Every January, I take some time to evaluate how my kids are doing with their school work. Are there areas where they are excelling and need some praise and maybe even some additional challenge? Are there areas where they are struggling and need a little extra support?
Once I take stock of these things, then I consider what to add, change, or subtract from our current school regimen. I never just add or change something without a good reason. Because we all know… if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Here are some free or cheap ideas to consider adding to your school schedule:
1. Nature Journals – Give your kids a blank notebook that you can pick up from the dollar store or office supply store. Allow them to decorate the cover with stickers or colored pens or duct tape (whatever you have on hand). Make it a habit to take a weekly walk outdoors and record what you see/find in your nature journals. You can do this during any season, but perhaps springtime is the best season of all.
2. Handwriting Refresher – Are your kids’ handwriting getting sloppier as the year goes on? I noticed this with my middle school students and so have introduced a “handwriting refresher” to our day. I copy out a sentence from our current read-aloud fiction book or the Bible or copy down a great quote for them and ask them to write it in their very best handwriting before attacking the rest of their written work for the day.
3. Typing Class – Our kids need to know how to type much sooner than we did when we were in school. I didn’t take typing until high school. There are some fun typing resources online that you can have them work through to learn and/or improve their typing skills. Here are a few – typing.com, nitrotype.com, and dancemattypingguide.com.
4. Your Library – We always have a book on the go that I am reading out loud to my kids. Many of these I have collected over the years and sit on my book shelf, BUT if I don’t have it, I’ll borrow it. Why buy more books when you can read them for free from your local library? We also have a weekly “Library Day” when we do our school work at the library and research a topic of interest (just fun, no writing required). Popular topics for my kids are how to improve their sports game (water polo is the current sport), wilderness survival skills, Harry Potter, and race cars.
5. Audiobooks – Winters can get very long and boring when it’s raining outside. Audiobooks can entertain without the visual stimulation of a screen. My kids will play with legos or stuffed animals while they listen to an audiobook or Adventures in Odyssey episode. I love it!
6. Map it! – Whenever you study a person or event in history, science, or literature, mark the place on a map. You can do this with a paper map using a sharpie or with straight pins on a foam-backed map. Would you like to make one? Download the easy project sheet from our Facebook page here.
Those are my five Homeschool Hacks for 2019. I hope that one or more of them are useful to you.
And should you need any super CHEAP history or geography resources to enhance your studies, make sure to preview next week’s Scratch and Dent Sale here:
https://knowledgequest.lpages.co/scratch-dent-sale-2019-preview/ (links and prices are inactive)
Finish your week strong and enjoy those learning moments. You’ve got this!
On the journey with you,
Terri Johnson
Knowledge Quest, Inc.
www.knowledgequestmaps.com
