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10 Indoor Activities for Little Ones

Dec15

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When the weather is not conducive to being able to go outside, what can your little do? Check out thees activities you can do with your toddlers and early preschoolers. Don’t have little ones? I am going to have a series of activities for different ages. Next week will be activities for older preschoolers. 

Little Ones

  • Dress Ups A container of “costumes” is always a big hit. Items to include for boys and girls are things like a: hat, sunglasses, tutu, tie, belt, scarf, boa, jewelry, play fireman hat, and a play construction safety helmet. The thrift store and stores who have cheaper ticket items (such as the Dollar Tree) can help you stock your costume stash for not a lot of expense. Better still, ask other people if they have some items they would like to contribute.
  • Playdoh is an all-time favorite. Put a piece of wax paper on the table to keep the dough from sticking to your table. If you have a biscuit  or cookie cutter, let your child(ren) make shapes. Be sure and let your little one know that they can’t eat their creations!
  • Sugar Cookies Speaking of eating cookies, what about making a big batch of sugar cookie dough and allow them to cut out shapes with you? After they are cooled let them decorate them.
  • Pom pom sort A bag of pom poms of various sizes can be used to create sorting activities. Sort according to size (big, little), color, texture (fuzzy/prickly). You can add cotton balls to the mix as well for more things to sort.
  • Lids and bowls were always a thing my boys loved to play with. For some reason, my boys loved to have them all in a drawer or bin. They loved taking them out, throwing them on the floor, and of course. banging them together. If you have a headache, you may want to do this on a different day!
  • Ball/ Bean Bag Toss Find  a container or laundry basket and something soft to throw for target practice. This is terrific for developing gross motor skills.
  • Obstacle Courses can be created by using tape to walk along as a “balance beam” and  follow in a zig zag or serpentine pattern; you can include a chair to climb up and down on; and pillows to jump onto. The possibilities are endless!
  • Paper Plate Trail. Have colored or paper plates taped down on the carpet and have your chid jump from one to another. Call out a color if they know that. If you are working on numbers, write a large number on the plate and call the number for them to jump onto.
  • A Balloon Bop is a great way for little ones to get moving. How many times can they hit the balloon with their hand before it falls to the ground? How many times with their head? Name a different body part to keep your child interested and reviewing body parts. Calling out the number of times the balloon is hit will help them learn their numbers.
  • Water Station Fill up the kitchen sink and add various containers for your youngster to fill and empty. Plastic items such as cups, cereal bowls, food storage containers and measuring cups and spoons were my boys’ favorites.

Tile Blocks Ideas and Giveaway Winners

Sep29

imagesOh, the things you can do with wooden tiles! Young children love to play and manipulate small objects. Using 1 inch tiles can help with mathematical and other academic concepts.

Visually appealing, tile blocks can be used to help students with the following concepts:

  • sorting
  • color recognition
  • counting out the number of each color (You can decrease the amount of tiles according to the child’s ability.)
  • making designs You can make your own or download pentomino worksheets 
  • measurement (Line tiles up in various lengths and use a ruler or a tape measure to measure how long it is.)
  • demonstrate the concept of sets
  • demonstrate the concept of area
  • develop small motor skills
  • follow directions For example: Find a blue tile and stack a yellow tile on top of it. Now add a green tile on top of the yellow tile. Draw a picture of your stack.
  • independent work You can keep these tiles in a small tub and bring them out when your older children are doing school.

 

3 winners have been awarded a set of blocks. Please see the comments section to find out if you won. 

 

 

 

 

 

9oo Hours

Aug18

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When you first read the Home Education Notification Form that you need to provide 900 hours of home education you might have had visions of your precious child sitting at a hard wooden desk for 8 hours. Maybe your thought was, “How are we supposed to do that?”

The good news is that you do not need to spend those 900 hours only doing schoolwork at a desk and reading monotonous textbooks. Although, using an interesting textbook is an excellent way to learn. 🙂 Home Education takes place each day, all day long. You are instructing your children throughout the day.  Discussing the importance of taking a bath, brushing teeth, and eating a well-balanced breakfast all are part of a health curriculum since these are components of hygiene and nutrition. Receiving an allowance; deciding on a plan for saving money to purchase something; tithing; and saving a portion of it are areas of math that are not necessarily covered in a textbook; but are essential to teach our children how to manage their money. Keeping toys picked up, not touching a hot stove, discussing and practicing how to get out of your home in case of a fire or an emergency are all part of a safety curriculum. All of these activities help to reinforce and enhance what you are studying.

One time I was telling the boys about how sound carries better if you cup your hands around your mouth and shout. Well, of course, we had to go outside and prove that idea. I couldn’t just have them go outside and yell, I decided to incorporate stranger safety into the activity as well. One son was on our play set slide while the other son was on a swing, each yelling “help” and kicking their legs with all of their might.  It didn’t occur to me until well into the activity that someone might really think the boys were actually in trouble. Fortunately, no one was around to witness this event except me.

So, how do you go about making sure that you have covered 900 hours of home instruction? If you take a typical school year, which is approximately 180 days and you divide into 900 you will arrive at 5 hours. This means you would provide instruction for your student a schedule of Monday through Friday beginning at 8:00 (if you are an early bird) and finishing at 1:30 with a 30 minute break for lunch.  Of course, you can begin and end school with the schedule that works best for your family.

Many families go on school-related outings on the weekends with things such as park programs with a naturalist (science), participating in sporting events such as a soccer team (physical education), going to a museum (history, art) or going on vacations and identifying birds, wildflowers, seashells (social studies,science), etc.

I created an attendance sheet that was Sunday through Saturday since we had several weekend events and field trips. You can keep track of the number of days you are homeschooling and have a record of that to put in your lesson plan book or school binder. Days add up quickly and you will find you easily meet the required hours of home instruction.

Am I advocating you sit around and watch cartoons, eat 3 bowls of ice cream and call that home education? No, I am not. You need to be purposeful in your home instruction and plan your school year, which includes all of the subjects listed on the Home Education Notification Form. You can watch cartoons and eat one scoop of ice cream in your free time. 🙂 You can, however,  make your school practical and fun while teaching your children; that is one of the benefits of home education. Educating our children doesn’t stop when we put away the school books.

If you are in need of a calendar to plan school and extra curricular activities there are many free printable calendars available. Some you can even edit, which is a nice feature.  I marked the calendar date with a diagonal line through the date if it was just a half day (such as a weekend) or an x for a full day. This is a website I have used over the years and i just type right on the calendar and print it off. Easy! To view, CLICK HERE.

This is not legal advice. It is my opinion. I am not a lawyer, have not studied law, nor do I play the role of an actor in any play or motion picture. 🙂 Please consult your local homeschool group, CHEO, or HSLDA if you are in need of legal advice.

Newport Aquarium Homeschool Days

Aug11

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Mark your calendar and get ready to have a great day at Newport Aquarium.  From September 15-19 the facility will be having Homeschool Days with special programs just for homeschoolers. What a great way to teach science!

Homeschool Days

September 15 – 19, 2014

You can enhance your child’s knowledge of marine life and conservation while having a wonderful time in the process. Visit the Newport Aquarium for Homeschool Days when admission is only $11 per person and no minimum is required.

All Homeschool tickets must be purchased in advance. Homeschool tickets are not available at the front gate.

Exciting Additional Experiences for Home School Days:

Finstitute Classroom Experience
Each class is taught by a WAVE Foundation instructor and classroom tickets are just $4 per guest. Newport Aquarium Admission tickets required.

    • Surrounded By Sharks (Grades K-12) – Class begins promptly at 9:15am
      Learn all about Sharks in this 30 minute class! This class will take place in the Shark Ray Bay Theater of the Newport Aquarium before opening. Please arrive 10 minutes prior to class time.
    • Scales and Tails (Grades K-12) – Class begins promptly at 10:15am
      Learn about what makes a reptile a reptile and engage with live animal encounters in this 45 minute class!
  • Rosie the Riveter
    Get a duck’s-eye view of WWII as you experience one of the most innovative transport vehicles in military history. Rosie the Riveter introduces your students to the amphibious DUKW vehicle and the important role that American women played in the creation of this ingenious land-and-water truck with a classroom presentation, authentic WWII military artifacts and a historic video. Then climb aboard and learn first-hand how the Duck operates as you take a land and water tour passing many area landmarks and attractions. Rosie the Riveter Ride the Duck tickets are just $10 each on Home School Days!

Backstage Animal Experience
Get an inside look at the Aquarium facility and learn what it takes to maintain a one-million gallon environment. Only $5 per person!

Penguin Encounters
During the 20-minute encounter, you will talk with one of our our Animal Experience Specialists who handle these adorable birds. $25 per person

If you are interested in going and want more details, CLICK HERE.

Morning Knowledge Nuggets

Jun30

Screen Shot 2014-06-24 at 6.38.22 AMAngela sent me these wonderful ideas after she read last week’s guest blog post that Suzanne wrote on Character. This was too good to keep to myself so I asked her if I could share this with you and she said, “Yes”! I have included links for the resources that she has mentioned.

My “Morning Knowledge Nuggets” (a title the kids and I came up with last year when we started homeschooling) is my chance to “start the day in the right way” and get in some “tidbit” lessons that I might not get a chance to otherwise.

We begin with our prayers and a daily devotion/bible verse.  Then we do our “Character Connection” with a lesson or activity for the character trait of the month.  I also include an Etiquette lesson (the kids love the book from the Etiquette Factory) and an “Ethics” lesson where we try to tie it all in and talk about morals and values (I discovered at the end of this year that the kids loved hearing Aesop’s Fables and trying to guess the moral of the story…great discussions).

Sometimes I’ll throw in a “Sticky Situation” from a book I have by the same title that is a devotional.  It depends on what day it is, as we do each of these things on one day of the week (or take more as a situation presents itself).  There is also a second book, Sticky Situations 2

After “Character Connections,” we do our “Grammar Game.”  This is something short to reiterate grammar basics.  Sometimes we take a sentence for the week and  do something different with it each day, like Monday-label parts of speech, Tuesday-label sentence parts, Wednesday-label sentence type, Thursday-talk about capitalization, punctuation, and review the week, and Friday-“quiz”-apply what we’ve learned to a new sentence of the same type.  (btw, this all came out of a need to desperately improve our grammar fundamentals!!)

Other weeks, I’ll do something short and “fun” (although the kids don’t always think so!) to reiterate a difficult concept, what we’re learning that week, or something new that isn’t quite covered in our lessons.  Then we do a bit of German and end with our journal writing!  Sometimes we are done in a half or less, other times it takes an hour for all of it.  But I always feel like our day is a lot more complete when I can get in these “other” important things!  🙂