Fun Learning Ideas

I checked out a book from the library this month, The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas.  As you may guess, it has a million good ideas and I've been writing down my favorites in my little homeschooling spiral notebook.  I thought it would be lovely to share some of these ideas on here.  I think I'll list a few at various times to break it up a little.

I'll start with ideas I am already implementing.

For teaching Spanish:  Use commands and/or actions to make words more memorable.  For example, "Veo un avion!"  I see an airplane!  We know a little bit of sign language at our house, mostly from Baby Signing Times, so we are going to throw in some signs to help us remember the Spanish.  For, "I see an airplane," we put our hand to our forehead (looking into the distance) and then sign airplane.  I plan on carrying "veo" through and using it with other nouns.  I also think it will be good to use words they know signs for, so the sign can tell them the word without Mom having to tell them the word in English. :)

Make your own books.  My kids LOVE reading books that they colored and put together themselves.  A new variation on this idea that I had not thought of is to have your kids create their own easy readers.  Make a list of words they can read and help them create a story from it.  Put it together and illustrate.  Super fun.

Creative play: One creative learning activity this book gave me, we tried today.  I gave the kids little tupperware containers and measuring spoons in the bath and filled each container with food colored water.  It was super novel to the kids to end up with colorful bath water and my 3 year old enjoyed seeing what colors he got from mixing different colors together.  My one (almost two) year old seemed to absorb the colors I am trying to teach him a little better than usual in this environment.  I realized after they were already in my bath tub that I should have used the tub that is not bordered with carpet.

More ideas to come! :)

Our New School Set Up

We went to the Alpine School District Surplus store last week and got a white board and desks for school.  The kids think it's so much fun to have their very own area for THEIR school things in their desk.  Just having this set-up has made it feel more structured to me, so I will have to do my very best to preserve creativity and also to keep the kids from isolating "school time" as the only time we learn.  We've only had 3 days of this super structured school and I am already feeling the need for some outdoor unstructured play/discovery or some painting.  We might just have to have 3 days a week of the structure!

Here are some pics of "Superman" and "Spiderman" in their room with the new school things. :)

Wonderful New Discovery

I had a wonderful new discovery today that I added to my blog list.  It's confessionsofaslackermom.com.  She has posted most (so far) of a free LDS preschool curriculum with 8-11 worksheets per week.  I just printed off the first week I want to do.  I chose to print about 2/3 of the pages in different multiples, depending on which children I felt would be interested in each page.  Thought I would share this little gem!

P.S.  I looked at my nursery manual to see if I could add to the creation lesson from that, and it looks as though that is where she picked her song and scripture! :)  Or at least she happened to pick the same one.