Archives

18 Activity Bag Ideas

Jan5

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Doctor’s appointments or traveling in the car for long distances provide children with the opportunity to practice being patient and waiting. But, these periods of time can be longer than anticipated and is a perfect time to have an activity bag along for your child(ren). Some items to include are a folder to put papers in, a large gallon bag to put the individual activities inside and a bag to keep all your goodies organized and portable. Keep in the car so you aren’t spending extra time looking for it. Here are some items to include for your bag:

  • Travel size games such as Connect Four or Checkers
  • A book
  • Drawing pad
  • Pencils, both colored and regular
  • Washable markers
  • Math worksheets for extra practice
  • Mad Libs are a fun way to practice parts of speech with fill-in-the-blank stories. Print off a few for an entertaining and educational activity.
  • Hidden Pictures were the only bright spot I remember when I was little and going to the doctor’s office. Now you can have some of these from Highlights to add to your child’s bag.
  • Small Lego set
  • Rubber bands to make friendship bracelets
  • Stickers
  • Stationary cards to write a note to a friend or family member
  • Action figures or small dolls

If you have little ones include the following:

  • Large popsicle sticks with velcro on each end of the stick so they can be used to connect to other sticks. These can be colored for your precious one to match.
  • Duplos
  • Chenille sticks (pipe cleaners) can be used to create various shapes. You can have several shapes already made and trace onto paper so they can match the shapes. This activity can be extended by tracing with various colors and have coordinating colored shapes they match.
  • Pom Poms are great for matching and making things. Put them in a snack bag or a large medicine bottle.
  • A few favorite books

The First Thanksgiving : Reading and Writing

Nov24

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Here are some reading and writing activities for Thanksgiving. The first activity is a  mini book called  The First Thanksgiving. The book has seven pages which is perfect for young readers. You can also use thees pictures that  summarize the page of information you are reading. There are only six pictures, but the last two pages of the mini book  are similar so there is only one picture to represent both of them. (They are not anything fancy, but it serves the purpose. Feel free to use this idea and get other pictures if you don’t like my selection.) For Thanksgiving pictures, click here-> Thanksgiving Retelling. Cut these out for the activity. Give your student a piece of blank paper and have them write the title, The First Thanksgiving on the top of the page.

After your student reads one page, give him/her a choice of two pictures and choose which one best describes what s/he had read. Glue them on to the First Thanksgiving paper s/he created. Then have him/her write the numeral of the event  in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture. Do this for each page until the book is finished.

After all of the pictures are glued, it is his/her turn to tell you about each of them that s/he had glued onto the paper. Mission accomplished, the retelling of the story is easily done since there is a pictorial representation to refer to when explaining what s/he read.

If you want, you can have your student write out the story on Thanksgiving  themed paper or do one or both of these copywork pages:  Thanksgiving copywork   Thanksgiving copywork2 You can also have your student color the mini book too if you have time.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family,

~Lisa

Taking Care of Business: kids and business ideas

Nov10

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Do your children want things you don’t have the money for or have they asked you how they can generate income for something they want? It can be difficult to come up with ideas and have the know-how to help them do this. Maybe you have a child who has great ideas that you think could actually work. I have discovered some organizations and websites that can help.

Does your child have a great imagination and is always thinking of ways to improve something? Does s/he want to take apart things to see how they work? Plug them into networks for young inventors. There are many  organizations students can join to get hands-on experience in being an inventor and entrepreneur, including Odyssey of the Mind and First Robotics. Plus, organizations like Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and 4H also develop a lot of these leadership and entrepreneurial skills.

And, there are tons of competitions they can enter that will give them a good starting point. Intel and Google each have a science competition. By Kids for Kids is basically a clearinghouse for all kinds of competitions sponsored by companies — not just math and science competitions, but in all different types of categories including arts and athletics. Even if they don’t go on to become an entrepreneur or kid millionaire, it will build valuable life and business skills. Plus, there’s usually a cash prize involved, which gives a nice boost to their piggy bank to help fund their invention, pay for college or help them get a jump-start on saving.

The Secret Millionaires Club is also a part of the By Kids for Kids website that is a cartoon, but has great episodes for young entrepreneurs. The ones I watched were on starting a lemonade stand business and having a business plan.

Perhaps you feel that their interests in this area seem like a distraction to your school day. If you see this as an opportunity for practical applications for  math and science, you can allow this to be a benefit and enrich your curriculum.  Remember, you are exploring and finding the areas of strength and interest that your child has been given. Textbooks are terrific, but look beyond that to see the possibilities of what you child can do. Who knows but that your child has an idea that could revolutionize our world?:)

~Lisa

Fire Safety Month

Oct20

Unknown October is Fire Safety Month and there are many websites that provide printable and online activities for your students. This might be one may of those topics that you just can’t seem to get to throughout the year, but  it is a required subject for us who homeschool here in Ohio. I have a list of websites that have games, coloring sheets, and activities for your students.

Websites

Fire Safety Lapbook If your children like to create lapbooks, then this lapbook has all the important ideas you want to cover with them concerning fire safety. There are also some books that you can read to your children about Stop, Drop, and Roll and campfire safety.

Ohio Division of Forestry has coloring and activity pages as well as lesson plans for teachers that pertain to wildfires. There is even a certificate for your child when s/he has completed the lessons.

National Fire Prevention Association  The NFPA has online videos, ebooks, and a phone app to help students learn about fire safety.

What about taking your children on a tour of your local firehouse? The firemen are happy to have visitors, just call to see when you can come for a visit. This would be a good introduction to your young ones so they won’t be scared if they see a fireman with his oxygen mask and helmet on since the firemen take the time to let the children see them put on their coats and masks.

Remember to change your smoke detector batteries and practice fire escape routes at your house. Above all, be prepared and safety conscious. 🙂

Dyslexia and Handwriting

Oct6

With cursive writing being dropped from some of the public schools’ curriculum and teachers using it in the classroom less and less, I have been asked by homeschool moms what I think about continuing to teach cursive. I feel it is important, but I wanted to give more information to moms in order to help make an informed decision for handwriting instruction.  I have discovered that cursive is helpful to all students, but particularly dyslexic students. The School of Dyslexia, a blog for educators of dyslexic students, had a great article about this topic.

“Research shows that cursive improves dynamic interplay in the brain, improves fine motor skills, and can help improve the memory of the written concept.The research points to cursive writing engaging massive regions of the brain involving thinking, while typing or block printing keeps the generation of letters separate and less connective thought is involved.  When we are cursive writing, we are making connections from the right side and the left side of the brain; this helps build neural pathways and can increase mental effectiveness.  The brain is plastic, by which I mean it can change depending on how we train it, and cursive writing can help make the right and left-brain connections stronger.

As a school that teaches primarily to dyslexics, we often have students with fine motor challenges.  We often have students that have challenges with doing up buttons, tying shoes, these sorts of tasks.  Cursive writing naturally develops sensory skills, as the student understands angles, pencil position, and mostly motor planning to form each letter in a fluid motion from left to right.
Finally, memory can be greatly affected by the use of cursive.  As letters are connected to form words, more attention is given to the entire word, and by extension the entire thought.  It is easier for students, especially dyslexic and ADD students to think about what they are writing without losing their focus.  The continued attention and fluidity in writing often results in more long-term memory of the concepts.”

source: Derek Rhodenizer,Vice Principal, Heritage Academy 
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada  from a post on School of Dyslexia

Here are some websites that have handwriting worksheets for you to customize:

Handwriting Worksheets

Worksheet Works