Games for Learning and Fun

I don't know about you, but do your children always want lessons to be fun?  Mine do, just even this morning E prayed that school would be fun.  I remember a high school teacher who taught geography and economics, going off one day about children expecting learning to be fun and entertaining.  "Fun" is a pet peeve of mine.  Yes, I want my children to be excited about their learning and engaged with each topic, but "fun" is not always possible or beneficial.  Since the beginning of time we were placed on this Earth to work.  Remember after all, God gave Adam a garden to tend.  I have read many books, blogs and articles in an effort to bring interest and fun to our learning but never the less, boredom (there has even been boredom to tears), disinterest and negative attitudes sometimes prevail.  I have given up, sometimes learning is not fun and just has to be done.  "Boring" lessons is where character training begins and for me that is the hardest thing about homeschooling.  The character training never goes away, whether in the home, out of the home, during lessons or not during lessons, these people, myself included, need to be trained to persevere even when they have a job that is not fun.

All that being said, here is a look a some of my attempts to bringing "fun" to our learning.

Math Games

Money Exchange game from The Education of Ours.

Pizza Fraction Game from Lakeshore Learning.  A great game to practice recognizing fractions.

Fraction Contraption  from Lakeshore Learning (sorry, I couldn't find the link).  This game teaches fraction equivalents.

Geography Games

A fun U.S. Geography game from Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.  This is my favorite blog for free game printables and ideas.

I would love to add Sequence Stated and Capitals to our game collection.

So dust off the games and try bringing some "fun" to your home learning day.  Our fun for the day--watching Drive Thru History: Greece and the World and maybe a bit of file folder games.

I'm linking up with Montessori Monday.

Learning with Centers and File Folder Games

I have been a long time fan of File Folder Games and Take It To Your Seat Centers and over the years I have made and collected quite a number of books, folder sets and websites.  Yet, I found myself not being able to fit them into our schedule but this year I decided to dedicate one morning a week to these great learning tools.  I think Centers and Folders are great tools for learning both new material and reviewing old lessons.

The children know that Wednesday mornings are folder and center mornings.  Each child has their own box full of appropriate materials to work on.  The children are required to pick one folder or center from each of these subject areas: Language Arts, Math, Geography and Science.  They are to complete their selections and call me over to check them before they clean-up.  At this point, all the children have to do is complete the folders but in our winter term I am going to ask them to also record in their learning journals what they have worked on.  For Example, in this picture E is working on a Science Layers of the Earth Folder and I would ask her to make a  notebook page for her journal.

I also think having a folders and centers morning breaks up our week, so we don't get bored or run down in our daily lesson routine.  The folders and centers also meets my goal for providing as many hands on learning experiences as possible and cultivates independent learning.

Here are a couple Math examples of folders:

Martian Multiplication

Turkey Feather Addition with an added number line. (It has been so long but I think both this folder and the one above are from File Folder Fun, a site full of free folder games.)

And a couple of Geography Examples:

World Continents from Take it To your Seat Geography Centers.

Land Forms--also from Take It To You Seat Geography Centers.

Here are a few of the Take it to Your Seat Centers we use:

Take it to Your Seat Phonics Centers
Take it to Your Seat Science Centers
Take it to Your Seat Geography Centers
Take it to Your Seat Math Centers
Take it to Your Seat Writing Centers

The Take it to Your Seats come in many grade levels so I did not include them all so be sure to look for the level that is appropriate for you child.

We also use a variety of folder games from Lakeshore Learning:


Science File Folder Fun
Fractions, Decimals and Percents Elementary Folder Games
Puzzle Fun Math Cards

Again, a lot of these folder kits come in a variety of age and subject areas, so be sure to take some time and see if what you are looking for is available.

It is Monday so I am linking up with Montessori Monday.

Have a great week!

Elementary Wrap Up--Sort Of

Here is a look at what E and A worked on to complete their 4th and 2nd grade years.

Language Arts:We made it through all eight parts of speech and still love our grammar symbols.  The symbols are such a wonderful hands on way to teach such an inherently dry topic.  Now this is a bit backward in the Montessori method, but we tend to follow our own course of study, we will be working with the grammar farm throughout the summer to keep what we have learned fresh.  So call us remedial, backward or slow if you want but it is what works for us.

E using our movable alphabet to spell and copy her weekly words.

We have also pulled out our phonics stamps from Lakeshore Learning.

A working with abbreviation cards

A doing a bit of prefix review.

Geography:  We finished our geography studies with a look at North America. We really focused in on Canada. Next year E will be doing a state by state study of the U.S. and creating a notebook as she works. For our study of Canada we read the book Lost in the Barrens and used a study guide from Queen Homeschool Supply( I tried to find the guide on line but couldn't).  We have really enjoyed all of the Queen studies.  The studies are very simple in presentation but a treasure trove of ideas.  The children actually stated to me that they really have liked our studies based on living books.  They compared this Canada study with our notebook study of the human body.  They said they liked the anatomy study but really, really enjoy these Queen studies.  During this study I read Lost in the Barrens aloud while they made books of Canada's wildlife.  They also completed a few notebook drawings to illustrate the different types of river terms found in the story.

A cutting out pictures of wildlife for his book.

A and E working together on a puzzle of North America.

Math:We are leaving off in math with A needing to work on his multiplication facts and E needing to work on her division facts.  Both E and A will be using copywork over the summer to continue the memorization of their facts.  I am excited about next years study of geometry and fractions.

A working on our equation and product cards.  He has completed the whole set, so now it is time to combine families for  more of a challenge.

Life Skills: E has been working in the kitchen to prepare lunch for her siblings.  It is always my intention to include the children in as much food preparation as possible but a lot of times they are busy playing and I don't want to disturb the peace of it all or I am to burnt out and just want to get the meal made and not instruct.  Either way I would like to assign E a weekly meal to fix with as little help from me as possible.  Here is a look at what she has done so far.  Strange how both meals included cheese.

E put together this lovely plate of Macaroni and Cheese.  This is our quick mac made with macaroni pasta, fresh cheddar cheese, salt and butter--no boxes here.

E making grilled cheese, she even added some leftover ham to the sandwiches.

I feel like this post is a bit choppie but the fact is it is hard to blog when children are running around and wanting my attention.  So thanks for visiting and leave us a comment to let us know you were here.  I am off to clean up breakfast and sew a skirt for our 5 year old (no I don't sew but we got a different machine and I said I would give it a crack once again).

Enjoy your week--hubs and I are off to the Beach Body Coaches Summit this week and Grandma is coming to stay with the children.  I bit of a break for us and some date time.

I linking up with Montessori Monday. Deb is talking about music appreciation, check it out.

Geography--Keeping It Simple

As home educators our curriculum is a blank page, left to our own delights and pursuits, yet I find it difficult to hit every subject area every week.  I know, how is that possible when we spend each day doing nothing but being at home?  Ask any stay at home mom with a gang of children to care for and the answer is likely the same--"before we know it, the day just flies by."  So, we sometimes have to simplify and right now this is geography.  We read a great book called Missionary Stories with the Millers once a week.  Each chapter in the book starts with a world map and has the current story's country highlighted.  We read the story discuss what country the story took place in and discuss what God did in the life of the missionary.  Simple, right?

The children always have access to maps, atlases and other cultural books such as  Children Just Like Me and Material World.  We also have Geopuzzles.  Geopuzzles are an affordable alternative to Montessori Continent Maps. Our set is almost complete and is used regularly by all of the children.

On this particular morning after our Missionary story the children pulled out the globe and both our Europe and Asia puzzles.

For now Geography is simple but I think it would be fun to make a map booklet and color in the countries as we visit them in our readings.  And, do I feel some country/continent research coming on?

Loving Elementary Learning

Here is a look at what our big kids have been working on.

Bible-- E and A have been busy memorizing the 10 commandments and the books of the old testament.  We use games, cards, music and daily recitation to learn these biblical elements.  We are also reading Little Visits with God.  E has been keeping a personal journal and reading Light for Your Path for her daily devotions.

A file folder game to help learn the 10 Commandments

Learning the books of the Old Testament

Math--For math E has just begun basic division and Ayden is not far behind her, he asked several times how to use the division board but has only just begun multiplication.  A is also continuing to learn different tools for addition.

Multiplication slips and bead bars

Using the stamp game to learn division

Learning multiply with the multiplication board

using the division board to practice simple division

working with the addition board

using the addition table as he works with Quick Pick Operations

Geography and History--We have been studying both U.S. history and Ancient Egypt.  The children really enjoyed our Lift the Lid on Mummies kit.  The kit was recommended by Veritas Press and did not disappoint.  I only wish we had had the funds to visit the Egyptian museum in San Jose.

working on Africa and the U.S. puzzles

drawing and writing about the pilgrims using Draw Write Now and our watercolor pencils

Watercolor pencils are so much fun--color like regular colored pencils and then gently wet them with a brush and presto their work looks like beautiful watercolored art

timeline work--we use timeline figures from Homeschool in the Woods

wrapping a mummy and captonic jars from our Lift the Lid on Mummies kit

making captonic jars--These are the jars that the Egyptians would place the deceased persons organs in during the mummification process.  The jars have the heads of the various organ gods on them.

More Fun

"Look I'm a butterfly"

"Meow"

The boy built this all by himself.  It is a Lego Technic set that says ages 9-15, he is 7.  Ayden will be working on Lego Master Builder set 1 this winter and start a scrapbook of his creation.

Happy Learning!