Posts Tagged ‘educational games’
Back to School Tips – Start with the Basics
What I really enjoy about homeschooling is being able to provide a huge variety of topics for my kids (and myself) to learn about. We are not limited to the specific recommended courses but instead, we can explore our interests, our wonders and even some off-beat ideas.
Of course, without the basics, none of this exploration is possible. The basics meaning, reading, spelling, writing and math. A strong foundation in these subjects will allow children to explore anything they want.
Recently, I had a chance to explore the ClickN SPELL program from ClickN KIDS. This program is an entertaining online program to help kids with spelling. It features the ability to set up a number of children and various learning levels. Each child can follow up to 100 lessons. Each lesson provides new words to learn through repetition. The spelling lesson will also increase typing skills as the child types in each spelling word. There is amazing encouragement as the child progresses and in each lesson the words get progressively more difficult. Each lesson ends with a practice round which reviews the words learned with a little mini-test. The results are then given in a report that can be viewed on the screen, printed and emailed to the parent. The cartoon cat that helps the child through each lesson adds some fun to spelling drills.
ClickN KIDS also has ClickN READ Phonics program to help a child learn to read. The programs provide some entertainment along with lessons and represents a “video game” idea which is sure to attract children to play!
So, the first mountain you have climbed led you to the decision to homeschool your child. It sure was an uphill battle but at last you have reached the top and feel accomplished.
So now, your child would like to learn about car mechanics, or magpies or even mustard plants. But you don’t know about any of those things! In this case, there really isn’t a mountain to climb. It is just a little hill that can easily be reached by a little reading and research. Look to the library for books on the subject, or find some unit studies and workbooks to help you plan a lesson. Ask people in the neighbourhood or family that have had experience with the subject and just get in there and learn it together!
Homeschooling does have its share of mountains to climb, but teaching subjects that are unfamiliar doesn’t have to be one of them. You may be surprised how much you learn, and enjoy learning in the process!
There is much talk about family game night, a chance to spend quality time with the family. But board games shouldn’t be restricted to game night, they can be part of your school lesson plans!
Most board games offer learning through counting, matching and cooperation. There are also board games made specifically for their educational value, like phonics bingo or money matching games. Classic games like Monopoly and Scrabble have obvious educational value but games like Operation or Jenga can be great to develop hand/eye coordination and patience skills. The key to having board games enhance learning is to play them and have the child do the work. Have them count the spots on the die, then move the appropriate space. Have them find the colour that matches their own or count out the money owed. As they get older give them more opportunity to learn by letting them be the banker, or having them help a younger sibling spell words. Board games allow children to learn by doing, and by talking and by seeing – perfect to fit all learning styles. As an added bonus, playing a game can help active learners learn to sit still for a specific amount of time.
Make board games part of your lessons and see how much fun your children have learning!
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.
You’re probably aware by now that the public schools routinely make a mockery of our kids’ education. Underpaid teachers are expected to do the best job possible with inferior materials and ill-considered curricula. It’s an experiment that was destined to fail from the beginning, but nowhere is that more obvious than in the realm of mathematics. Math skills remain applicable for our whole lives; engineers, physicists and many other folks with noble vocations rely on them each and every day.
For that reason, it’s up to parents to take matters into their own hands. In order to guarantee that your child gets the best, most well-rounded education possible, you’ll need to teach him some educational math games. Kids are generally computer savvy, so they might be able to get the CD ROM games up and running easier than you can. Don’t feel embarrassed – it’s absolutely essential that children are well versed in computers as well as math. Their futures depend on it.
Conscientious parents can be wary of the dangers lurking online – and understandably so. The Internet is chock full of images and pieces of information that are only suitable for a mature adult. But that harsh reality is no reason to deprive home-schooled students of benefits of computers. As a preventative measure, you can install software that restricts access to morally reprehensible Web sites.
Educational PC games provide a safe learning environment where kids can hone their academic skills while enjoying themselves at the same time. These experiences are especially rare in public schools, where learning comes to be associated with drudgery and rote memorization. By keeping your home-school curriculum fresh, you can guarantee your child’s interest and full participation.