A very useful tool for organizing supplies in a busy household is the over-the-door pocket organizer. They are easy to find, in a wide price range, in different colors and sizes. Some will keep the contents out of sight, and in others the items will be visible. The pocket holders are excellent space savers when you have a number of small items that need storage but there is no room for a cabinet or bookshelf. My family has an organizer in nearly every room.

There is an organizer on the door of my husband’s office door for his office supplies and one in the bathroom for toiletries. I keep my garden tools, knee pads, gloves, etc. in another.

My girls have a clear vinyl shoe organizer over their bedroom door. When they were younger, in the pockets they kept stored and on display their collection of fashion dolls. Now they have outgrown the dolls but not the organizer! Their little bean bag animals are the new occupants.

One of my favorite pocket organizer uses has been to keep track of our homeschool supplies. We keep this one on our pantry door. The pocket contents depend on what we are currently learning about. Sometimes they are filled with flashcards, or maps, or science tools. The pockets have been wonderful in keeping our viewfinder toy accessible and the discs organized by topic. Whenever I buy a set of discs relating to something we are currently learning, I have a space for it. Currently our pantry organizer is filled with pens, pencils, index cards, erasers, rubber bands, small notebooks, glue sticks and a paper punch.

What else can you use an over-the-door pocket organizer ( B001D0B2DK ) for? How about kid’s toys, such as Matchbox cars, action figures, trading cards, or doll clothes?

Science supplies, such as magnets, microscope slides, eye droppers, magnifying glass, beakers, test strips, or scale weights.

Math: small geoboards, rubber bands, manipulatives, flash cards, clock dial, play money. A clear organizer can also be used as a teaching tool to display one number card per pocket, such as for investigating place value or adding two-digit or larger numbers.

Art supplies, like paint brushes, watercolor trays, pencils, markers, acrylic paint tubes, packets of clay, and modeling tools.

Craft Supplies:magnets, pom poms, glue gun and gluesticks, feathers, seashells, pasta, strings, beads and buttons.

The organizer also makes a wonderful display holder for collections for your children’s current study: seashells, rocks, nature items, plastic animals or historical figures, or information booklets.

If you need to keep your homeschooling supplies in check, I recommend the over-the-door pocket organizer.

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Michelle B. is a homeschooling parent in Arizona. We like the Homz Kidz 12-Pocket Over-the-Door Hanging Organizers

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, one-cup and 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 lives. 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 homeschooling mom in Arizona who has been teaching at home for more than 20 years. The child mentioned in this article is now 17 years old. That young person also does about 33% of the family cooking. That involves a lot of pouring and measuring.

1. Congregate over meals. Gather in smaller groups of just a couple boys.

2. Use the “60 Second Law:” Ask your question in fifteen seconds and then wait for the response for 45 seconds.

3. Use sideways conversations such as working side by side at a service project, in the passenger seat of a car or washing cookware after a fundraising event.

4. Set something in their hands and fingers. Our office is filled with gadgets, sports balls and periodicals. Boys who are busy with their hands talk easier, even if they don’t look you in the eye all the time.

5. Go outside. Sometimes, leaders do many chats inside. Snap up a basketball and go outside the house. Start a stroll around the neighborhood. Go with the entire group.

6. Don’t hesitate to ask emotional questions. But be prepared for the solution to take several sessions to get back to you. Show patience.

7. Never take “I don’t know” as the first answer. Rephrase the query in a fewer number of words and phrases. If that does not work, look at number 6 above.

8. Before doing discussion classes, write out the questions on paper and let the boys read them before you start the discussion.

9. Discover what interests the boys you work with and talk about those ideas often: technology, physical activities, movies, computer and more.

10. Be able to use non face-to-face strategies such as Email and Instant Messaging to build rapport and trust with boys in between formal gatherings.

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This article was written by Sean Buvala. Sean is the author of DaddyTeller where he teaches dads how to be better fathers with skills of storytelling.

Your preschooler may enjoy the very tactile experience of creating a collage art piece . The homeschool materials you need are probably already in your home.

Give your child a background piece, which could be cardboard, thin plywood, a paper plate, canvas, or anything that can support objects glued to it.

A gluestick can be used if all the items are paper. Craft glue is best for thicker objects or fabric.

The materials can be paper, such as tissue, old magazines, ads, junk mail, expired coupons, napkins, candy wrappers, wrapping or scrapbook paper, you name it. Fabric bits, ribbon, buttons, beads, sequins, feathers, stickers, yarn, string, game pieces, tiny toys, etc.

A collage project can relate to anything your child is currently learning about:

–If your little one is learning colors, say, purple, go on a hunt through the house with your child in search of purple bits, and choose the ones that can be adhered to the board.

–Studying birds? How about feathers, nest-building pieces such as string or grass, seeds.

–Plants- leaves, flower petals, seed packets.

–Food groups- food wrappers, ads, dried corn, beans or rice.

–Sandpaper, watercolor paper, foil, wax paper, tulle, burlap, fleece, provide different textures.

–For shapes, you can provide your child a variety of sizes of the shapes you have cut from different papers, or let an older preschooler cut them himself.

Magazines can provide a wealth of images for nearly any study topic.

Provide enough materials for your youngster to choose from to create her art piece, but not too many or she may be overwhelmed (and the clean-up will be too big!).

A collage work, whether to conclude a study topic or for the value and fun of creating, will lead your preschooler through exploring the process of art. And a wonderful art piece to boot!

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Michelle B. is a homeschooling mother who’s been at this homeschool curriculum for 20 years.

Meteorology: The tall tale Grandpa shares is about the unusual weather a small town recieves. 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 townfolk 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.

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.

Number conservation
Let’s say you wish to plant ten squash plants. Hand your child the ten seeds, and have her line them up on the table as she counts them. Then spread out the line and ask her how many seeds there are. Push them into a pile and ask the same question. Poke ten holes in the soil for those seeds and ask your child to lay one seed in each hole. How many seeds now? If she doesn’t know, how can she find out?

Patterns
Perhaps you will lay out the flowers in a pattern. “We have three colors of snapdragons. First we plant a red snapdragon, yellow is second, and third is a pink one. What comes next?” Or the garden care schedule: “Every morning we water the seedlings, then pull the weeds, and last sweep the pathways. So tomorrow morning, what do we start with?” Notice the patterns of fence post and pickets in the garden fence, or the arrangement of pavers in the path. You can find patterns in flowers and in the leaves on the stems.

Ordinal numbers
Use the words first, second and third, and more if needed, to describe everything that happens in your garden. “First we plan the garden, second we buy the seeds, and third we plant them.” “First we plant the sunflowers, the zinnias are second and the marigolds are third.” You can use ordinal numbers to describe plant growth, the passing of seasons, or the transformation of caterpillar to butterfly. (See also Patterns.)

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. Check this article for more math skills that overlap with these. Happy planting!

*Same and different. By offering choices to your child you can help him learn to recognize different traits in objects. “Would you like a green grape or a red one? Do you want to play with the big blocks or the little ones? Do you want to slide down the long bumpy slide or the short curvy one?”

Lay out four items in a row, three the same and one that is very different. For example, three spoons and one drinking cup, or three stuffed kittens and a teddy bear. Ask which one is different from the others. When your child can easily pick out the odd item, lay out four more objects but with only one different trait, such as three blue buttons and one yellow button, or three teaspoons and a tablespoon. “Same and different” is the precursor to sorting.

*Sorting: When your child understands the concept of “same and different” he will be able to easily begin sorting. Sorting requires a child to identify certain attributes in an object, such as color, size, item usage, etc., and then form a group of objects according to those traits. As adults, we do sorting every day: putting away freshly-washed laundry, the groceries on shopping day, and the dishes from the dishwasher. Separating the sales ads, junk mail, and personal mail. Organizing our collections. Determining which books to turn in on library day and which to keep at home. Involve your young child in some of the sorting that regularly happens in your house: give him the pile of socks to pair up while you are folding clothes. Have her determine which foods go in the pantry, the freezer or the cupboard. Let him put away the silverware. As you determine the usage of the day’s mail, hand the mail one at a time to your young sorter and let her place each piece in the appropriate pile or basket. At play time, sit with your child and ask him to corral the plastic animals into their families, drive the cars into the correct garage, separate the dinosaurs into meat-eaters and plant-eaters, or collect the play food into main dish or dessert piles.

*Patterns: Patterns are all around us: in music, art, building designs, nature. This concept is also related to “same and different” and “sorting.” You can use toy race cars, building blocks, pencils, coins, buttons, beads, candies, etc. to create patterns. Line up a pattern using two attributes: red car, green car, red car, green car. What car comes next? When your child can easily copy your simple pattern and extend it correctly, then add a third attribute. Red car, geen car, yellow car. Keep building the base pattern when your child has mastered the previous one. Have your child make a pattern for you to follow. As you extend your child’s pattern, speak out loud for your child to hear how you solve the problem. For example, “Okay, I see first a dime, next a nickel, then a penny. Since the first coin is a dime, I will place a dime next in the pattern.”

You can draw base patterns on paper with markers or crayons and have your child extend it. This would provide a boredom-buster in waiting rooms or at the restaurant table.

What patterns do you find around you? Cars in a parking lot, flowers in a garden, silverware on the table, products on a store shelf; on giftwrap, fabric, scrapbook paper, wallpaper. “I see a red rose and then a yellow rose. If we continue this pattern, what rose would be next?” “Do you see the pattern your feet make on the sidewalk when you walk through a puddle?”

Same and different, sorting and patterns are a few of the many easy-to-apply early math concepts for our young homeschool children.
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Michelle B. is a homeschooling mom. With 20 years of past and present homeschool experience, she shares her insights with our guests.

So, where will we put our crafting station? Although it is not required, one of the best places will be near a sink, such as the kitchen, or a laundry room or garage washbasin. Crafting frequently requires water for activities such as painting or papier mache, and of course some washing up. The floor will get messy, so carpeting is not a good idea. If the room is carpeted, spread out an old shower curtain liner or paint tarp, or cut a piece of vinyl flooring to lay over the rug.

The size of the room will dictate the size of the work surface. The larger, the better. It can be a card or kitchen table, a wooden work table or folding banquet table, a desk, a piece of thick plywood or particle board or a counter top cut to size over a pair of end tables, shelving units or filing cabinets or even sawhorses. During crafting sessions, the table can be covered in newspapers or, better yet, butcher paper or newsprint for a quick roll-it-up cleaning.

If space allows, a folding screen of some sort can be placed between the craft station, your homeschool material and the rest of the living space to keep a work-in-progress or a mound of craft supplies on the table out of view. Perhaps the screen can be used as a gallery of finished art.