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Sounds like a new reality TV show, huh? While it's not a television show, it is reality. Check out Home Educated Learn More while Traveling, a site that puts you in touch with other families that want to "swap" residences for a week so your family can enjoy hands-on learning in a new place without the expense of accommodations.
[tags]homeschooling, home educated, unschooling, travel, house swap[/tags]
I've just come across The Straight Edge, Inc., an online source that offers a large selection of educational placemats they call "Read a Mats" and "Write a Mats."
I love placemats. We have a variety of placemats in our home and I switch them out every few months according to season or a child's interest. Now that my son is getting older, the "Write a Mats" look especially interesting to me: The front side displays information and the back side lets your child fill in the blanks to see what they've learned. Write on the mats with wipe-off markers or crayons, then clean them and start again the next meal. This is also good because the placemats can be passed on to younger siblings as they grow.
The Straight Edge Inc. offers placemats in many themes: colors, letters, time, astronomy, math, transportation, science, animals, history, geography and more. Their newest mats focus on safety and reducing anxiety, with titles such as "A Day at the Beach," "A Visit to the Doctor" and "Street Smarts."
I'm envisioning dinners filled with lively conversation about history! Geography! Weather! Musical instruments! These beat traditional character placemats, hands down.
[tags]placemats, education, homeschooling[/tags]
Parent Hacks posted a hack today extolling the virtues of telephone books as scribble material, as well as newspapers as tracing/pre-writing practice. Great idea!
Don't discount the value of junk mail, old magazines -- really any printed material at all. Kids love the pictures and it's an excellent way to begin teaching toddlers and preschoolers colors, letters, writing, drawing, identifying and more. Plus, you're being "green" by saving paper and finding more uses for your recycling.
[tags]parenthacks, coloring, writing, toddlers, preschoolers, homeschooling[/tags]
