Make it easy and make it fun

Some idea’s for those moms who are traveling or recovering from surgery

(or Both, love you lots momma bug)

1. Let the kids do school on their own!

Learn once,

Do once,

Teach once,

Let the older ones teach the concepts to the younger ones. That will help them solidify what they have learned (although, if they are teaching letters, make sure they are the correct direction. I learned that lesson one day when George was teaching Jonathan)

2. Have the older ones read to the younger ones.

3. Watch Educational video's. (If you need some new ones you can pay $9 a month with Netflix an watch them on-line if you have good internet access or there are some on the PBS website that you can watch, like this old house etc. Watcher be ware, with both of those ideas. Defiantly preview)

4. Have them do a typing tutor on the computer. (my favorite is Mavis Beacon)

5. Have them work on computer learning games (Jump Start is my favorite, and you can buy and download them on-line and use them instantly). http://shop.knowledgeadventure.com/

6. Here is one I do rarely because we don’t have a lot of extra cash: Buy a science kit and give it to the one who reads the best. Have them follow the instructions. (If your are supervising without input its best not to get one that has chemicals, such as physics or electric. However, I just want to share, one of my favorite kits was “my first discoveries, eye-popping early science” by discovery kids, defiantly need an adult to help with this one though)

7. We are currently learning self-motivation at our house. I assign the homework in the morning and they are in charge of following through with getting it done without reminding. The end of their day just does not come until all the work is done. (Not something you can do if your low on sleep... I currently charge $1 an hour for every hour mommy has to stay up past her bed time, waiting for them to be done.)

8. Take your calendar out and pick a day, that is still in your memory. Think about what you and the children talked about. If you talked about pretty flowers and how they make seeds, write down science ~ Plant life. If you talked about how to figure out if something was cheaper in bulk, write down Math ~ math applied. Take what you talked about and what you did and document it as school work. Often times we do stuff that is natural learning and forget to document. DOCUMENT IT!

9. Verbal drills. This one is good for cars, spoken by someone who almost spent a year in a car on the way to visits. Example: If I bought two gallons of milk for four dollars, how much did I spend on each gallon? How do you spell "frog". What are three meanings of the word "2". If I have a 4, what number would I need to add to get ten? If a baby gets a diaper rash what are three things we could do to help it???? :-), that is probably the one our kids wouldn't have any problem answering. ;-)

10. Ask your husband to help. I know not one that you want to do, however, when I am having trouble getting the point across, I will ask Spence to help. He often sits by Andrew when he comes home, and just sits there. It seems to really help Andrew to realize not only how important it is, but that it’s not just a mom thing.

11. Copy work. Not only is this good for spelling but it works for other things like math and art. I hand them their favorite picture book and have them copy one drawing out of it.

12. Games, I don't know if your eldest are old enough, but mine are now doing chess, boggle, scrabble and other games on their own. I just pick ones like scrabble, that I can write down for school work.

13. Hobbies that can be schoolwork. Such as the rock tumbler is turning into how to make jewelry, which I consider money management and art. Kids can crochet in the car,... But I would buy LOTS of hooks, for when you hear, MOM, I DROPPED IT AGAIN!!! Hummm. maybe put it on a string and tie it to the seat belt? Could do the same with the pencils they keep dropping.

14. Invention books. Drawings and explanations in writing of things they would like to invent.

15. Puzzle books, like the kind where you search for the word and then circle it. Here is some on-line one's you could print off http://children.calvarychapel.com/site/curriculum.htm

16. Learn about each state you are in... http://www.kidzone.ws/geography/usa/

17.Books on tape. I know you already do this one, but if there are books you specifically want them to hear and aren’t up for reading you could try and find them on tape. Then they could listen while they look at the book. If you are having trouble finding some, try typing in books for the blind or something like that. In fact I think there is a library in Washington that has a whole bunch of books on tape for the blind, I doubt if they ask if your blind when your rent them and you can rent them through any library and they ship them through interlibrary. So you don't have to pay shipping I don’t' think.

18. Don't forget exercising. Some days the kids spend all day in "exercise" class. P.E. like a marathon day at school.

19. Field trips. Think about all the places they have been, use those as documented field trips.

20. Paces. A.C.E. school of tomorrow. Paces. My boys are old enough now to correct their own school work (other than some handwriting sloppiness), I have to correct about 7 pages out of 30. As long as you buy the score key. http://www.schooloftomorrow.com/Default.aspx

I may add more as I think of them. If any of you have ideas, feel free to add them.

~Heather