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Preschoolers’ Educational School-Time Activities

September 4, 2008 by Leave a Comment

How much trouble can a bored preschooler get into while you are trying to help your older children with their lessons? Don’t answer that. Instead, let’s just focus on providing your preschooler with some fun activities as his own version of “schoolwork.”

Preschoolers can begin to learn school-time skills with a few simple projects of their own. Try some of these activities by setting up your preschooler with his own individual work area, just as though he were another “real” student, but your space allowances will determine whether your preschooler is seated near his siblings or in his own special location with plenty of elbow room. If it is possible to group your children together in the same area, your preschooler can begin to observe how his siblings sit and work independently, so that he can learn to duplicate their actions. Not every preschooler will be eager to sit still and “play” school for long periods, but for those who are determined to mimic their older siblings, these suggestions offer safe, semi-supervised activities that will develop essential skills. Activities can be changed periodically, just as your older students change subjects throughout the day. These projects can work to lengthen a short attention span, as well as keep your little one occupied in fascinating, educational activities while you explain a lesson concept or demonstrate a few math problems to your older students.

You will probably need to work back and forth, setting up the preschooler with his activity, then starting the older children on their lessons, checking back on the preschooler, following up with the olders, and repeating the cycle as often as needed. Yes, at first you will feel as busy as the old-time plate juggler who balanced spinning plates on tall sticks placed around a table, running and spinning and running and spinning and running to catch the far one just before it falls, but your diligence will quickly pay off with rewards of students who can work independently for a few minutes until Mom is available for help.

The following is a list of materials and activities to help keep your preschooler occupied and give him a boost in the learning department, beyond the usual board books and wooden puzzles. Whether these activities look educational or not, they do include getting-ready-for-learning skills, often disguised as creative fun. Reserving these materials (especially the scissors and glue sticks) and activities for use only during school-time or at the school table will help reinforce the idea of schoolwork in your preschooler’s mind and help him become accustomed to your family’s homeschooling routine. If the “fun” activities can only be done during school, it helps to plant the idea that learning is fun — plus it keeps those activities from becoming boring. Many other activities and playthings also have educational benefits, so please extend this list with your own activities and variations to fit your child’s interests and skill level. Be sure to swap ideas with your friends, no matter what the ages of the children, because ideas can be adapted to suit any age level.

“Sample” Notebooks
Materials: an assortment of old magazines, newspapers, greeting cards, sales ads, junk mail, etc.; spiral notebooks and glue stick, or magnetic photo album/pages. Store these in a specific box for the preschooler’s use, to prevent him from cutting up your newest magazines, unpaid bills, and expensive set of leather-bound first edition books.
Method:Let your child find and cut out pictures, letters, or numbers that fit certain criteria:

  • Objects matching a specific color (use basic colors to allow for variations in shading);
  • Objects starting with a certain letter of the alphabet;
  • Letters and/or numbers in a variety of fonts/typefaces.

Use each of the above groups to create individual “sample” notebooks, making 1-2 pages for each category: color recognition (separate pages for red, yellow, etc), letter-symbol recognition (separate pages for a/A, b/B, etc), letter-sound recognition (separate pages for things that begin with “a,” “b,” etc), number-symbol recognition (separate pages for each numeral, 0-9 or higher, if desired), number-value recognition (groups of 2 items for “2’s,” groups of 3 items for “3’s,” etc.), etc. (Recognition of the letter or number symbols is important because the variations in fonts and typefaces can be quite confusing to beginning readers.)

Keep the child busy looking and searching on his own for the needed samples and let him do the cutting, so that this activity lasts more than a few seconds. Samples can be glued into an old spiral notebook with a glue-stick or put into an old photo album or 3-ring binder with “magnetic” photo pages for minimal mess. The notebooks can also be “studied” for help in recognizing colors, letters, etc. Occasional supervision may be necessary to help the beginner understand the placement of the samples. A younger child may just enjoy cutting/gluing random pictures into a notebook without any specific categories. Pictures can also be arranged so as to tell a wordless story: This little girl went to this house to visit her grandmother…
Skills Developed: visual recognition, cutting with scissors, glue-stick, fine motor skills
Mess Alert: paper scraps from cutting; glue-stick residue

Tangram Pictures & Patterns
Materials: felt pieces, flat craft foam shapes, colored paper or card stock pieces (cut into circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, parallelograms, etc.)
Method: free play; challenge student to duplicate patterns; challenge student to keep enlarging designs
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, pattern recognition
Mess Alert: pieces to pick up (Store the pieces in a box large enough that your child can easily return the pieces himself at clean-up time)

Stringing Beads
Materials: wooden, plastic, or craft foam beads; empty thread spools; leather boot laces, shoestrings, or plastic laces
Method: Tip of shoelaces can be stiffened by wrapping with masking tape to form a child-safe “needle” about 3″ long. Free play, or challenge student to duplicate patterns.
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, pattern recognition
Mess Alert: pieces to pick up (Store the pieces in a box large enough that your child can easily return the pieces himself at clean-up time)

Sewing/Lacing Cards
Materials: cardboard or poster board shapes with holes punched close to the edges; plastic canvas; yarn, heavy string, shoelaces, or plastic laces
Method: Sew through the holes to outline the shape or loop around the edges. (See above for creating a safe “needle” with masking tape) Plastic canvas can be “stitched” randomly or into any pattern desired; it can be cut into shapes or used as squares or rectangles (circles can also be found in most craft stores). Blunt yarn needles (metal or plastic) can also be found in craft stores, if desired.
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills
Mess Alert: strings to pick up (Store the pieces in a box large enough that your child can easily return the pieces himself at clean-up time)

Building Blocks
Materials: Cuisenaire rods, building blocks, etc. (may be interlocking or non-interlocking)
Method: free play; building/stacking; pattern matching (include paper patterns to reproduce with blocks); counting, matching, & sorting. Simple patterns may be drawn as a guide for the child to reproduce over and over: red/red/blue or square/rectangle/triangle, etc.
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, pattern recognition, basic math awareness
Mess Alert: pieces to pick up (Store the pieces in a box large enough that your child can easily return the pieces himself at clean-up time)

Buttons
Materials: jar or box of assorted clothing buttons
Method: free play; sorting, matching, & counting
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, basic math awarenes
Mess Alert: pieces to pick up (Store the pieces in a box large enough that your child can easily return the pieces himself at clean-up time)

Wikki Stix
Materials: Wikki Stix (like chenille sticks, but made of wax)
Method: free play; pattern duplication; shaping into letters or numbers
Wikki Stix may be stuck to windows, table tops, paper, or stuck to each other for 3-D creations.
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, pattern recognition, creativity
Mess Alert: may leave slight waxy residue on surfaces, depending on brand used

Cutting Practice
Materials: child-safe scissors, construction paper or newspapers (Again, have a designated supply of papers for the child to use, avoiding accidental cutting of valuable materials.)
Method: Let child practice cutting photos or ads from newspapers, cutting along lines, etc.
Let child practice cutting by reducing construction paper to bits! Leftover scraps of paper, torn sheets, or less-pretty colors may be used up in this manner, giving valuable practice in scissor skills.
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, cutting with scissors
Mess Alert: paper scraps

Handwriting Practice
Materials: newspapers, junk mail (Again, have a designated supply of papers for the child to use, avoiding accidental drawing on valuable materials.)
Method: Let child practice handwriting by tracing lines inside the thick lines of headlines and large font letters and numbers. The child may also like to copy letters or entire words onto blank sheets of paper or wide-lined paper.
Skills Developed: eye/hand coordination, fine motor skills, pre-handwriting basics
Mess Alert: paper scraps; marks from pencils or other writing implements

Activity Jar
Materials: Activity Jar full of assorted items
Method: (see this article for details)
Skills Developed: sorting, matching, counting, fine motor skills
Mess Alert: pieces to pick up (children can easily help toss pieces back into the large container). Pieces may be poured out onto a cookie sheet or cake pan to minimize scattering.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Homeschool How-To's, Learning Outside the Books, Preschoolers, Role-Modeling, Sibling Relationships, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning

Math Awareness: Tactile Counting

June 3, 2008 by Leave a Comment

An interesting idea occurred to me when we were driving home late a few nights ago. My throat was dry, so I pulled a box of Tic-Tacs out of my purse, shook some pieces into my hand (without turning on a light), and popped them into my mouth. As I rolled the candies around with my tongue, I began trying to count them to see just how many there were. The box that usually releases only one or two pieces with a good shake had instead given me a mouthful in the dark. One, two. One, two, three, four. No. One, two, three… One… two… three… four… FIVE? Yes, Five. A number that would have been very simple to identify with my eyes in a lighted situation was suddenly very difficult to count with just my tongue!

That experience set my mind to working overtime. How simple is it to count objects that I can see? How much more difficult is it to count objects that I can NOT see? The whole idea of blind counting made me consider the possibilities of math as a tactile experience. I have often carried coins in my jeans pocket and had to pull out a handful and look at them to select just one or two. If I was more adept at tactile identification, perhaps I could pull out only the coins I needed!

So here is my challenge for the day: experiment with tactile counting. I recommend trying it with fingers first, not letting your young children pop random objects into their mouths — although that can be an interesting lesson for more advanced students (who are less likely to swallow). Expanding the awareness of number values to tactile skills and not just visual skills will allow the student to count quickly and easily by touch, even when seeing the objects in question is difficult or impossible.

I tested my own tactile counting skills by spreading a towel on the table, folded in half, with the fold farthest away from me. Then I closed my eyes and grabbed a large handful of goodies from my Activity Jar and inserted the objects between the layers of the towel. (The towel kept balls, marbles, and other small, round objects from rolling away.) Carefully keeping the upper layer of the towel in place to conceal the objects, I slipped my hands underneath it and began feeling the hidden treasures. To my surprise, there were a lot of things inside my towel — many more objects than I expected to find.

I eventually pulled one hand out and began writing notes of what I had found, so I could record how many buttons and how many game tokens were included in this cache. I wrote down each basic category of items and used tally marks for the duplicates. When I was satisfied that I had sorted and counted everything successfully, I opened up the towel to check my accuracy. Oops. Close, but not perfect! I had miscounted the buttons: 14, instead of 15; but I had correctly identified five different types of game tokens: large, small, ridged, smooth, and cardboard (not plastic like the others). I had also correctly identified a coin as feeling different from the plastic game chips and accurately concluded (by touch only) that the coin was a penny, not a nickel or dime.

This was such a fascinating challenge that I repeated it several more times! Once, I purposely sorted out a large group of flat game tokens from my Activity Jar, some smooth and some with ridged edges. Placing those inside the towel, I attempted to sort them into two piles and count how many were in each pile. I accurately counted the ridged tokens, but I was off by two when I counted the smooth chips. My conclusion was that the thin, smooth chips could slip out of my hands unnoticed much more easily than the ridged chips could.

How about some other variations of this tactile math challenge?

  • Blindfolded; count objects with your fingers
  • Blindfolded; feel and count objects in a box on the floor with your toes
  • Use several sizes of the same shape, such as a variety of coins
  • Use a variety of shapes and sizes of different objects, such as buttons
  • Count behind your back, feeling objects placed into your hands by a helper
  • Feel objects placed inside a sack, box, or pillowcase (so you can’t see them)
  • For older or advanced students: tiny, hard candies in the mouth to count with the tongue. Tic-Tacs work well, since they are quite small and don’t melt quickly.

The variations using toes or tongue develop tactile skills beyond the usual finger skills. Even a student who can quickly count or identify with finger-touches will find it a challenge to repeat the assignment with toes. I suggest starting with fewer than ten objects for toe-counting and using 3-dimensional objects, not flat items like coins.

For tongue-counting, be sure the student is not likely to choke or swallow the candies, and start with fewer than five small pieces. Keeping the head tilted forward can also prevent accidentally swallowing the candies. I cannot recommend putting non-edible objects in the mouth, nor do I suggest using anything larger than a plain M&M candy. Hard candies work better for this experiment than do soft, chewable candies. Tic-Tac candies are ideal: small and solid.

One more variation would be to turn this into an auditory activity by counting sounds. Conceal your hands behind a large book or similar partition and tap quickly several times, while your student attempts to count how many taps he hears. A more complex version would involve listening to music and counting notes, beats, or instruments heard. Take this activity outdoors and listen for vehicles, horns, or bird songs.

Math is primarily a visual task, but stretching our abilities and learning to sort and count with our other senses will bring the benefits of increased skills and a related increase in thinking power. And just imagine the fun of impressing your friends with your ability to count the change in your pocket without looking!

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Auditory Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Learning Styles, Math, Tactile Learning

Top 10 Ways to Salvage an Interrupted Day

May 1, 2008 by Leave a Comment

You had finally found your homeschooling “groove.” Lessons were zipping along, your students were working like well-oiled machines, and then it happened: something came along that broke that wonderful, systematic rhythm. You may have known it was on the calendar, but that still didn’t prevent it from upsetting your entire homeschooling apple cart. Now you feel as though your students may never regain their previous momentum.

Rather than taking an entire day off, you may be able to salvage the remaining portion of an interrupted day and manage to keep enough of the energy that the interruption is merely an insignificant blip on your radar. Here are several ways to complete “school” when the normal routine has been interrupted by doctor’s appointments, a minor family crisis, a field trip or co-op class, a funeral, or any number of other inconvenient breaks. These measures may also help you get through a bad weather day, a not-feeling-so-well day, or a we-really-overdid-it-yesterday day. (Tip: In the case of a minor family crisis that lands you and your loved ones in the local Emergency Room, try to redeem the experience as an impromptu field trip: encourage observational skills and appropriately timed Q & A sessions about what the medical professionals are doing, so that your students gain knowledge about other career fields along with the immediate medical attention. Plus, it can also help focus children’s minds away from pain, suffering, and generally frightening situations.)

1. Half-Lessons–Scheduled interruptions (such as dentist appointments or well-child check-ups with the doctor) can allow you to plan ahead for a half-day of lessons. Shorten each subject’s work load to a portion of its regular size and zip through your schedule in record time. Your students will know they have covered the usual subjects, and the results of the faster pace can spur your students into working more quickly on “normal” days, too.

2. Consumer Math–Shopping is necessary for every household, so incorporate it into your curriculum by posing price comparisons to your students. Show them how to read the labels for ingredients, size of contents, or any other vital statistics, and then help them compare brands and sizes to determine the best value for your family’s needs. Yes, this can make shopping take longer, so I do not recommend doing this with every item when you are already pressed for time or when you are restocking a nearly bare pantry.

3. Life Skills–Sewing on buttons, hemming a skirt, ironing shirts, following a recipe for cooking or baking, washing windows, folding the laundry, cleaning out a closet, organizing the kitchen “junk” drawer, or sweeping out the garage–all are vital skills for life that can redeem the productivity of an interrupted school day.

4. Phys-Ed–Let ’em run. Dust off the bicycles, roller blades, baseballs, or jumpropes. Everyone needs a physical break now and then, and younger children need them even more often. The physical exercise relaxes their tired muscles and gives their brains “processing” time. You may be surprised at the creative ideas that are hatched during this “down” time.

5. Snuggle Up & Read Day–Grab your favorite books and head for the sofa. Read to each other or just let each person read his own book, side by side. Snuggle up with warm blankets and thick, warm socks. I love soaking in the warmth from a sunny window when the winter weather is too cold to enjoy venturing outdoors.

6. Craft Day–There is something infinitely satisfying and therapeutic about creating things with your own hands. Whether you make silly masks with paper plates and colored markers or intricately detailed ornaments for your next Christmas tree, the time spent with your children provides an opportunity to talk together, create together, and giggle and laugh together. Check hobby stores for ready-made craft kits if you need help getting started.

7. Cooking or Baking Day–Make an extra-large batch of cookies or soup and freeze the extra for use on your next too-rushed-to-cook day. Dicing onions, celery, or carrots to freeze for future use in soups or casseroles is a time-saver as well as an opportunity to work and talk together with your children.

8. Game Day–Play your favorite board games. Combine the pieces from several games and invent a new game. Don’t keep score, but focus on the aspects of strategy and sportsmanship, instead of on winning and losing. Show lesser-skilled students how to plan ahead and think through their moves to help them strengthen their abilities for next time.

9. Nature Study–Take a walk. Sit under a tree. Watch and listen to the birds. Weed the flower bed. When the disruptions of life have intruded upon the security of your routine, regain control by surrounding yourselves with the peace and solitude of God’s handiwork. It can be even more refreshing than a nap!

10. Video Day–Watch a favorite movie. Watch a new movie. Watch an old movie. Use technology to your advantage and pause the movie at strategic moments to discuss why the characters act the way they do or discuss how the plot would have changed if a key character had chosen another option at a crucial point.

Life Happens. I repeat that often to explain what has disrupted my formerly-planned day. When Life happens to your schedule, use it to your advantage to teach valuable life lessons. And remind yourself that children sitting in orderly rows in a sterile classroom are missing out on the inevitable spontaneity that is Life.

For further encouragement on the topic of interrupted days, missed lessons, and messed-up schedules, see:
A Day Without Lessons,
Reschedule, Refocus, Regroup, and
Sick Days, Snow Days, and Other Interruptions

Filed Under: Homeschool How-To's, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Learning Outside the Books, Scheduling, Top 10 (and other) Lists

Top 10 Dress-up Items

February 19, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Kids love costumes. Dressing up in fanciful attire does something to spark a child’s imagination. Turn your children loose with a boxful of dress-up items, and they will be busy for hours, dressing up, imagining, changing, playing, wondering, and becoming many different characters.

When I was a little girl, my family had a large box of dress-up clothes. I remember playing with them for hours and hours. My favorite Halloween costumes either came out of this box or were added to it after the treats were gone. Specialty items were gathered and quickly tucked into the box. Fanciful costumes created for school plays also went into the box once the performances were over.

Many years later, I created a dress-up box for my own children. They spent many afternoons trying on everything in the box, sharing the costumes with friends during play days, making up skits to fit their costumes, and doing it all over and over again. Some days they dressed up as elegant ladies and gentlemen and held fancy “tea” parties; other days they strived for the goofiest costumes possible and convulsed with laughter and delight.

As dress-up quickly became one of my children’s favorite activities, I began searching for specific items to round out their collection. I cleaned out closets and shopped thrift stores and yard sales for wonderful items: a faded prom dress had been discarded in a yard sale “free” box, and my daughter played with it for years afterward. Here are some basic categories of dress-up goodies to help you get started on your own fanciful fashion collection.

1. Hats. Ladies’ hats; men’s hats; silly, Dr. Seuss-style stocking caps; construction hard-hat; sailor hat; baseball caps; cowboy hats; berets; English-style driving caps; plastic crowns and tiaras; any type of specialty headwear you can find! We had extra boxes just for hats to keep the fancier ones from being crushed.

2. Skirts and Dresses. Elastic-waist skirts, with the elastic made tight enough to fit small kiddies. Full, twirly skirts are best! Dresses are wonderful, especially an old prom dress or bridesmaid’s dress with lace, sparkles, and/or layers of ruffles. My mom sewed spaghetti straps onto a formerly-strapless 1950’s prom dress so that it could hang from my ultra-thin childhood frame. She also made me a “Miss America” banner (which I still have to this day) when I entered the 2nd grade costume carnival in my beautiful gown. It didn’t matter to me that some of the canary-yellow lace ruffles were torn or that the gown was woefully out of style–I loved it and felt very special when I was wearing it. It was originally designed as mid-calf in length, but it dragged on the floor when worn by a 7-year-old, making me feel beautiful and elegant in my tattered, hand-me-down gown.

3. Vests. Dark colors or leather vests work just right for playing cowboys or sheriff. Add a necktie for a businessman’s look. (Keep the knot tied, and just loosen it to slip over the child’s head. For safety with very small children, hand-stitch the knot in place, then cut the tie at the back of the neck and sew in a section of elastic.)

4. Suit Coat or Blazer. Don’t forget that boys like to play dress-up, too! And both boys and girls have fun dressing up as Mommy and Daddy.

5. Gloves. Any colors, all lengths–children love gloves. I snagged opera-length gloves in bright turquoise and short brown gloves trimmed in shiny gold glass beads at a yard sale for 25 cents per pair.

6. Costume Jewelry. Ear clips, bangle bracelets, long strings of beads–the gaudier, the better. Old eyeglass frames (lenses removed) and sunglasses fall into this category as well. You may want another box just to hold the junky jewelry!

7. Shoes. I combed dozens of yard sales before I found the ultimate treasure: women’s black suede pumps in a petite size 5 (for only $1)–the perfect size for a small child to clomp around in. We also had a pair of lace-up shoes large enough that my youngsters could put their foot (shoe and all) inside them for clown shoes they could actually walk in!

8. Furs. Fake furs are best for wash-ability after tea party accidents. We had stoles, wraps, and hats. (Real furs can be quite heavy, especially if the garment is very large and the child is very small. Real furs also attract insects to your dress-up closet!)

9. Scarves. The larger, the better–a really large scarf can double as a superhero’s cape, a princess’s train, an elegant shoulder wrap, an apron, a doll blanket, etc. Include remnants of lace (even a discarded lace tablecloth or lace curtain panel) for veils or wedding dress trains. Remember to include bandanas for your cowboys.

10. Props. Plastic swords, holsters and six-guns, purses and tote bags, a sheriff’s badge, artificial flower corsages, aprons, suspenders, tool belts or carpenter’s nail aprons, etc. Bring out the toy dishes for the tea parties, the toy doctor’s kit and old elastic bandages, and the play tools and an afternoon of make-believe will be unstoppable.

We tossed everything into a huge cardboard carton, large enough that the children could clean up after themselves easily. The size of your storage box is important: it should easily hold everything when tossed in carelessly. Folding the garments as they are put away will result in better looking costumes at the next play session, but diligence sometimes gives way to speed in clean-up. From time to time, I went through the items as we cleaned up and sorted out things which needed laundering, mending, or disposal.

A full-length mirror is another valuable item–the children will love seeing their creative couture, and the resulting giggles will fill your home with the sounds of happiness. Be prepared for costume parades, spontaneous dramatizations, and strange looks from the neighbors if your children venture outdoors in their finery. One mom even asked me how we created a hoop skirt, and she praised our ingenuity: several sizes of hula hoops suspended with string from a belt worn underneath the full-skirted dress.

My children are now grown, but they still cherish their favorite costume pieces and manage to find uses for them year after year. They also find new items now and then that they want to save for their future children’s dress-up collections! Dress-up and make-believe are excellent ways to ignite a child’s imagination, stimulate creative thinking, and reward Mom with a bit of free time while the kiddies entertain themselves.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Preschoolers, Top 10 (and other) Lists

The Activity Jar

January 31, 2008 by Leave a Comment

**UPDATED** — See the photo link at the bottom of this article.

Homeschooling parents often lament that they lack the educational gadgets and fancy learning aids that students can benefit from in “real” school classrooms. The Activity Jar is a wonderful store of math manipulatives and assorted learning aids that you can assemble yourself from no-cost items readily available in your home. Gathering the items and filling the jar is as much fun as dumping the contents out again and playing with them.

How to Assemble an Activity Jar–
Begin with one rather large, wide-mouthed container, such as a gallon jar (unbreakable plastic, if possible). Use a small storage tub or cardboard box if you wish, but a secure lid is a must and see-through sides are a bonus. Now set out on a scavenger hunt through your home and garage, poking through the “junk” drawers and all of those little nooks and crannies that tend to collect odds and ends. Pick up those interesting bits of stuff and place them into your jar. Continue this process until you have unearthed all possible objects or until your container is approximately 75% full. Do not give in to the impulse to fill your container brim-full, or you will seriously impede the clean-up phase of using the Activity Jar. Close the lid and set the container aside for a rainy day or any other time when your children want something to do or need practice in sorting, categorizing, or math in general. Bear in mind that the jar will be shaken and rattled around often, so you may need to remove any objects from the jar that become broken with use and replace them with more objects as you find them to keep the Activity Jar’s contents new and interesting.

Be creative with what you select, thinking “outside the box” and including items from all areas of your home, not exclusively small toys. Do include tiny toys, coins, buttons, paper clips, nuts and bolts, and any other fascinating flotsam and jetsam. This is a great opportunity to recycle the remnants from incomplete, broken, or discarded board games. Be careful to select only larger pieces if toddlers may be at risk for swallowing the objects.

How to Use the Activity Jar–
Pour the contents into a large cake pan, unless your children can easily reach into the container to remove the items. Caution: unless your children are already skilled in sharing and showing patience, you will want to limit the Activity Jar to one student at a time. The discovery process can foster territorial feelings and selfishness, especially if two students are attempting to divide the contents without supervision or guidance. Encouraging your students to work together as a team toward a common goal can help them to overcome competition and rivalry.

Allow a student to begin with periods of free play with the objects, and watch him begin sorting without being prompted. When the student has exhausted his own ideas, challenge him to begin sorting the contents into 3 basic categories: Category A (such as round), Category B (such as not round), and Category C (for Other, or I’m not sure what to call this one, because one side of it is A and the other side is B). Other possible basic categories (for A & B) are flat objects and fat objects, single-colored objects and multi-colored objects, buttons and not buttons. Category C is always useful for speeding up the process, since there will usually be something that does not fall easily into the two main categories. Use more cake pans, cookie sheets, shoe boxes, freezer containers, bowls, muffin pans, egg cartons, paper cups, or any containers that will make the sorting process simple and easy.

Once Categories A and B have been sorted out, choose one of them and set the other objects aside for now. Further divide this selection of objects into more specific categories. Sort single-colored objects into individual color families; sort round or flat objects into disk-shaped objects and non-disk shapes; or sort the objects into general size categories of small, medium, and large before measuring them for more accurate classifications. Again, it may help your child to have an “Other” category for things that are difficult to categorize into his chosen groupings.

Preschoolers can enjoy digging through the contents of an Activity Jar (filled with toddler-safe objects) while Mom is helping their older siblings with lessons. Provide them with several empty plastic bowls or freezer containers, and they will have fun sorting and moving objects from here to there and back again.

How to Learn from the Activity Jar–
Sorting and categorizing are the most basic skills that can be learned. Since the jar contains a variety of objects, the student must make decisions for which category applies to each object. Begin with very basic categories (as described above) and proceed to more complicated descriptions later, as the student’s abilities advance. The more the student sorts and categorizes, the finer the details become that can be used for sorting as categories are divided and sub-divided into smaller and smaller groupings.

Even the youngest student can perform simple sorting tasks. Vocabulary and recognition skills are increased as preschoolers practice sorting to learn shapes: Let’s find all of the round things. Color names can be even easier to demonstrate with the jar’s goodies: Today, let’s find all of the blue things. Now let’s make another group of things that have some blue on them.

Students quickly learn that each object can be classified in numerous ways: a single button may be round, flat, pink, have a certain number of holes through its middle, and be an object that starts with the letter “B” or a color that starts with the letter “P.” It may have a design of squares on its top, and it may be made of wood. The student will expand his abstract thinking skills as he learns to look at each object in numerous ways and learns to see all of the various attributes of any given item. Sorting these same objects over and over (by colors, by shapes, by materials, etc.) will illustrate to your child how common objects can be anything but common.

As skill levels advance, so can the sorting criteria, as well as the mathematical applications. Students of all ages will benefit from practice in sorting and counting, resorting and recounting, but other skills can be improved as well: comparing, judging, and classifying; the basic arithmetic of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing; illustrating fractions and percentages; taking measurements; and on and on.

Once your student has divided and sub-divided objects into satisfactory groupings, challenge him to count the total number of objects and count the number of objects in each sub-group. A student who can perform long division can calculate each smaller group as a percentage of the larger group. If the concept of percent is difficult for the student to grasp, try the exercise again, but this time limit the large group to exactly 100 objects, then repeat the sorting, counting, and arithmetic portions. After the student understands percentages of 100, he can try again with a different (larger or smaller) number of objects as the larger grouping. Fractions can also be illustrated with sub-groups: one student has sorted out 12 game tokens, 6 of which are red; therefore, one-half of the tokens are red. Notice that 2 of those red tokens have a pattern of ridges on them, representing one-third of the red tokens and one-sixth of the larger group of 12 tokens.

Algebra uses the concept of sorting with polynomials. An algebraic expression may contain many objects to sort and categorize, but instead of being red buttons and blue buttons, pennies and nickels, and yellow and white game tokens, they look like X and 2X, XY and 3XY, and 4Y and 2Y. A student who understands that buttons are buttons and that coins are not buttons can also understand that X and 2X are both X-objects, and that neither of them are XY-objects or Y-objects. That is the basis of algebra: sorting and grouping similar objects, while not grouping dissimilar objects.

The skills to be gained from an Activity Jar are nearly limitless. Classification is the basis of scientific research, sorting useful facts from insignificant facts. The plant and animal kingdoms are carefully sorted and classified into similar groups. Other applications of the Activity Jar cover many academic subjects. The visually-oriented student might make graphs and charts to show how many objects were sorted into each group or compile lists of attributes (color, size, shape, material, etc.) for some items. The tactile student might experiment with stacking objects to see which types of shapes can and cannot be stacked easily. You can spur your students’ creativity by them to invent a game using some of the objects. Sharpen your students’ tactile and memory skills by placing some objects inside a paper sack, then asking each student to reach into the sack and try to identify the objects by touch alone. To improve auditory skills, secretly place an object inside a box and challenge your students to listen closely as each one shakes and tips the box to see if he can determine what type of object is inside, just from the sounds it makes while sliding back and forth.

The more activities your students do with the Activity Jar, the more ideas you and your students will think of for new activities to try. Your applications for the Activity Jar will probably go far beyond the few simple projects that I have described here, making your jar one of the most valuable learning aids in your homeschool. And you thought this was just a jar full of useless junk.

Photos of my Activity Jar and some examples of sorting activities can be viewed HERE.

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Homeschool How-To's, Learning Outside the Books, Learning Styles, Math, Preschoolers, Science, Tactile Learning

A Day Without Lessons

September 25, 2007 by 1 Comment

Try it. I dare you. Just try to go through an entire day without learning anything. I do not think it is possible.

If we spent a day reading a novel just for the pleasure of it, not seeking to learn any specific lessons from the reading material, we would still learn the author’s writing style, new ways of phrasing thoughts, new personality traits from the characters, and new details about the geographic area or historical period described in the story. Lessons learned, and my experiment failed.

Suppose we spend a day in mundane domestic pursuits, otherwise known as cleaning the house. We might learn the whereabouts of several missing items, the best method for cleaning a mysterious gooey substance from the front of a kitchen cabinet door, a family member’s odd habit of discarding her shoes underneath the sofa, and how to quickly repair the vacuum cleaner when its rolling brush becomes hopelessly tangled with strands of hair, thread, and whatever else it has found. More lessons learned, and more failure at avoiding those lessons.

Okay, so maybe we need to leave the house. C’mon, kids, let’s go shopping — surely we can spend a day browsing our favorite stores and escape from lessons. Is that a Sale sign? Wait a moment — isn’t that “sale” price higher than the regular price at another store? Oops — that’s a lesson. Back to the browsing. Oh, look, we need some of those — now which size package is the better value? A little quick math, and, oh no, another lesson. We seem to have failed again at our attempt not to learn anything today. It seems that lessons are harder to avoid than was previously thought.

Off to the park. Surely we can escape the learning process with an afternoon of guiltless playtime. What’s that, dear? What kind of leaf is that? Umm… it’s a tree leaf. If you really want to know, you may take it home and look for it in the nature book. Tomorrow. We are trying to skip lessons today, remember? Yes, son, I did see you over there doing chin-ups. And you say that’s more than you could do last week? Sigh. Another lesson learned.

Parents, if you are feeling guilty that your homeschool routine is not quite as routine as you think it should be, be encouraged. Your students are probably learning valuable lessons no matter what they are doing. The preceding examples show that we can learn something from every situation we encounter. We may not be solving quadratic equations while doing housework or yardwork, but we are still learning important things. Our students may not be conjugating verbs while at play, but they are still learning important lessons.

Problem-solving, negotiation, investigation, exploration, analysis — these are extremely valuable skills that are rarely mastered between the pages of a textbook. Just try to go through an entire day without learning anything — but realize that each “failure” to avoid lessons will actually be a tremendous success in increasing knowledge.

Filed Under: Encouragement for Parents, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Learning Outside the Books

Applying Learning Styles with Skip-counting

November 28, 2006 by Leave a Comment

I have often written about learning styles and how each person can relate to material presented in certain ways better than they can grasp the same material presented in other ways. Today’s lesson is for the parent who is saying, “Okay, I understand that this child is more auditory and that child is more visual, but what do I do with that information?” I will walk you through a basic lesson for early math, skip-counting. While giving you some tips for teaching skip-counting, I will also show you how to adapt any lesson to cover each of the various learning styles. Covering all learning styles in a lesson will enable all of your students to learn the material at the same time and give each student a more complete understanding of the material being presented.

Begin by explaining the principle of skipping to your child: walk across the room with him, then skip across the room with him to illustrate how skipping covers the same distance faster and requires fewer steps than merely walking does. Explain that skip-counting is a short-cut way to count things, by using fewer steps and skipping over certain numbers to cover the distance faster.

Children love kinesthetic applications, so if the weather allows, let’s take the math outside. Use sidewalk chalk to draw a long line down the sidewalk or driveway. Now mark the line off in reasonable increments (approximately the length of your child’s foot) and number each mark to create a number line so that your child can step from number to number. Drawing this as a long row of numbered boxes (instead of just a thin line) might make the concept easier for your child to understand, as it will resemble a giant game board where he can jump from box to box. Have him stand at the beginning (make a “start” or “zero” place), then have him step or jump to the “2” place, then to 4, and then to 6 to show him the concept of counting by two’s. Can he tell you where he should go next?

Once he is able to skip-count by 2’s, you can repeat the activity by having him skip-count by 4’s. If the increments become too large to step or jump to, he can run quickly across the “skipped” numbers and stop on the desired number, shouting the number loudly as he skip-counts the increments. If numbered boxes on the sidewalk do not work for your situation, try using kitchen floor tiles or stairs, or use masking tape to “mark” a line on your floor or carpeting.

Next, shift the concept from kinesthetic to tactile by drawing a series of smaller numbered boxes on paper and have him do “finger skipping” from one number to another, first by 1’s, then by 2’s. You may eventually want to let him use some game pawns, moving them from square to square while counting off the increments.

When your child understands the entire concept of skip-counting, you can pour out a large quantity of the substance of your choice onto the table (or a cookie sheet) and allow your student to start counting objects: M&M’s, oyster crackers, dry beans, buttons, Lego’s, or checkers. Count them by 1’s until he has the idea that counting them all individually will be a long process. Now have him move two at a time and try counting by 2’s. Allow him some time to practice this concept — it can be difficult to do any task until you are used to it. After he has the 2’s mastered, then you can move on to skip-counting by 4’s, 3’s, 5’s, 10’s, or any desired increment. (Counting by 4’s is an easy concept to follow counting by 2’s, since it is just a larger extension of counting by 2’s — counting just the even numbers by 2’s. I recommend doing the 4’s before the 3’s for this reason. In the same manner, follow counting by 3’s with 6’s, and follow 5’s with 10’s.)

Another activity to help a student understand skip-counting by 2’s is to fill in a 100-chart with colored markers (adding a strong visual element). Draw* a chart of 10 x 10 boxes (10 rows of 10 squares each). Now alternate filling in the numbers: Mom writes an odd number in black, and the student writes an even number in red. Say each number aloud (here is the auditory part of the lesson) as you write them. Read the numbers over again when the chart is all filled in, alternating as Mom says a number she wrote and the student says a number he wrote — and suddenly the student is counting by 2’s! Then Mom can be quiet while he reads only his numbers aloud to reinforce his new skill. (Adapt this activity to other increments as needed for skill in skip-counting.) *Note: 1-inch graph paper is available at office supply stores in a poster-sized display tablet. I LOVE THIS STUFF! It is great for fast number charts — and hundreds of other homeschool uses. I rolled mine up and tied the roll securely with string for easier storage on a closet shelf.


Graph paper marked with five squares per inch (also available in office supply stores) can be used to make a measuring tape for math as a good tactile and visual learning aid. Cut a few sheets into 1-inch wide strips and tape them together for the length you desire. This scale is compatible with the centimeter-scale Cuisenaire Rods: 2 graph-squares = 1 centimeter, so marking numbers on every other line produces a centimeter measuring tape. I used it to illustrate multiplication and division facts by accordion-folding the paper tape into 6 sections of 8 centimeters to show 6 x 8 = 48 and other facts, but a similar principle will work for skip-counting. Fold the tape on every other number, and then read off (auditory) the numbers at each fold for skip-counting by 2’s. Adapt and repeat for other increments.

When your student has advanced to skip-counting by 10’s, draw a large 100-chart on the driveway, and your student can jump or run from box to box (kinesthetic), or have him fill in the numbers with colored chalk (tactile & visual). Do the 100-chart activity on paper with red numbers on the 10’s only (tactile & visual), but black numbers on the other squares. Then write 1-10 in a vertical column on paper, saying them aloud (auditory). Now add a zero to each number, and read aloud again to count by 10’s. Repeat, adding more zeroes, to count by 100’s, 1,000’s, 10,000’s, or as many zeroes as your child can handle.

Kinesthetic teaching tactics will involve large muscle groups: moving arms from the shoulders or moving legs from the hips. Walking, hopping, running, and jumping, and throwing, catching, and reaching are excellent ways to teach a kinesthetic child. You want to have him move his entire body whenever possible. If a child is easily distracted while trying to sit still, he is probably a kinesthetic learner. If the lesson takes place while the student is seated, it is probably not a kinesthetic lesson. If you want a kinesthetic child to learn, do not try to keep his bottom stuck to a chair seat. Let him stand, let him walk around, let him throw a ball to you while reciting, if necessary, but incorporate his need for movement into your lessons. (Notice that this is not wiggling and moving around just for the sake of wiggling and moving and trying to disturb others. This is taking in information through well-coordinated muscles and reinforcing it through repeated muscular actions.)

Tactile teaching tactics will involve small muscle groups: moving hands from the wrist, moving fingers, and touching, feeling, and rubbing with fingertips. Textures, from dramatic and rough to subtle and smooth, and finger and hand movements are excellent ways to teach a tactile child. You want to have him touching something related to the lesson whenever possible. If a child is easily distracted while trying to keep his hands still, he is probably a tactile learner. If the lesson takes place while the student’s hands are empty, it is probably not a tactile lesson. If you want a tactile child to learn, do not try to keep his hands empty and quiet. Let him touch things, let him make something, let him hold a toy while reciting, if necessary, but incorporate his need for touching into your lessons. (Notice that this is not touching and fiddling with things just for the sake of touching and fiddling and trying to disturb others. This is taking in information through an acute sense of touch and reinforcing it through repetitive touches.)

Auditory teaching tactics will involve sound: incoming sounds and outgoing sounds. Speaking, singing, and humming, and listening are all ways to teach an auditory child. You want to involve his ears and vocal chords whenever possible. If a child is easily distracted while the room is quiet, he is probably an auditory learner. If the lesson requires the student to read quietly, it is probably not an auditory lesson. If you want an auditory child to learn, do not try to keep him quiet. Let him hum, let him sing, let him read his assignments aloud, let him discuss the lessons with you, let him listen to music in the background, if necessary, but incorporate his need for vocalization into your lessons. (Notice that this is not making noise just for the sake of making noise and trying to disturb others. This is taking in information through highly sensitive ear-gates and reinforcing it through vocal repetition.)

Visual teaching tactics will involve illustrations and colors: graphs, charts, and diagrams, and lots of bright, stimulating colors. Posters, maps, forms, and worksheets, and color-coding are excellent ways to teach a visual child. You want to involve his eyes whenever possible. If a child is easily distracted while listening, but is not bothered by sitting still, he is probably a visual learner. If the lesson takes place while the student has no examples to look at, it is probably not a visual lesson. If you want a visual child to learn, do not try to keep his eyes focused on you. Let him read, let him draw, let him color while you read aloud, if necessary, but incorporate his need for visual details into your lessons. (Notice that this is not looking around and daydreaming just for the sake of looking and daydreaming and trying to disturb others. This is taking in information through very observant eye-gates and reinforcing it through recalling memory-pictures.)

Any lesson can be adapted to include elements of the various learning styles. Do not be afraid to be creative in trying revolutionary approaches that seem to be unusual applications for the subject at hand. Your “crazy idea” may be the exact key that unlocks the door to learning for your students.

Goal: To Learn Equally Well in All Learning Styles!

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Auditory Learning, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Learning Styles, Math, Tactile Learning, Visual Learning
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