Creative Homeschooling

One of the main goals I set early on in our homeschool was to give my children a love of learning.  Creative homeschooling is the mode I’ve used to successfully do that.  Don’t think that you can never put your child in front of a textbook or computer screen to homeschool creatively!  Instead, think of it as offering your children curriculum and styles to meet their needs.  Sometimes that will be a textbook or computer class.  Other times, it may be a unit study, living literature, field trips, games, project-based learning, co-op classes, or interest-based studies.  These articles show you how.  Be inspired!

  • Bead Classification

      Target Age Range: PK-2 Skills Covered: sorting, classification, attributes Classification is both a math and science skill.  The ability to classify objects also develops organizational skills which are helpful for writing and general “life” organization. This activity is super simple to pull together.  Simply gather a variety of beads (or buttons, cereal, rocks, beans…)…

  • Graphing: Facebook Birthdays

      Target Age Range: 4th-12th grades Skills Covered: gathering data, graphing, technology, keyboarding When I used to teach in a classroom, it was easy for my students to gather large amounts of data for graphing…there were 24+ people in the room at all times.  As a homeschooler, it takes a little more creativity to gather…

  • Popcorn Math Activity

      (This post contains affiliate links and links to my business website, Shining Dawn Books.) Target Age Range:  3rd-8th Skills Covered:  estimation, capacity measurements, multiplication, calculator, collecting data, making comparisons, cooking Food motivates my children and I suspect it might motivate your children, too!  It just happens to be a bonus that this food inspired…

  • Fun with Patterns

      Target Age Range: PK-6th Skills Covered: finishing patterns, growing patterns, symmetry, naming patterns, area, perimeter, charting, relationships between patterns, number patterns, problem solving PK-2 Activities Top Photo: Begin a simple pattern (using any manipulative you like) and ask your child to continue the pattern. To help young children begin to understand what a pattern…

  • Living Math Series

    Beginning next week… October 15-26… a series full of practical ideas for incorporating more living math into your school days! Join me here daily!  Better yet, add my feed to your feed reader so you’re sure not to miss a post!

  • KY Field Trip Frenzy

    We have an unwritten tradition of starting our school year off with a field trip or two.  Sometimes the field trips are more like vacations – like when we went to Virginia.  Other times, it’s an overnight stay somewhere or a few simple day trips.  This year, we had so much fun kicking off the…

  • Patriotic Fun

    Looking for a simple way to engage your children in some fun learning this summer? Why not try a few learning centers! What is a learning center? Quite simply, a few goodies based on a certain theme that you put together for your children to explore. Yep, that’s it. Easy and intriguing. Here’s the latest…

  • M&M Math

    (This post contains affiliate links.) Talk about a fun week of learning with M&M Math! Below you’ll find all sorts of activities we have done for M&M Math.  Most of the ideas could easily be used with other types of candy pieces, too. Estimation: Fill a jar with M&M’s and ask your children to estimate…

  • Notebooking Success Review

    Check out what Jimmie of Jimmie’s Collage and Notebooking Fairy has written!  What a gem it is! This post contains affiliate links.  Read my entire disclosure policy here. Clear.  Concise.  Full of practical ideas.  Easy to implement.  Very motivating!  Those are phrases that perfectly describe Notebooking Success by my blogging friend, Jimmie. I’m not new…