive classroom tools. And, by the time you’re done repurposing and DIY’ing, you’ll have saved enough money to splurge on a few really cool items that you just can’t duplicate at home.
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Well, it’s about time!
After years of historical knowledge going in one ear and out the other, I’ve finally found a system for learning and retaining history that works for me (and my kids, too)!
A key element of this system is making timelines. (The other elements that work for us – notebooking and using chronological curricula – I hope to talk about in future posts).
Growing up, one of the main reasons I disliked and couldn’t retain history was because I’m an “overall picture” kind of gal. But in school I had never been given the big picture of history – only out-of-order chunks. I memorized names and dates for tests. I filled in the blanks on my worksheets. I even did some fun projects. But, to my frustration (as a child) and embarrassment (as an adult), I retained very little information about the history of our world.
I don’t even like playing Trivial Pursuit for fear that my historical ignorance will be exposed!
(oops… the truth is out now)
Thankfully, the history curricula that we’ve used so far (Tapestry of Grace Primer and Story of the World) have both suggested creating timelines to keep track of historical people and events.
