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10 Ways to Improve a Lesson

September 10, 2009 by 1 Comment

Sometimes we all need help teaching a lesson. The lesson may be too confusing, too short, or just plain boring. Your student may need a more complete explanation or just want to delve more deeply into the subject. You may need to expand the lesson to include an activity to fit your student’s learning style. No matter what the reason, here are a few suggestions for how to improve a lesson.

  1. Make it bigger. — Suppose your child is learning fractions, and the book’s diagrams are rather small. Draw similar diagrams using an entire sheet of paper for each one — sometimes bigger IS better! Simple drawings and diagrams do not demand precision: children are good at pretending, and they can pretend along with you that your drawing is accurate.
  2. Take it outside. — Fresh air and elbow room can improve anyone’s ability to think. Even reading a favorite storybook outdoors can give it new perspective.
  3. Add color. — Say good-bye to black-and-white; say hello to understanding. Use colored pencils or markers, highlighters, construction paper, or colored index cards. For example, write each step of a complicated math problem in a different color to help clarify the progression.
  4. Add texture. — Go beyond flat and give your fingertips a chance to enjoy themselves. Form ABC’s with Play-Doh, cut letters out of sandpaper, or draw with chalk on the sidewalk.
  5. Let your student play with it. — Exploration is the birthplace of genius. Go beyond the lesson plan and indulge your student with his own session of free experimentation, whether with math manipulatives, Scrabble letter tiles, vinegar and baking soda, etc. Playing is learning.
  6. Add more details. — Why strain to understand a single example, when ten examples will make it crystal clear? Suppose your child is trying to learn the letter A; show the child many examples of what A looks like, from several ABC books, from newspaper headlines, on packages in your pantry; draw A with crayons and markers, in shaving cream smeared on a window, in dry cornmeal poured in a baking pan; arrange small items into an A shape: pennies, pipe cleaners, pencils, building blocks, toy cars, fingers, etc. — after all of these examples, your child will better understand how to recognize an A!
  7. Discuss it. — Skip the one-sided lecture and the interrogation-style Q & A session; try an open and honest give-and-take, valuing your student’s opinions, reactions, and ideas. How would you react if those opinions were coming from your friend, instead of from your child?
  8. Build it. — Cardboard, scissors, and tape are the stuff that feeds imagination. Projects don’t have to be constructed well enough to last forever, just long enough to illustrate the concept.
  9. Research it (together). — Expand two great minds at the same time. The teacher doesn’t always have to know the answers before the student does — your student will develop new respect for you as he sees you willing to learn with him.
  10. Make it personal. — Use a personal application to your student’s own life, activities, or possessions, and he’ll never forget it. Instead of math manipulatives, use the student’s building blocks, toy cars, baseball cards, Barbie doll shoes, etc.

The specific examples given above might be either too simple or too advanced for your current needs, but you can adapt them to your student’s situation. Even if you think some of these ideas may not help with your particular struggles, dare to give them a try anyway. You may be pleasantly surprised at the results!

Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Auditory Learning, Encouraging Your Student, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning, Learning Outside the Books, Math, Roadblocks to Learning, Tactile Learning, Top 10 (and other) Lists, Visual Learning

10 Fun Math Exercises from a BINGO Game

February 12, 2009 by 2 Comments

A standard Bingo game contains several printed cards with numbers arranged into a grid of rows and columns and tokens marked B-1 through O-75, used for calling the numbers when playing the game. These components can be used in other ways for some creative (and fun) variations on math practice.

  1. Play Bingo for number recognition practice and good, clean fun.
  2. Sort the number-tokens into odds and evens. Or sort out just the tokens needed to skip-count by 2’s, or 3’s, or 4’s, etc.
  3. Arrange the tokens into numerical order from 1-75.
  4. Sort the tokens into 1-10, 11-20, etc.
  5. Pick 2 (or more) tokens at random and add their values together. Now try subtracting them, multiplying them, or dividing them. [Hint: Place all of the tokens into a paper sack or a clean sock for ease of random drawing.]
  6. Pick 2 tokens at random and make fractions from their numbers — make both a proper fraction (numerator is smaller than denominator) and an improper fraction (numerator is larger than denominator). Simplify each fraction, if possible, or make a list of equivalent fractions.
  7. Add the columns of numbers on the Bingo cards.
  8. Add the rows of numbers on the Bingo cards.
  9. Write the factors for each number on a Bingo card or for number tokens drawn at random.
  10. Practice rounding with the numbers on the Bingo cards or with randomly drawn tokens.
Filed Under: Activity Ideas, Homeschool How-To's, Learning Outside the Books, Math, Tactile Learning, Top 10 (and other) Lists

21 Things That Can Slow Homeschooling Progress

January 5, 2009 by 3 Comments

Typically, homeschoolers talk about the blessings and benefits of homeschooling, which are myriad. However, sometimes Life throws us a curveball — and once in a while, several curveballs — too many to deal with casually as part of the normal course of events. If you have found yourself the unwitting recipient of these circumstances, you may be worrying that your family is just not progressing with homeschooling as quickly as you should or even as well as you used to do. If you feel you are on the verge of a homeschool breakdown, the cause may not necessarily be something you are doing wrong — it may just be due to too many complex situations occurring at the same time or in rapid succession. The following list of unique situations may contain some of the things your family has experienced that you previously had not considered as being directly related to your rate of academic progress (or lack of progress).

1. Homeschooling for the first time
2. Leaving public or private school to switch to homeschooling
3. A reluctant learner who balks at the idea of schoolwork in general
4. An eager learner who wants to explore extensively into each topic
5. Pregnancy
6. Childbirth
7. Adoption
8. An infant
9. A toddler
10. A special needs child
11. A chronic illness or other health crisis affecting any family member
12. A severe injury requiring extended recovery or rehabilitation for any family member
13. An elderly parent/grandparent who needs care or must be moved to a care facility
14. Extensive property damage from fire, flood, or natural disaster
15. A legal or financial crisis
16. A job change
17. Moving to a different home
18. A wedding
19. A divorce
20. A death in the family
21. Miscarriage or stillbirth

Please note that this list is not complete. You may be experiencing some things that are not listed here and yet have been just as devastating to your “normal” routine. If your family has experienced more than one of these items in the past year or in consecutive years, please consult the article Top 10 Benefits of Homeschooling with Grace and Topical Index: Doing Your “Best” and Topical Index: Encouragement for Parents for some much-needed comfort and uplifting encouragement. If you have reason to anticipate any of these events in your foreseeable future, try to plan ahead as much as is humanly possible in order to prepare yourselves for the upcoming event and its schedule-altering effects. Please note that some of these factors cannot be predicted at all, some will last only a few months, but others may continue for years or for a lifetime (such as a special needs child).

Above all else, know that when your family encounters the types of situations listed above, your children will have experienced Life up-close and personally, and that in itself is an education that no textbook can provide!

Filed Under: Doing Your "Best", Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Roadblocks to Learning, Top 10 (and other) Lists

What Made This a “Bad” Homeschool Day?

August 14, 2008 by 1 Comment

This day started with such promise. You planned the lessons, and everyone took their places, but then something, somewhere went wrong. Very wrong. And you may have no idea why. Go fix yourself a refreshing beverage, and let’s see if we can analyze what happened.

In my personal vocabulary, a “bad homeschool day” has one basic meaning: We didn’t accomplish all of the lessons that I had planned for us to do. There can be multiple causes for this “failure,” which is probably not as much of an actual failure as it is just not hitting the bull’s-eye of your intended target of Lessons Mastered. To take this analogy just a bit further, think of your day’s homeschooling plans as a standard target of concentric rings. Landing an arrow anywhere on the target is a degree of success (a partially learned lesson), and even coming close to the target is still a degree of success (learning anything at all about any topic, but not necessarily the planned lesson). A complete and utter failure would mean that your arrow never even left the bow (although that in itself teaches a lesson, but we’ll get to that later*). Also notice that the bull’s-eye of that target is not a pinpoint. It is actually roomy enough to hold several arrows, meaning that two or three arrows can be separated by some distance while still occupying the official center of the target. Consider this for a moment: you can hit the bull’s-eye several times, with the arrows landing fairly far apart from each other. Different arrows in different parts of the bull’s-eye equate to different homeschooling days that reach the goal in different ways. You can achieve success while still not reaching pinpoint perfection. (Perfection and success are two entirely different things — and success is much easier to achieve than perfection!)

Now let’s look at some possible causes of today’s Bad Homeschooling Day.

1) A Family Emergency — File this under “Life Happens.” These often cannot be avoided. Emergency Room visits are often considered by active little boys to be sure indicators of bravery and manhood, veritable rites of passage. Other emergencies can come in the guise of a chronic illness, a death in the family, or an unexpected change in career or place of residence. Marriage, divorce, pregnancy, miscarriage, and many other events can have a resounding effect on homeschooling progress and for much longer than a single day. There is usually no way to schedule an emergency: it just happens. Please do not despair when some unexpected event disrupts your calendar. Do keep in mind that extremely valuable *life lessons will still be learned during family emergencies — lessons that do not come from textbooks and cannot be experienced in classroom situations.

2) Your Students Just Didn’t Get It — File this under “Not Unusual.” Students vary in how they learn: God made them that way. What bizarre sort of Stepford Wives-world would this be if everyone reacted exactly like everyone else? The lessons for today were probably not presented in ways that corresponded to your students’ learning styles. See the Titles Index and look for Alternate Methods of Teaching [for various subjects]. Even if the exact subject you need is not listed, the articles contain many suggestions for presenting material to the various learning styles, and you will find ideas that will help.

3) Your Students Would Not Stay On Task — File this under “Learning Styles.” Over there is a daydreamer, here is a wiggler, this one is a goof-off, and that one never stops talking. Sound familiar? This category can also be applied to your students’ styles of learning, but this, too, can be accommodated. It’s not that your students are trying purposely to ignore you; it’s just that they find other facets of life much more intriguing than the way this particular lesson is being presented.

A daydreamer may be thinking up a truly valuable invention, or mulling over a tidbit from a recent conversation or book or movie or song, or puzzling over why something works the way it does, and if that does then shouldn’t this be possible, too? Your daydreamer is very likely not dreaming at all, but thinking very deep and elaborate thoughts and ideas. Allow that child to keep an “idea notebook” handy for quickly jotting down thoughts to be explored more fully later, after the lessons are done. The journal will help the child remember those thoughts, and it just might help him get refocused on the lesson at hand. Plus, you get the bonus of voluntary writing: SHH — don’t let the child know that you are secretly counting this as a writing assignment! This is just a special, personal notebook that can be kept handy during any lesson and pulled out for scribbling a quick note without receiving a scolding for momentarily not paying attention. Assure him this journal will not to be corrected, graded, or even read by anyone else until he chooses to share his ideas. My son kept a notebook that we called his Invention Journal, which he filled with complicated drawings and detailed explanations for items he felt would be valuable, time-saving, or just plain fun.

A wiggler has a serious need to move, so use it to your advantage. Send him off to run an errand to the other end of the house or to run laps around the back yard before you begin presenting the lesson. Once his muscles are awake, he will be a much more attentive listener. Include stretch breaks between lessons or between sections of a long lesson. Hindering this child’s need for movement is equivalent to letting his brain run out of gas.

Talkers have just as great a need to express themselves as the wiggler has a need to move. These are the students who can easily be engaged in discussions, debates, and question-and-answer sessions about lesson concepts. They are not likely to read directions themselves: they are much more likely to ask you to tell them what to do. [See Teach Your Students to Teach Themselves for help with this.] A budding comedian needs to get the funny story out of his system before he will be able to concentrate on any academic input, so invite him to tell it, and enjoy a hearty laugh together. He will be much more attentive to your lessons when he knows you appreciate his humor. You can trust me on this one — by the time my son turned six, I had developed a great empathy for what Jerry Seinfeld’s mother must have endured.

A student who cannot keep his hands still is often accused of goofing off and delaying his work by fiddling with anything within reach. This one will drive you straight to the room with the thickly padded rubber wallpaper unless you realize that those busy fingers are the keys to his ears. Just like the wiggler who must move his legs to activate his brain, The Busy Fingers Kid must have something in his hands to stimulate his brain. Once again, you can use this to your advantage: let him hold a favorite toy or keep his special blanket folded underneath him on his chair or give him modeling clay to work with while you read aloud or explain a lesson concept. Do not insist on eye contact with this child to prove he is paying attention — his ears will only be able to listen to you if his hands are busy, and his eyes may or may not focus on you. This child will respond especially well to manipulatives, learning aids, and educational gadgets. It’s not that he wants something to play with, he just needs to feel something with his fingers to be able to learn.

4) A Defiant Student — File this under “Needs a Little More Time.” This most often occurs when a family is involved in a major change, such as the transition from public or private school to homeschooling, especially if the student is not completely thrilled with the idea. Students who have previously been in a classroom situation need time to decompress and shift gears into the more relaxed atmosphere of homeschooling. A good rule of thumb for the length of the transition is one month for every year the child spent in school, double that if the child went to preschool. That period will be a time of adjustment: expect to find and repair potholes, expect to share tears and triumphs, and be as patient, loving, and forgiving as you possibly can muster. Know that every rough patch you can bring your student through will lead to smoother sailing later on. Remember that this child’s entire academic world is undergoing dramatic changes, and your student has no idea what to expect next. Treat your defiant student with respect, and he will respect you in return. [See Troublesome Students for more specific suggestions.]

5) Using a Homeschooling Style That Is Counter to Your Family’s Lifestyle — File this under “Common Mistakes.” Many families who are new to homeschooling, especially families who are leaving public or private school, make the all-too-common-but-well-intended mistake of trying to duplicate a formal school routine at home. Reasoning that the children have been used to precisely timed periods, clocks and bells to signal those periods, structured lessons, and periodic tests, innocent first-time homeschoolers may think it is wrong to finish a subject in less than 30 minutes (or to extend it longer than 60 minutes), wrong to start the day’s lessons after 10 AM (or before 8 AM), or wrong to finish all of the day’s lessons in only 2 hours (or wrong not to have everything finished up by 3:15 PM). Let me assure you that you may use as much or as little time as seems fitting to your students’ abilities, and daily variances are not at all uncommon. Furthermore, it is absolutely permissible to take stretch breaks and play breaks and snack breaks as often as they may be necessary. You are allowed to teach students of close but differing ages as though they were in the same grade at the same time, if that fits well into your situation and their needs. You are allowed to skip a lesson now and then, spread a single lesson over several days, take a day off when you really need it, and choose educational materials that match your family’s values and interests.

If your students need structure and precise scheduling, then by all means use it. But if your family feels stifled and pressured by demanding schedules and tedious lessons, explore learning in a more relaxed, more motivating environment. Perhaps your plans have been too aggressive. Perhaps you do need more personal discipline. Whatever your family’s needs may be, find the combination of lesson materials and supplemental activities that works for your family and begin to thrive.

I cannot promise that you will never again have a Bad Homeschooling Day. I cannot promise that every Bad Homeschooling Day can be magically transformed into an Exceptional Learning Day. What I can guarantee is that you will get out of homeschooling exactly what you will put into it: if you work toward teaching your students in the ways they learn best, you will reap attentive, eager learners who may often be several steps ahead of you. When a student’s interest veers away from the planned lesson, do not be afraid to pursue his suggestion — you may both end up learning much more than the textbook’s authors intended.

The poet Robert Burns is often paraphrased, The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Proverbs 16:9 provides a more optimistic conclusion: The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. No matter what your plans may be, remember that they are only plans: ideas and intentions of what you hope to accomplish with your students during a set period of time. Some days are slow learning days — you know yourself that on some days you can think faster or more clearly than you can on other days, depending on the weather, a mild illness, or the unpredictable distractions of life. Your children are exactly the same: some days their progress will be slow, and on other days they will make up for lost time and amaze your socks off! Give yourselves time to adapt to learning at home, and experiment with schedule changes until you find the ideal solution for your family’s needs. Use Life’s interruptions to teach the lessons not found in books, and recognize the lessons your students are learning, whether or not the worksheets get completed today.

For further encouragement, please see these additional articles:
Redeeming a Disaster Day
Homeschooling Is a Choice
What Is Your “Best”?
Reschedule, Refocus, Regroup

Filed Under: Auditory Learning, Behavior, Discipline, Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Homeschool How-To's, Kinesthetic Learning, Tactile Learning, Top 10 (and other) Lists, Visual 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 Benefits of Homeschooling with Grace

April 14, 2008 by 5 Comments

No, Grace is not my name, nor is it my daughter’s name. “Homeschooling with Grace” refers to making homeschooling a real possibility for you. If your mental image of homeschooling (before you began) was much different from what your homeschooling reality has become, perhaps you need a dose of Grace. Sit back, relax, and lower your standards just enough to allow yourself to breathe easily again as we look at the Top 10 Benefits of Homeschooling with Grace.

10. You can provide your students with as much time as they need to truly understand a concept, and you can allow your students to skip redundant portions of lessons they have already learned. [Grace is patient, but Grace also recognizes achievement.]

9. You meet other homeschooling families who do things differently than you do, and you smile, knowing that all homeschoolers are unique. [Grace appreciates the differences in life.]

8. Every member of the family relaxes, knowing that Grace bestows forgiveness, second (and third and fourth) chances, and hugs when you need them. [Grace understands, and Grace loves anyway.]

7. You give up “flying under the radar” to avoid attracting attention as a homeschooling family and boldly traipse through parks, stores, and other public areas between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 3:15 p.m., knowing that anyone foolish enough to inquire why your children are not “in school” will have to endure a barrage of giggles, several quippy answers from each child, and at least 3 recitations from recent history and science lessons. [Grace accepts Life as a good teacher.]

6. You redefine a “clean” house to mean one that looks lived in but can still be occupied without fear of actually contracting any truly scary diseases. [Grace knows that perfection is unattainable on this side of Heaven.]

5. You no longer cringe at the thought of friends dropping by unannounced, realizing that they are more interested in sharing 5 minutes of conversation with another grown-up than in performing a white-glove inspection of your bookshelves. [Grace prefers people to things.]

4. You realize that no one who really loves you will care if the breakfast dishes are still in the sink when you start supper. Or that once in a while last night’s pizza boxes can be found on the coffee table. At least the leftovers are all gone… thanks to the family dog. [Grace knows when you need a break.]

3. The thought of seeing your family pictured on the cover of a homeschooling magazine would mean that chore-boot footprints and mud stains are being featured in that issue’s Art Corner. [Grace knows that Life is not tidy.]

2. You lower your expectations of homeschooling to include only those things your students might actually be able to accomplish in this lifetime. [Grace does not expect the impossible.]

And finally, the Number One Benefit of Homeschooling with Grace is:

1. Grace. Just when you think you’ve messed up everything beyond all hope of repair, God gives you the Grace to start fresh and try again. [His mercies are new every morning–Lamentations 3:22-23]

Filed Under: Doing Your "Best", Encouragement for Parents, Family Unity, Homeschooling as a Lifestyle, Scripture Applied to Homeschooling, 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
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