Learning in the Car
Posted by Cindy on February 13, 2008
At co-op each month, I’ve been asking the ladies to fill out notecards with ideas for certain topics. Last month the topic was “Romancing Our Husbands Frugally”. Because of some ‘mature’ content, I didn’t post the list of ideas here on my blog, but if you’re interested, you can go here to see the list.
This month’s topic was “Learning in the Car”. Below is the list of ideas they came up with. So many of us spend a lot of time traveling to appointments, lessons, co-ops, field trips and more, that time sitting in the car can take away from school time if we aren’t careful. With all these ideas, though, you never have to feel guilty again if ‘school time’ finds you traveling to and fro! (Sorry, I copied this document from my computer and pasted it into my blog. For some reason, that never works very well here at homeschoolblogger.)
Making Time in the Car Educational
Bible Memory Work
*Recite Bible verses
*Recite the books of the Bible
Skills
*Math drills – any number of mental math drills
*Spelling drills
*Sign reading
*Vocabulary words
*Drills of important dates to remember
*Drills of important people or events and their significance
*Narration
*Poetry recitation
*Buy skill workbooks from the dollar store
*Buy fun books of mazes, crosswords, word finds, etc.
*Run off a blank US map and ask kids to color in each state when they see a license plate from that state.
Games
*Play ABC I Spy – either with objects or words on signs
*Name things you see outside that were mentioned in the Bible
*Buy little travel games and keep in a plastic tote
*“Bugs and Cruisers” – Assign point values to certain types of cars and have the kids keep a point tally as you drive. Example: VW Bugs and PT Cruisers are each worth 1 point. Hummers might be worth 10 points. Jeeps might be worth 5 points. You get to make up the rules and values according to your child’s abilities.
*Play color or shape I Spy
*Storytelling
*Storytelling where one person stops a story at the climax and another person continues the story
*Grammar guess – mom says a sentence and asks child to repeat a part of speech. Example: Mom says, “Name the prepositional phrase, ‘Look for the ball under the bush.’ ” The child then repeats the prepositional phrase.
*Hum or whistle tunes and see who is the first to guess correctly.
*Play 20 questions.
*Play an oral ABC scattergories. Think of a topic and the first person names something that fits in the topic starting with “a”, the next person thinks of a “b” word, and so on.
*Play word memory. The first person says a word that fits in a certain topic. The next person says that word and adds another word. The third person says the first two words and adds another word. You keep going until someone messes up. Example: Topic=animals, first persons says ‘dog’, second person says ‘dog, cat’, third person says ‘dog, cat, frog’
Educational CD Ideas
*Adventures in Odyssey
*Jonathan Park Adventures
*Foreign languages
*Bible verse CD’s
*Bible song CD’s
*Any “living” book on CD
*CD of music or stories that go along with a unit you’re studying
*Story of the World CD’s
*Any historical fiction book on CD
*Lyrical Life Science CD’s
Other Ideas
*Keep a lap desk or clip board in your car, along with a supply of pencils, crayons, etc. and bring the school books along on a trip!
*On a familiar drive, ask your child to create a travel brochure of the sights you see.
*Stop at a rest stop or hotel in an unfamiliar area and pick up a few brochures. Let your child be the “tour guide” of attractions in the area as you drive. You never know when an unexpected field trip might turn up.
*Listen to a preacher on the radio and discuss the sermon.
*Turn up the music and practice singing harmonies.
*Buy travel books like Smileage.
For more ideas, you might enjoy this book.
