How are you holding up? I think this week is a reality break for many people out there! We made it through a month or more of staying at home only its just now becoming hard for them. It makes sense, the kids find summer fun for a month then get bored. With school work at home it was probably 'fun' for a few weeks and now its old news! I have something that should help!
Go to Staples.com they have put together some fun ideas and activities, plus you can order pick up or delivery of some great school items! We used to get extras there, the fun reminder of how to write, the fun maths and even english writing books! They have poster paper, boards, etc.
One fun thing we did was to make a project board for every theme! We did this for History and Geography and played it up like a travel brochure one year. So whatever they are studying putting together a poster board stand up project board or other big picture with words attached will bring in a time consuming exciting school week!
1- Research the topic. Go ahead use the internet for 30 minutes with them, if they are young, and with supervision if they are old enough to have their own connection. (50States.com, Discovery kids, wikipedia, and a few other great spots will bring lots of information for you!)
2- Print, or help them to write out information on a notebook page. If they are young leave the screen up for them to color their own rendition of the item.
3- Use magazines and have them make a collage related to the topics!
4- Don't forget to check out the Pizza Project! First you eat the pizza then you make the project and put it together inside the pizza box!
5. Oh also, try Notebookingpages.com I found some great helps there!
As my daughter once said "Give a kindergartener a stack of construction paper and a box of crayons and just see what they can create! They will be happy for hours!
DO not forget to be encouraging at the 'great job' and 'sweet!' work they are doing!~ Remind them they are to work hard but also to enjoy what they are learning about.
One more thought, if your child is not great at writing out their ideas have them recite it for someone else to write for them!
Not for everything but why not for one or two projects or stories?
Some fun projects we did when we were schooling at home were;
- Create your own board game!
- Map out a town and make roads you can use toy cars one!~ make sure it looks proportional but also if you use printer paper they can tape it together to make some really big cities or country even!
- Play Mad libs with Google! ( just ask Google to play Mad libs with you! Its a ton of fun!)
- Create your own room design project? Have the kids remodel your home on paper only! How would they set up their own space?
Most of all for the next week try to have fun with it all! Do school work inside a home made tent! Or put up a camping tent indoors and let them make it into a class room!
Enjoy the learning situations you can create while you School them at Home !
Be blessed, not stressed!