Homeschool Tips Tricks Ideas

Here’s a quick video about how dads can talk to thier kids.

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Pour and Measure
by Michelle B.

When my second daughter was a preschooler between the ages of two to four one of her favorite activities was measuring and pouring. She used my measuring cups and spoons so often I could never find them when I needed them!  And she would pour everything possible, with of course the accompanying mess. I finally wised up and gave her a measuring set for her birthday. The first thing I bought was a new cat litter pan to hold the mess in. I had looked at a dishpan first, but it was too small. The litter pan was a good, working size. A trip to the discount store provided me with plastic measuring cups and spoons, a one-cup and a two-cup liquid measuring cups, a set of funnels, a turkey baster, a pitcher, a ladle, a set of plastic juice cups, plastic mixing bowls and a set of mixing spoons thrown in. Everything fit inside the litter pan.

All that was needed was the stuff to pour and stir! A zipper bag full of pinto beans and another of rice fit the bill nicely.

My daughter was delighted with her gift. We would take the set (minus the rice and beans) out to her wading pool which had a few inches of water in it, and we would measure and pour and stir and pretend and learn all afternoon. I would shake a few drops of food color in her pitcher and another color in a gallon water jug, and my daughter would have a great time measuring and mixing her secret potions. Sometimes she and her older sister would take the set out to the sandbox and pretend they were cooking, concentrating on the “correct” measuring to make the goodies turn out just right. The bathtub also made a great measuring playground.

When it was too hot to play outside (we live in the Arizona desert!) I would pull out the beans and rice and let my daughter experiment away on the kitchen floor. She would measure a cup of beans and then try to match that with the rice, concentrating on filling the cups and pouring carefully. Or she would see how many ¼ cups of rice it would take to make one cup. The pan kept the escaping beans to a minimum.

All this play introduced her to and helped her gain inquiry learning skills and concepts in measuring, estimating, eye-hand coordination, concentration, problem-solving, counting, one-to-one correspondence, fractions, creativity, fine-and gross-motor control and mathematical thinking. Her curiosity gave her many questions to investigate and answer. And she transferred her new pouring skills to helping me cook dinner!

Young children learn as readily as they eat and sleep, as it is a natural part of their being. No one needs to tell them, “It’s time to learn now.”  Watch your little ones and notice that nearly all of their play automatically involves learning. The measuring set served as a tool for my daughter to use to expand her understanding of her world and gain important learning skills.

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Michelle B. is a full-time homeschooling mom and has been so for more than 18 years. She has a degree in Elementary Education. Follow us at Twitter @homeschoolart.

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Learning in a Garden: Classification, Sorting, Shapes, One to One Correspondence
by Michelle B.

Tending a garden bed presents homeschoolers the easy opportunity to work on many foundational math and science skills with your preschooler or kindergartener, without needing to do any lesson-planning.

Ask your little one to be your helper and include him in the planting process. Take advantage of his interest, and let him go play when his attention shifts. Much learning occurs through discussion. Talk about everything you are doing in the garden, and listen to your child’s input. Pay attention to your own activity in the garden and you may be surprised at the amount of math you will find!


This article presents three of these important concepts. Classification and sorting, shape-recognition, and one-to-one correspondence are some of the foundational skills that are easily incorporated into your garden time.

Classification and sorting
Together, separate the seed packets according to which bed it goes in. Talk about the uses of the various garden tools and how some are for moving the dirt and others for use on plants. Touch a tool and ask junior which category it falls into.

Demonstrate to your little gardener which plants are the weeds and how to remove them. Then ask her to show you a plant and determine whether it is a weed or a plant to keep, before she begins the pulling. Let your helper collect the vegetable harvest and divide into appropriate containers.

Shape-recognition
Perhaps your vegetable bed is a rectangle, or the flower bed a half-circle. You may use square-foot gardening or have the herbs in the traditional wheel shape. Let your child create his own garden bed. Ask him what shape he would like it in, or trace shapes in the soil and lay the seeds within the shapes. Perhaps alyssum in a circle and johnny jump-ups in a square?

One-to-one correspondence
Line up all the flowers from one multipack. Then line up the next pack, plant to plant. See how each flower from the first set is evenly matched with a flower from the second set. Poke holes in the soil for the seeds. Have your helper lay one seed in each hole, and one plant-name markerper row of seeds.

You will notice how each of these garden activities uses foundational skills that overlap and mix with each other. As you are talking with your child while you work in your garden, you will find many occasions to reinforce these much-needed pre-math and science skills. Happy planting!

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Michelle B. is a full-time homeschooling mom of four who has been teaching from home for 18 years. She holds a degree in elementary education.

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