Learning ideas, games, activities, books, and suggestions for the kindergarten through fourth grade learner, ideal for home learner or school student.
To challenge my children (and those in our reader’s response co-op class) to step outside of their reading comfort zone, we’ve been working on the Badges for Books genre reading challenge. Badges for Books is a simple way to encourage a diverse diet of reading, and I’ve found it allows my children to each choose
My youngest loves to dig in the dirt! After some gentle teasing from her dad about how, when he was a kid, he dug to the center of the Earth, she thought she’d give it a try! This led in to some actual discussion about our Earth and how big it actually is. Our unit
My early reader does not want to sit down and do a worksheet, thankyouverymuch. And yet she spends her time begging me to play a game. So to encourage her process of reading, I turn it in to a game. This week we played an autumn-themed game to help us recognize the short vowel sounds.
The most amazing thing to me about the outcome of the American Revolutionary War was that after the fighting was over, the colonies agreed on a new government and wrote a new constitution. A new nation was born, the United States of America. George Washington was a pivotal part of the creation of the new
After our homeschool science co-op teacher withdrew from teaching due to a family emergency, I had to be creative in setting up a science plan for the rest of our homeschool year. I decided it was time to focus on living things with my then 7-year-old son. Apparently, to many teachers, lower elementary means learning
My daughter is so proud that she can read simple consonant-vowel-consonant words now. She still needs to sound them out sometimes, but it comes with ease now. Because she’s gotten to this point of fluency, she can read for understanding. The best activity we’ve done lately is switched the right words to the wrong words. It
When my son was 4 years old, he loved watching Finding Nemo, which led to a deep love for the coral reef and all the creatures the main characters in the movie encountered there. Sea turtles, sting rays, barracuda, jellyfish, and, of course, clown fish. All of these coral reef creatures were friends. Whenever we visited
When I think of summer, I think of reading. I love to encourage free reading all summer long, and finding reading programs with book-ish rewards only adds to the fun.
Apparently, searching for eggs never gets old. My older kids and my kindergartner all love hiding and searching for eggs in our home and our yard, time and time again, even when it’s not quite Easter! I told my youngest that I’d hide eggs for her yet again today if she would read the words
A musical education can enrich your child’s life. I’ve seen this time and again, starting from the very beginning. My four-month-old cried and cried. I held her and rocked her until I got to a point of exhaustion. I needed a break. I woke my husband and turned her over to him. Within ten minutes, the nursery
March is Rainbow season! I love figuring out how to incorporate rainbow fun into our homeschool. For my kindergartner, who loves rainbows, I decided to make a rainbow as a learning project for remembering the ten bonds for early math skills! This fun rainbow math craft takes very little time but it creates a physical
What do you do for your students for Valentine’s Day? Here is a fun way to give a STEM Valentine’s Day card to your students or children — crack a code! My STEM Challenge class loved trying to figure the codes out. My preschooler enjoyed matching the symbols to the letters (although she could not
