Schooling At Home: Unusual learning

We love our little home school!

I’m not about to preach and boast my kids’ test scores or reading levels.

I’m not about to try to lure you’re public-school-going-kids over to the dark side.

I’m about to share some of our unique ways of incorporating learning in our everyday lives.

These ideas are suitable for home school, unschool or to support their public school education at home, and let me know what you think!

Within These Walls:

Your home, whether you realize it or not, is full of free educational resources. The key to a well-rounded education doesn’t exclusively mean reading, writing and arithmetic. Sending your kids out into the world without common life skills is, in my opinion, worse than not teaching them to read. We all need to be able to manage money, prepare a meal or fold laundry. So, LET THEM HELP!

I know, it’s easier to brush them off and faster to do it yourself, but you’re not doing anyone any favors. Loving them is letting them do.

In the Kitchen

Math and reading tools:

Cookbooks and measuring cups support reading, calculating, understanding fractions and the process of following instructions.

Science:

Achieving a meal using ingredients is like performing experiments and learning science. Try a recipe that calls for baking powder twice, once with the baking powder and once without. Have your little one observe the difference and draw a conclusion.

You could simply boil a pot of water and watch what happens.

Try this musical experiment:

Water glasses experiment

Need: Water and glasses

Instructions: fill glasses with different amounts of water.

Wet finger tip and run around mouth of glass.

Do the same for all glasses and hear the difference in sound.

Draw conclusions

The kitchen isn’t the only place to home school, we’ll get deeper into these walls in another post.

Out In The World

The Backyard

Observing wildlife is an intrinsic part of childhood. Any little person marvels at the site of a squirrel or bird. Encourage your child to follow the bird and see where it goes. Did it hop? Fly? Walk? Where is it going? To a tree? Nest? Water?

Walking down the sidewalk or road is helpful to teach nature, geography and social studies. Point out a mailbox and explain how sending a letter works. Then, send a letter to someone asking for a return letter. Who doesn’t love getting mail? (as long as it’s not a bill, of course)

Observing the weather, saying hi to the neighbor, watching the garbage truck and other neighborhood experiences are all opportunities for learning!

The Grocery Store

Choosing products by reading labels and observing nutritional value teaches comparison by value as well as price and healthy eating habits. Teaching that the unit price is a portion of the purchase price depending on size, weight or quantity is invaluable. I didn’t learn this trick until I had a family of my own and I save so much money keeping an eye on the unit.

Watching for deals and coupons helps emphasize the importance of not paying more than you need to and saving money. Money that your child may have earned at home doing chores and how to manage while shopping will definitely teach the value of the almighty dollar.

The Public Library

I have yet to come across a paid library as I’m sure they exist but your local free public library will have the obvious, books, but also magazines, movies, computers and internet, as well as forms publications and a plethora of information about homeschooling and education.

The World Wide Web

This blog is free! Along with many other blogs teeming with free lesson plans, printables and downloads. A simple internet search of the grade level and materials will provide days of learning and seat work (if that’s what you’re going for).

Many websites offer free ebooks in exchange for subscribing for emails or newsletters. *you can always unsubscribe after downloading your goodies. Then again, why would you, when you’ll risk missing out on future deals and promotions being offered?

A popular shopping website known for books and great deals has free ebooks for download to any mobile device. The application is also available for pc or apple download. Finding the free books can be time-consuming but that is where the free subscriptions come in; websites devoted to sharing home school deals have done the work for you, just check your inbox.

Sites that offer free products need to earn money to keep what’s free, free. So, it’s important to make a purchase now and again. Be sure to never pay full price and search for coupons as well as get rebates on your shopping by joining that website that pays you a percentage of your purchases, you know the one.

So obviously, this post only touches the tip of the iceberg of homeschooling resources. I have not included any affiliate links because i do not have permission to do so (a quick search will get you there), I’ve only listed the ones that we use regularly or know to be helpful. As alway, share your thoughts or add your own free resources in the comments.

 

I’m working on getting more out here about our schooling life and hope you’ll stick around! Don’t miss a post; subscribe for emails.