Homeschool: Games I Use

For our daughter’s preschool I have done a lot through games.

I got flash cards and magnet (letters/numbers). A simple cookie sheet makes the magnets stick so the child can match them to the cards.

For shapes/colors I got construction paper and cut out shapes. Then colored some clothes pins with markers to match. For white I had to cut out paper and glue it in. Also, my construction paper didn’t come with brown. This is also good for motor skills with using the clothes pin.

The beanbags I got from Amazon. I use the bucket so she can throw them in the bucket once she gets the bag I ask for. Our daughter loves to have me move the bucket so she has a moving target.

These popsicles are from Amazon. She can go by color or letters. Each popsicle has 2 letters one on the front and one on the back. Very well made in my opinion.

Egg shapes are from Amazon. Each egg is a different shape and two eggs are the same color so she can’t just go by color alone. I like these because they are really sturdy. The case isn’t sturdy though.

LeapFrog Fridge Magnets are great. They have a song for each letter, a sentence using a word starting with the letter and a word starting with the letter. Plays the alphabet song and a little bit of Wheels on the Bus.

Comments

Review: Geoboards

A fun way to help kids get great hand-eye coordination isn’t with Geoboards . I love that with these there are 4 boards included so you can use it with multiple students. The rubber bands are different colors and 2 different sizes. The pictures are fun, colorful and you get a bunch of them. My daughter really likes these. For some reason she thinks it’s so funny when the bands pop her. At first I just let her place the bands anywhere to get the idea of how to put them on. Then we started places them just on the white lines in the picture. She always wants to do more than one so I let her do as many pictures as she wants. I do wish there was a blanket picture so she could design her own things.

Tips & Tricks: Grading

When grading first thing you need to do is check your state laws on homeschool. Some states require you to keep record of your curriculum and and grading while some don’t. I do not have to keep any records or grading. Since I use Timberdoodle they have an awesome online scheduler that I use. It has all the curriculum that we use and in the check boxes I put the grades. At the end of each year I keep the scheduler pages so I have records. Below is how I grade things. I also do not show our daughter the grades or tell her them. I don’t want her to worry about getting a bad grade. When she’s in middle school and high school grades that’s when I’ll start letting her know about grade. My grading system: Pre-K - 2 Grade: she will not see the grade E: excellent; no extra work needed; 100-90% S: satisfactory; give a little extra work; 89-80% N: needs improvement; give a lot of extra work; 79-0% 3 - 5 Grade: she will only see letter grade if she wants to know her grade A: 100-90%

Tips & Tricks: Class Schedule

How do you make a class schedule? When do you do which subjects? How long do you do a class? Does each day look the same? It is easy to make a homeschool schedule since you can school however you like. Since we use Timberdoodle we have access to their online schedule which over the years has been updated to be an outstanding way to schedule our subjects. If you do not use Timberdoodle I would suggest using Excel. If you know a website that allows you to create a schedule (for free) then let me know in the comments. The first thing I do make our schedule is make a list of all of our items and mark which ones I think will be challenging and which will be easy. Core subjects would be harder than things like STEM and thinking skills. Then I use that list to make another list on what day we will do each item. Making sure that not one day will be to hard or to easy. I like it to be pretty even as well as each day having about the same number of items. Some subjects we do everyday those are E

OneLuckeyWife

Search This Blog