Learning ideas, games, activities, books, and suggestions for the kindergarten through fourth grade learner, ideal for home learner or school student.
My son has been learning to play the piano of his own volition using an online program. Sometimes, though, we do an activity or game together to practice notes recognition. I’m delighted! Our super easy DIY staff to practice reading notes is a staple next to the piano bench. This is a complete reversal of his
Reading Hey, Little Ant with kids is a great way to practice writing to persuade. I also believe that it is important to be informed when we make decisions. Research can strengthen a persuasive argument. This lesson, based on the story Hey, Little Ant, helps students learn the strength of persuading through research.
The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller is a silly fictional book. I think we all know that the states are not alive and able to pick up and move to a new place in the country. Afterall, the states are just governmental divisions of land! But for an upper elementary school student, The
I am so excited that my 8-year-old son Raisin is finally becoming mature enough to be a lot more self-directed this year! It’s just in time. This year my daughter is going to be home preschooled, and I also have a soon-to-be-walking baby! It’s going to be crazy enough, so I’m really grateful anytime my son can
We have not done a formal study of Spanish this summer. But, I did not want to lose all that we have studied in the past year. So, it has been fun to pull out a Spanish picture book every now and then. We are blessed with a local library with lots of Spanish language picture books. Seeing
My son and I have been studying Spanish together for about four years now. He has done many lessons on Visual Link Spanish, and we’ve taken a class at a local co-op. I have sat and reviewed grammar and vocabulary with him in game format and as we read picture books together. We practice praying
Last week, my son was playing with a fortune teller that he found in an activity book. It predicted what amazing vacation he had in his future. It had destinations like Disney World and Paris, but his destination ended up being “A smelly sewage works.” This was hilarious to us because last week we actually
We are working on multiplication a little bit each week these days. I also discovered this week that my son could not remember the difference between area and perimeter! This week, I decided to give him a design challenge: plan a flower garden. It turned out to be a fun way to review area and perimeter!
We are working on yet more multiplication around here. Now that the weather is so amazing, we’ve taken some of our learning outside. This week we practiced multiplication with outdoor arrays.
My son loves maps, especially the ease of browsing places and seeing what they look like on Google Maps. Since, in his geology class, he has been learning about mountains and volcanoes on the earth’s surface, we played a matching game using some of the landforms he has come across. I gave him the names
My son is currently taking Geology from Athena’s Academy, using the Focus on Geology textbook from Real-Science-4-Kids. It’s labeled a Middle School textbook, and his class is using it as a nice overview of the various concepts of geology. Their online class spent extra time learning about volcanoes, earthquakes and other ways the earth’s crust changes. They’ve
Multiplication is my third grader’s nemesis this year. I remember the dreaded weekly multiplication tests from my own third-grade year. So, any way we can make practicing the times tables into a game, the better! Raisin actually helped me figure out how to make this baseball multiplication game. We use the ten-sided die and baseball equations
