Archive for the ‘Home Educational Supplies’ Category
Living and Learning Green
The environment and the issues surrounding it is a common topic today. It is important to teach children about the environment, about the threats to it and about how they can help.
Simply reducing, reusing and recycling can be the first steps to helping the environment. Lead by example: recycle used paper (make sure you use both sides), seperate your trash into recyclable, compostable and reusable (great sorting lesson for kids). Donate out-grown clothing to a thrift store or charity, pay attention to packaging when buying products. Getting your children involved in the choices and the actions will help them learn how important it is to do.
Use downloadable resources so you only need to print the pages you need. Use household items meant for the recycling bin for crafts and science experiments. Melt down old crayons to make new ones, use a blackboard to write notes rather than paper. Adopt some wildlife as a gift for someone or as part of your school lesson plan. We adopted a sea turtle, then learned all about it and tracked his movements in the ocean!
Just the effort of thinking about it, and making good choices can make a world of difference.
To help pass the lesson on read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, underneath all the rhyme and silliness there is a strong message!
The Winter Olympics offers a great opportunity to bring current events into the lesson plan. From the history of the Olympics, to modern day sports there are many great topics to teach about!
This is a great time for a geography lesson on world countries since children will be able to link the countries with the athletes. Math lessons can also be incorporated because each event deals with speed times, first, second, third and percentages. How much faster was the first place winner, what percentage of the athletes for that country competed in that event and more. Obviously sports lessons would work with this theme as well. The rules of the sports, the safety involved, the history of the sport - plenty of lessons could apply. For older students even a lesson on drug awareness can be brought in by discussing steroids and other enhancing drugs, why they are banned, what they would do to an athlete’s body and what has happened to athletes that have been caught using them.
By bringing current events into the lesson plan, children can associate what they are learning with the world in general, and can understand better when they see the event on television or in the paper.
For some great downloadable resources on the Winter Olympics click here.
Downloadable ebooks are a great way to have instant lessons! Find the book, add it to your cart, download and print!
Downloading workbooks is time-saving, money-saving and paper-saving because you need only to print the pages you want. It gives you a great opportunity to fill in lessons with ready-made worksheets, templates and more. Even novels can be downloaded which can be great when there is a hard to find or popular book to be read for that lesson. Sometimes it is worth downloading a book to see if it is worth buying it for keeps. Audiobooks can also be downloaded to a computer or MP3 player, allowing for stories on the go, or to help the audio learner. Downloadable ebooks make quick and easy lesson plans with just a couple of clicks of the mouse!
History can be a subject that is overwhelming to learn. So many names, dates and events, it can cause children to shut down and not want to learn. It is important to make subjects like this come alive so that kids can enjoy studying them!
Plan a project on a favorite topic and combine historic elements into it. For example learning about horses can encompass many eras of history including medieval times and Native American culture. Field trips are also helpful for bringing history alive. Many historic sites have costumed interpreters that help kids understand how it was back then. Some places even have programs where children can dress up and “live” in history too! Art, poetry and music contain historic references that can be developed into a further project. And don’t forget unit studies, history can be followed in a unique way through a unit study. For example, early History of Canada can be followed through forts - this would take you through the fur trade, the War of 1812 and the North West Mounted Police encompassing all of the country!
Holiday time can be a busy time and put a strain on the scheduled school time. So why not take a break this holiday season?
Start your child on a novel study so they can read while travelling to friends and family. Give them worksheets of puzzles and games that they can do on the go. Or start a unit study that they can do on their own. Take educational board games with you when you visit so they can learn and play with friends and family. All these ideas still allow for learning but in a less structured way to allow for the breaks during the holidays.
Take an in depth look at the holidays around the world celebrated at this time of year. There are lots of crafts and activities that can be inspired from them.
December 6 is St. Nicholas day in the Netherlands. St. Nicholas gifts are meant to be shared - inspire sharing in your child by having them donate some of their toys to a good cause.
December 13 is Santa Lucia day in Sweden. Santa Lucia stands as a symbol of light and
hope to all mankind - her day is celebrated with lights and gingerbread cookies - you can bake cookies to help celebrate this day!
December 21 is the first day of winter. The Winter Solstice is a time to celebrate friends and family - make a wreath for the door so everyone that visits feels welcomed.
Chanukah starts December 22. It is an eight day festival of lights in the Jewish faith. Candles are an important part of this holiday - make candles to give as gifts - roll beeswax or make dipped candles
Kwanzaa is based on the Nguzo Saba (seven guiding principles), one for each day
of the observance, and is celebrated from December 26th to January 1st - have your family create their own “rules/principles” to guide them through the new year ahead.
Make the holidays educational!
Wouldn’t you love to have an entire lesson in one box! Well you can with educational CD-ROMS.
Many educational computer games include the basics for lessons in English, Math, Art, Geography, and other languages. An hour of playtime with one of these computer games can include an entire lesson without the children even realizing they are learning. It is a lesson of fun in a box (monitor)!
A homeschooling family enjoys having time together but adding in planning for each school year can be time-consuming. Here are some time-saving teaching tips to help give you more family time, and less planning time.
When you schedule a week of school make room for a day to do errands. This can become part of the lessons, or a day of project/research work. Setting aside this time allows you to get things done without feeling the crunch of time constraints. At particularily busy times of the year use unit studies, curriculum that is already set up so there is little or no preparation work but lots of educational benefits. On weekend getaways or family vacations incorporate some lessons on geography, culture, economics and more. Filling in education in these extra places can help alleviate some of the structured work that needs planning. Finally, teach your kids how to organize themselves, find answers for themselves and structure their days, that means you have time to structure yourself without having to worry about keeping them on track.
For many homeschoolers, learning is an integral part of their life, their everyday routine. Every day there is learning whether it be in the classroom, on a field trip or running errands.
It is important to encourage learning. An easy way to do this is giving educational gifts. A book, a game, a science kit or even a craft kit all have the potential to inspire learning in children. Don’t forget educational video games too - fun and learning together! Inspire learning not only in your own children, but other children to whom you give gifts.
After a night of trick or treating and a belly full of candy, getting children to concentrate on school work can be a challenge. The trick is to incorporate Halloween into the lessons!
A bag of Halloween candy is a great math manipulative. It can be used for counting, sorting, graphing and more. Even the wrappers can be used for collage art! A health lesson on the good and bad of sugar is another great way to incorporate treats into the lesson plan. Keep out those costumes and use them to act out plays, fairy tales or other stories that has the character in it. Kids will study topics they are interested in so find a thematic unit on Halloween, ghosts, bats or other spooky themes. Bringing Halloween into the lesson plan will take the trickiness out of teaching over-excited children!