A pro-nerd family of pro-family nerds.
It isn’t shocking that math skills are built by repetition. It is also well known facts that we remember having fun and if we are learning at the same time, we remember that too! In that spirit here are some fun math games to play with your kids! All you need is a standard deck of cards. You will have learning and quality time! Can’t beat that!
(Continue reading at NerdFamily Things)
There are numerous studies that show if your kids read over the summer it will keep their brain active and they will do better when they return to school in the fall. So it is even easier to motivate your children to read with a ton of summer reading programs.
Barnes & Noble
- Read 8 books and get a free book!
Fresno Library
-The big kick off is June 16 at the Sierra Vista Mall and it should be a ton of fun!!!
-Keep a reading log and every so many books you can get prizes and food coupons!
-Magic shows, reptiles, etc for under 12
-Craft afternoons for 12-17 year olds
-Even a reading program and activities for adult!
Chuck E. Cheese
-Has printable charts for reading that students can turn in for tokens (year round)
Scholastic Online
-Have your child keep track of the minutes they read and get virtual prizes (games, books, etc)
Book Adventure
-You can set up the reward program for your kids. They read books and take quizzes on them to work toward rewards that you provide. This is a program you can participate in year round!
Home made bird feeders are so much fun!!! And so cheap and easy. I have 3 different sets of bird feeders you can make. Choose based on the age of your child, how much you want to help and the materials you have on hand!
I have Bird Feeders Even Toddlers Can Make! All you need is Cheerios and some odds and ends. There are also Peanut Butter Bird Feeders for young students that need peanut butter and bird seed! There is even Popsicle Stick Bird Feeders that you can fill with anything!!!
These feeders make a great jumping off point for bird watching or the beginning of a bird unit!!!
(Welcome if you are coming here after seeing me on Central Valley Today! The links will take you to the various bird feeders I showed on KSEE 24 today!)
We just went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for a field trip! Did you know that they have free field trips for homeschoolers?
A whole bunch of us went together (even though we aren’t an official group) and had a ball. It was my first time going too!
I have 4 kids, 3 of which are in school. I needed an easy way to set out lesson plans for them and let them know what they are expected to do. I wanted to keep some sort of record that I could file also. I found these planners at the Dollar Tree and it totally fit the bill!
It is great because once a week (Sunday night usually) I enter in all their assignments and anything going on for the week into their own planners. Then I can adjust their math is they worked ahead or fell behind without screwing up an entire year’s worth of lesson plan.
Then they can refer to it to see what work they have to do. They can also pop it into their backpacks when they go do work at church independently or just see about that playdate or when Awana starts. They mark off their assignments after they are finished and graded. That is it! So simple!
Apparently there are some free online courses in nanotech. Who says I need to put my kids in school to have them taught by some of the best and the brightest? With today’s internet there are more and more free courses being made available. So I can teach my kids all I know and then go to those bigger and brighter to teach them more. Stanford and MIT also have all kinds of courses for free. That more is more than they can get in any public school! Heck, when I can find the time I want to take the many courses offered. Maybe even a paid college degree will soon be outdated? What do you all think?
I made a discovery about a month ago. I realized that my kids were already making cool projects for history that could be used to go with Halloween costumes.
I gently suggested that we not buy costumes this year but make ones from our history readings. The boys have decided to become Roman Soldiers and NerdPie is going to be a Celtic Queen with NerdPud as one of her daughters. The kids got all excited but then I started feeling guilty. These costumes will look so hand made, because they are. You are looking at some of the pieces to one of my kids’ Roman Standard project for history so obviously this won’t be professional craftmenship. But since my kids are in this exclusive school no on else will have their costume at the church event. Not only that but I get to save major money and I get to have my kids involved in creating something and isn’t that more value than just walking around and getting candy. I think so.
Now a disclaimer, these are going to look so made by kids and that really includes all the parts I am doing and came up with. I sewed a dress for my oldest daughter to wear under her cloak she is helping make and it is obvious that it is my first dress I have ever made. But oh well, it is one night and the kids won’t know any better as long as all of you don’t tell them;).
An argument I have heard against homeschooling is lack of materials/manipulatives. I was told that it would cost an arm and a leg to get all the hands on teaching tools I would need to teach preschool and the first few years of elementary school and that is why they needed to go to a school enviroment. I say, “Bologna!”. Yes, you might need a few things but many of the big things will be just cheap things you have around the house. For counters you can use beans or M&M’s(great reward system too;). For those nifty little fraction models…An apple or orange and a knife. You can even get a kid safe knife (or a pumpkin knife) and have the kiddo cut it themselves. Be creative and cheap!
Now there will be times when, depending on the kid, you might need a real mainpulative. Take for example those lovely unit blocks in my picture. All kids may not need those but the NerdBug’s math progress came to a screeching halt when we got to borrowing and carrying so we went and got a little help. Something you need to keep in mind is the local teacher store isn’t your only option, and sometime that is a costly option. I went into our local teacher store (GW Supply) and found some unit blocks but not all that I wanted. They had the tens and the ones but not the hundreds and they were about $9 a bag. So I went on line and found these interlocking ones at a fraction of the price and they lock together (the ones at GW didn’t). All I did was go to the website on the bag. After shipping and handling I still paid less (less than $18 for all 3 sets plus a couple of clearance items;). So remember to look around. The Internet is your oyster!
One last thing, if you are going to invest in something try to make it do double duty. It can teach basic addition and subtraction, carrying, borrowing and fractions.
This is the first manipulative I needed to buy so that myth is officially debunked!
For those who are looking for my free music resource list, don’t panic. I have now started a new blog and I moved it there. That is where all new Frugal Homeschooler posts will now be (I am slowly moving over the old ones). So run over to NerdFamily Things and check it out!
I will preface this Frugal Homeschooler with the statement that I am not a real Halloween person. Everything here is more pumpkin aimed but a little Halloween may sneak in through carving;).
First, here is a bunch of Pumpkin worksheets that I found on another blogger site. It is owned by Newsword. It even includes optional answer keys. There are everything from matting, crosswords, word searches, etc. I will be using a couple of these for my first grader this year but there are plenty to choose from for older kids.
The there is a great Hands on Activity page that was produced by Chicago Academy of Sciences. They have some great little activities but the one I like the best is their main activity on the life cycle of a pumpkin. It even includes the worksheet with the images to cut out.
Southwest Educational development Lab has a great observational project that will help with kids understanding the scientific process, not to mention pumpkins. It has a page you can print out for recording data(and to go in their science binders) along with explanations of the steps.
Diane Flynn Keith over at Universal Preschool (and who also does the Clickschooling Yahoo group where I get so many of my free finds) has a great article, Pumpkin Fun!, that links to many good educational resources also. So if you didn’t find what you are looking for over here go check her out.
So that wraps up this week’s Frugal Homeschooler. Go have a great Halloween. Stay safe and don’t eat to much candy. Look, explore, use and if you have any great resources please share with me. As always remember homeschooling doesn’t have to be hard or expensive!
