Homeschool Theater

A bored brain is a brain that is not learning. If you have read or studied anything while you were bored, you know from experience that a bored brain has trouble creating short-term memories. With a bored brain, maybe you have read a chapter or two in a textbook but later had no idea what you have actually read.

For some families in the homeschool world, boredom can be a dark cloud that hangs over your good intentions. It is possible that this boredom is not just limited to the children but also to the parent(s) who are coordinating the homeschool efforts. While one might think that boredom sets in only for those who are using a very rigid homeschool method such as “school at home,” you might find that even the most unrestricted “unschooling” family can have moments of boredom.

One of the unique advantages of homeschooling is the ability to get up and change course. When you can feel boredom coming on, try one of these refreshers.

Take a Trip
Homeschooling does not mean you have to be always at home. Regular trips to the local library should already be on your weekly schedule. Why not go to the zoo, see a movie or drive to another state? Where can you go that will create new memories and stretch you outside of your comfort zone?

If you have contacts in other locations, why not arrange a day or overnight trip to see how and what others are learning? Let the children in the new home be the “presenters” to show off how they experience homeschooling. Later, you and your children could be the host to the family that first hosted you.

Create Things.
“Creating” takes planning, reading and math skills. This is not a break from homeschooling. Rather, it is the very essence of homeschooling.

Bake something that you have never baked before. Create a giant-sized mural on a roll of paper. Build a sculpture from recycled trash. Take some family time to plan a new color scheme for a room in your house and then paint the room. Create a garden in a container if space is limited or go plant a big garden in your backyard. Help your children turn a chapter of a good book into a piece of theater that they perform.

Go Volunteer
Volunteering for any charity or non-profit is a great way for you and your children to experience a wider view of the world. In most organizations, you can easily arrange to volunteer as a family group. Businesses do this all the time- sending groups of 8-10 people to one location for volunteer work. Take some time and have your children research various charities in your area then make a family choice as to which group gets your weekly volunteer hours.

Fighting boredom can be very easy when you are homeschooling. Yes, it takes time and energy. None of us began homeschooling because we thought it would be easy. Get moving and creative!

Bust some homeschool boredom today!

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Sean Buvala, father of four homeschooled children aged teen-adult, writes frequently about educational and parenting topics. Come learn more about his book for dads at http://www.daddyteller.com.

If you are new to home schooling and haven’t a clue as to what to do about curriculum other than buying a set out of a catalog, there is a wealth of learning possibilities available to you. Many are free or low-cost. You just have to dig a little!

There are advantages to using boxed curriculum, if you have the money they require. If time is short or you really dislike planning, then a boxed set may be the way to go. On the other hand, if your budget is tight, there are many alternatives:

1. Your child is the one being home schooled so start here. What does he love to do? Read mysteries, skateboard, collect seashells, play with his dog, and draw? For each of his interests you will be able to find books to read, documentaries, clubs, lessons, web pages, or activities. Build a unit study or theme around one of those interests. You may be amazed at what your child will learn if it starts with something he is truly interested in.

2. Check with your home schooling support group to see if a lending library is available. Some groups keep books about the different styles of home schooling while others may have unit study kits or materials arranged by learning subject.

3. Use the public library. Every library system is different; you will have to investigate to see what your library offers. If your library is in a city or county system, you may be able to request items from other libraries to be delivered to your own branch for you to pick up. Some libraries offer science learning kits, toys or musical instruments, or have hired or volunteer guests do experiments or magic or present plays, etc. You will find DVDs of movies, lessons and documentaries, audio books, foreign language CD sets, etc. Most libraries sponsor book clubs.

4. Use the Internet. I love having our computer nearby as it is wonderful to be able to look something up as we are discussing a subject and a question arises. You will find tons of learning resources such as worksheets, coloring pages, online dictionary, thesaurus and calculators, lesson plans, educational games and skill practice. Moreover, so much of it is free! Your kids will be able to take classes online as well.

5. What resources will you find in your own community? Look for Girl or Boy Scouts, 4-H, YMCA sports, community classes, the Civil Air Patrol, government student council, Toastmasters, community gardens, Parks and Rec events and sports, extracurricular activities at your local school. There are clubs for aviation, writing, horses, the arts, radio-control racing, bird watching, dog sports, etc. Do you attend a church, synagogue or temple? Is anything available for your kids there?

6. Take a second look at the people in your life. Grandpa fishes and is a top-notch cook. Grandma plays lively music on her piano. Uncle Joe is an avid bird watcher, and Mrs. Garcia next door loves talking about Shakespeare. See what potential you may find!

7. Keep a daily journal about the activities your kids do, such as science experiments, buying their own meal at a fast-food restaurant, exchanging a roll of dimes at the bank or building a model of Stonehenge in the backyard. All of these involve learning!

Learning occurs anywhere in so many variations that you can create your own curriculum for your own home schooling kids.

To learn more about home schooling and the many options available to you, please visit our website at http://www.homeschooltheater.com. You can follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/homeschoolart.

Young children are constantly engaged in learning about the grown-up world. Nearly everything they play is a reflection of their understanding of what happens in life.

Preschoolers love to pretend-play adult roles. One of the favored role-playing tasks is that of the mail carrier. Playing post office automatically opens up a variety of wonderful learning possibilities in the three R’s, as well. It offers practice in writing the letters in the alphabet, matching the name on an envelope with the name on the mail cubbie and beginning to read those names.

Be sure to write your child several short notes and mail them, too. She will no doubt come running to ask you to read them to her. She will try to do her own letter-writing.

Sorting and categorizing is a skill required in both reading and math, and this game will reinforce that skill. Your child will sort according to names on the cubbies, but you can also have your child sort by advertisements and personal letters, by size of the pieces of mail, or color, or symbol. How about gluing pictures of pets found in a pet store ad on the envelopes?

A shoe box is great for turning into a mailbox, as it has a removable lid for your little mailman to scoop out the letters. Whatever box you choose, cut a slot large enough for the mail to enter in the front or on top. It also needs either a lid or a folding flap. You can strengthen weak areas with duct tape, such as around the mail slot. See if your preschooler would like to decorate the box, but don’t force it if coloring is not her thing.

Your little mail carrier needs a place to deliver her letters. Make mail cubbies for each family member and the pets, too. Tape several empty boxes (such as cereal or cake mix) together, and cut off the opening flaps. Label each box with the person’s name in block letters. Don’t forget Fluffy or Rover! If you don’t want to use family members, you can use pictures of animals, colors, shapes, food items, etc glued to each cubbie.

Next helpful item is a mail bag. A shopping bag works very well, and most have handles long enough for a little guy to wear the bag from his shoulder. A grocery bag is okay, too!

Now, you need some mail. Hand over all your junk mail to your preschooler. You can buy a box of inexpensive envelopes and set it on the table along with stickers, colored pencils, pens, and paper. Let your preschooler get busy!

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Michelle B. is a home-schooling Mom who has been at it for more than 20 years. For more information about preschool, this book teaches you more preschool learning games. (Editor’s Note: This is a great activity for your child no matter what education choices you have made for them, homeschool or otherwise.)

Homeschool Books- what can you use? Using trade books can be an excellent way to introduce or reinforce a study subject with your homeschool students. “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” is a popular book that my kids and I have enjoyed using. The tale is about weather and food, how the people have adapted to their town’s unusual circumstances and how they react when things go haywire. What study topics can we find in this enjoyable story?

Meteorology: The tall tale Grandpa shares is about the unusual weather a small town receives. This is a good intro to units on clouds, local or extreme weather or weather in general, climates, the water cycle, meteorologists and weather forecasting.

Food: Food in various forms plays a very important role in this story. This would be a fun start to learning about food sources, cooking, food in various cultures, nutrition and the food pyramid.

Social studies: How have people adapted to their food sources in different parts of the world? The townspeople of Chewandswallow had to adapt to a completely new food source when they had to leave their town, which opens up the topic of emigration/immigration. The book also offers the opportunity to discuss sanitation and recycling. You can even discuss safety and emergency preparedness, as the townsfolk had to deal with some scary weather situations.

Language arts: There are at least thirty compound words in the book. Learn vocabulary words such as incident, prediction and pulp. Grandpa told a tall tale; learn about tall tales and read Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill tales, then let the kids either write (creative writing) or tell their own (storytelling). What are some of the crazy things that happened in Chewandswallow? Have your kids write a descriptive paragraph. Compare and contrast the book to the new movie. Spelling word lists can be made up of the foods mentioned or weather words.

The book, “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” offers the homeschooling family plenty of opportunities to begin or continue any one of an assortment of relevant learning topics.