Homeschool Theater

By helping your young child expand his vocabulary, you will boost his reading and writing skills. He needs a good vocabulary to decode and comprehend the words and sentences he is reading, and will be better able to communicate his thoughts and ideas for writing and speaking.

1. Talk with your preschooler whenever the opportunity arises.
Engage her in conversation about anything: the food you are cooking, the latest antics of the family dog, what both of you like about her favorite TV program.

2. Name everything.
Tell your child the names of the cooking utensils you are using, the animals in his Noah’s Ark toy set as you play together or the flowers you are looking at in the plant nursery

3. Read aloud to your child as often as you can.
Read the book your child chooses, but when it is your turn to pick the next book make it one she has not seen yet. Keep a stash of several books that have a few advanced words, such as “process,” “acknowledge” or “fledgling.”

4. Tell stories to your children. Bedtime is the traditional time for storytelling. However, you can tell a story while waiting in line at the bank, driving in the car (see this video) or whenever you have some moments of time to fill. Put in a few words that you do not think your child knows yet, such as in number 3. Be free with your descriptive words!

5. Categorize.
When your child talks about the neighbor’s cat, say “a cat is an animal.” Other examples would be “a pear is a fruit” or “a motorcycle is a vehicle.”

6. Add descriptive words. If your little one says, “look at the cat,” say back to him, “I see the black, long-haired cat.” The more often you use descriptive words in your speech, the more likely your child will also.

7. Ask probing questions about new discoveries.When your child finds a treasure such as a pretty rock, ask him questions about it. When she creates a drawing or receives a new toy, ask her to show it to you and describe it. Ask questions such as, “What do you do with it?” or “How would you like to display this?” This encourages your child to think about his answers. This reinforces his language learning.

These simple tips are some of the ways you can help your preschooler gain a larger vocabulary which in turn will benefit her communication, reading and writing skills.

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The author, Michelle B., writes about education, homeschooling, literacy and gardening in the desert. See our reading suggestion in in our Amazon bookstore.

Homeschool preschool activities do not have to be expensive. An excellent method for your preschooler to build fine-motor skills and strengthen eye-hand coordination is by playing with lacing cards. This type of activity also encourages focus and concentration on a task.

Lacing cards are available to buy where toys or teaching supplies are sold, but they are very easy to create your own. You probably have all the supplies at home already, so the cost involved is minimal. Another benefit of making your own lacing cards is that you can directly relate the subject matter to your child’s interests. Make a boot card for your little cowboy or a castle tower for the fairy-princess. You can make cards that fit what your child is learning about, such as Brachiosaurus for dinosaurs, a house for the letter “”H” or a character from a book you are currently reading together.

You need thin cardboard, such as the back of pads of paper, or cut from a food box, like a cereal box. Now you need an image. Either draw an object yourself on the cardboard or find a design online or in a child’s coloring book. If you print the picture out, draw on a piece of paper or tear a page from the coloring book, you can simply use spray-adhesive or water-thinned white glue to attach the paper to the cardboard, or copy with a pencil. The image needs to be simple. If there are many lines in the picture a good idea is to use a fine-point dark marker, like black or brown, to trace over the lacing lines. It is best to have the lacing lines close to the edge of the card so a paper punch will easily reach them. If not, trim the cardboard back, or cut around the image.

Next, determine where you will place the holes on the picture. You can mark lightly with a pencil where the holes will be. When you are satisfied, go ahead and paper-punch them.

The final step is preparing the lacing string. A shoelace is ideal, but a piece of string or yarn works just as well. Tie the string to the first hole. You can leave the strings free of the card, but an advantage to tying them on is that they won’t get lost. Lace the picture yourself to see how much string is needed, and add 6 to 9 extra inches. If you use a piece of yarn or string, to make it easier to lace either dip the lacing end in white glue and draw it through your fingers, then let dry, or wrap a piece of tape around the end.

You can begin with one or two lacing cards, or make a set all at once.

If you are pressed for time, there are a number of very nice lacing cards for sale at places such as Amazon. However, don’t be afraid to try your hand at making your own supplies for your homeschool curriculum.

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Michelle B. has been homeschooling for 20 years and continues to do so today. She writes about projects in gardening, education and literacy.

Especially for Dads: 7 Cheap or Inexpensive Ways to Spend Time with Your Little Kid

Yep, money is tight but that is not going to stop you from being a great dad. First off, since this isn’t 1950 any more, I don’t have to tell you how important it is for you to find time to spend being Dad with your kids and not at your kids, right? With that settled, here are some ways you can do several fun things with your kids that will cost you nothing or are otherwise very inexpensive.

1. Take a walk.
Go walking with your children around the block, around the park, around your back yard if you must. You will most likely need the exercise to get rid of your growing middle and your child needs to see something besides the TV or the back of your head while they ride in your car.

2. Go to the zoo (or something like that).
Get off the expensive and mind-numbing amusement-park daddy-go-round. There are affordable places (like museums and zoos) for you to go where your child can see new things, touch a turtle, make some pictures and hear a dinosaur’s roar or the like. This is a huge learning opportunity for your kid and most of these places are very affordable to visit. Super hint: many museums have monthly or weekly free-admission days. I know this will be hard for some dads who do not like to be in places like this. News flash: This is about your kids, not you and your boring man-world. With my kids now much older, I regret not having done more of this with them when they were little.

3. Eat in an interesting place.
Sure, the in-front-of-the-TV space has become the new kitchen table. Try having more meals at the dining room table. Then, get interesting and have a picnic. Make sandwiches, grab some chips and celery sticks and go sit somewhere to eat. The park or the tables outside the mall will work just fine. You are making memories here, dad. Warning: this is for your little kids. Do this outside the mall with pre-teens and you might die from the dirty looks they will give you.

4. Tell your kid a story. No books allowed.
Yep, put down that storybook and tell your kids some stories. Look your kid in the eye and tell them stories in your own way. You will bond with them and help them with their future literacy at the same time.

5. Do some full-body finger painting.
No little child can resist finger paint. On a warm day, grab some big pieces of paper, put out the cheap finger paints and go at the art-thing with your toddler. We found a roll of cheap paper at the teaching-supply shop and watched our kid paint up her body and roll about on the paper. Now we had huge art and great memories.

6. Wash your car.
Frankly, you could wash anything with rags and suds and your toddler or preschooler would be happy. Get out buckets, sponges, plenty of dish-soap and your grubby clothes and wash your car. Or a fence. Or your front door. Or your dog. Wet-laughing will ensue.

7. Make cookies.
In the old days, you had to know how to make cookie dough before you could bake cookies. If you know how to do make dough, that is all the better. Short of making dough, you can buy pre-made buckets of cookie dough at nearly any grocery store. Buy the dough and a few inexpensive candies or sprinkles and you have baking fun. When you are waiting out the baking times, do number 4 above.

There are many more ways to spend some inexpensive time with your kid. Your time shared with a child is more important than the money you spend in that time. Dive in now as they will be giant tweens before you know it. Then, you will need a new list.

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The author, Sean Buvala, has four children ranging in age from preteen to adult. He especially likes number four in this list (storytelling) as he is the author of the fatherhood training book, “DaddyTeller: How to be a Hero to Your Kids and Teach Them What’s Really Important by Telling Them One Simple Story at a Time.” You can get lots of free training videos and order the book at http://www.daddyteller.com. Or, follow his latest articles and vids from your perch at Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/daddyteller

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.)

Nearly everything we do in an average day involves math in one form or another, and it is easy to include our homeschool children in many of the activities. When thinking about homeschool math planning, it is helpful to know (and good for our budget!) that learning many early math concepts in the preschool homeschool requires no textbooks, workbooks or special equipment. Included here are a few of the basic concepts for our children to understand and simple learning activities for each one.

*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.