Ease Back into Homeschool with Art, Creativity, Writing, Fun, and Learning

After the winter break, it's helpful to gently ease back into your homeschool routines.
We started by taking time for art and creating the painting shown here. Not only was the painting fun to do, but we created stories inspired by the painting.

Art incorporates many different skills: creative thinking, critical thinking, reasoning skills, compositional skills, experimentation, decision-making skills, self-expression, and more. These are important skills that can be applied to all areas of a person's life, regardless of age or ability.

Encourage your children to play with paint, create with crayons, make marks with markers, as a way to express themselves. Sketch the views from windows, inside restaurants, or outdoors. Try keeping a Nature Journal or an Urban Sketchbook. Daily or weekly sketching can expand the mind in many ways and improve self-esteem.

Create stories from the art, too. Imagine scenarios that might be taking place within the artwork, and write a story about it. Writing is another form of self-expression, plus uses language skills, communication skills, spelling and vocabulary skills, boosting writing abilities and creativity.

Fearful that you won't be covering math, science, and social studies while creating art or writing stories? Art and writing include reasoning skills that math often requires, experimentation that science can require, critical thinking skills that social studies often requires.

Art and writing help to strengthen these skills. Your children can even compose "math stories" or "science stories" inspired by artwork, paintings, or illustrations they've created.

Have fun and enjoy experimenting! As always: When you enjoy what you're doing, the learning naturally occurs.

Happy homeschooling!

New Year + New Interests = New Learning

It’s another New Year with New Opportunities for New Interests and New Learning! Take time to enjoy the things that truly interest you this year, as a family and individually. We learn the most when we enjoy what we're doing, regardless of age. So, rather than focusing on the things we "should" be doing, let's focus on the things we "could" be doing!

Here’s a few thoughts to keep in mind as you begin your New Year:

1. “Imagination is more important than knowledge,” said Albert Einstein. He felt that imagination opened up an entire world of possibilities. He believed that imagination was a major factor in scientific research. How do you use your imagination? You can imagine a make-believe world, imagine a new world, imagine a new story, new song, new artwork, new adventures, new ideas. It’s all possible, because you have imagination! Imagine and create new things this year!

2. “Creativity is intelligence having fun,” Albert Einstein said. When you are having fun creating things, you are using your intelligence. Create clay objects, create wire sculptures, create twirling mobiles, create with construction kits, create a building, create a model, create art, create whatever interests you. As a result, you’ll be using your intelligence, creating, learning, and having fun!

3. “The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled,” said Plutarch, a Greek philosopher. By kindling a fire or sparking an idea in your mind, you are filled with excitement, curiosity, new interests, and new learning! When an idea excites or interests you, learning naturally occurs. This is because you are inspired and motivated to learn all you can about it. Be excited and curious, and you'll naturally learn more!

4. “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning,” observed writer William Arthur Ward. Imagine this: Without a wick, a candle can’t burn very well. Without curiosity, one can’t learn very well. Find ways to spark your own curiosity by asking questions like: “What if? How? Why? Who? When? Where?” Regardless of the topics you might currently be studying, be curious about them. Ask more questions! Go further! Learn more!

5. “Ask questions and you will gain new knowledge,” many have observed. If the tower you built collapsed, ask why and how you can keep it from collapsing the next time. If the clay sculpture you created didn’t turn out as expected, ask how you might improve it next time. If the story you wrote isn’t as exciting as you’d hoped, ask what characters or situations could liven it up. If this week’s history lesson, or math lesson, or science experiment is confusing or dull, ask what activities could make the lessons more exciting, more real, more fun, more clear. When you ask yourself, or others, you will find answers, every day and every week!

Remember to Explore! Experiment! Imagine! Create! Read! Write! Play! Build! Ask! Seek! Research! Be Curious! Be Innovative! Be Adventurous!

Resolve to make your New Year an exciting one filled with fun, imaginative, creative learning!

Happy homeschooling every week of this New Year!

Hundreds of Fun Creative Writing Ideas

November is “National Novel Writing Month” – but your child doesn’t have to write a novel to enjoy the process of creating a story!

Creative writing activities help children:

* Develop important thinking processes
* Expand inventive and imaginative skills
* Communicate ideas to others
* Convey feelings and emotions
* Organize thoughts and sequencing
* Exercise reasoning and problem-solving skills
* Practice analytical and cognitive skills
* Enjoy learning and retaining knowledge longer

The age of your child is no barrier to creating stories, either. Even if she or he isn’t yet writing, children are still very adept at imagining stories and sharing them with others. You can write down the stories for them, illustrate them together, then create booklets containing their stories.

Reading their stories aloud, re-imagining them, or developing new stories sparked by their previous stories can establish a lifelong love of reading, writing, and creating.

Older children can create stories based on Writing Prompts such as those shared on the sites listed below.

Here, kids will have hundreds of writing ideas to keep them creating over the coming weeks, months, and years! Not to mention the spin-off learning that naturally occurs when children read and write! Enjoy!

* 300 Writing Prompts for Kids (PDF):

https://shakeragalley.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/300-writing-prompts-for-kids-list.pdf

* 300 Fun Writing Prompts for Kids:

https://thinkwritten.com/writing-prompts-for-kids/

* 225 Creative Writing Prompts for Kids:

https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/writing-prompts-for-kids/

* 140 Creative Writing Prompts for Kids:

https://www.squibler.io/learn/writing/writing-prompts/writing-prompt-for-kids/

* 100 Writing Prompts for Kids:

https://www.3plearning.com/blog/writing-prompts-for-kids/

For More Leaning Activities, see A Year's Worth of Learning Ideas, 500+ Science Experiments; Hands-On Math Activities; 40+ STEM/STEAM Activities; Free Worksheets for Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies; Unschooling Activities; and much more here on our blog.

Happy homeschooling!

31 Learning Ideas + Art Fun

Inktober art fun -- and learning fun -- is here! If you’re not familiar with Inktober, it’s a challenge to improve one’s drawing skills. As the name implies, it’s drawing with ink each day in October, following 31 specific Inktober prompts. (You can quickly find the prompts by entering "Inktober 2024" online.)

You can also create your own Inktober prompts, and find loads of learning ideas through them, too.

If drawing with ink is too messy or intimidating, use whatever medium works for each of your children, be it crayon, pencil, marker, watercolor paint, etc.

Sketching each day is a great way to create a daily art habit that results in fun, joy, and a sense of accomplishment for everyone.

Plus, many educational ideas can be gleaned from the daily drawing prompts, as well.

For instance, Inktober prompts for October 2024 include topics such as Backpack, Discover, Hike, Horizon, Journal, Rhinoceros, Expedition, Scarecrow, Violin, Landmark.

As children sketch these topics, think of the educational ideas that can grow from them!

Here are a several learning ideas:

Using the “Backpack” drawing prompt, what “educational materials” might be inside the Backpack your children sketch? A Math Book? Draw a Math Book along with the Backpack. Then, from this idea, have fun with Math -- such as Online Math Games, or play Math Board Games, or engage in Mental Math Challenges with each other. What other learning ideas might be inside that Backpack?

With the “Discover” Inktober prompt, your children might draw a picture of something new they Discovered recently, thereby sketching and capturing that new knowledge on paper. Or maybe they’d want to draw an illustration of a Discovery made by explorers or inventors. This could lead to a world of learning and perhaps even encourage them to try their own inventions.

The “Hike” drawing prompt could take children anywhere in the world. This could involve educational subjects such as Geography and Social Studies (hiking to different areas, learning about mountains and forests or different cultures). Plus Math and Science skills could be practiced, by using logic to map out the time required for making the Hike, along with math calculations for determining the distance covered in the Hike.

With the “Expedition” prompt, research “Famous Expeditions” or “Historic Expeditions” (see Historical Expeditions). These are full of learning ideas for Social Studies, Geography, History, Science, Math, and more. Or plan the logistics of your own Expedition as field trips or day trips in your area. Then sketch your local Expeditions and discuss how much you learn through these trips.

For drawing prompts like “Rhinoceros” see photos of Rhinos online, read any of the many books about Rhinos, and learn about why some species are endangered. Go on an Expedition or field trip to your local zoo to see the rhinoceros and learn about their habitat, savannas, and grasslands. Make sketches of their environment, too, or sketches of any other animals or areas in the zoo.

Whether using the specific Inktober prompts – or using 31 or more of your own family’s ideas – imagine the numeours ways you can expand learning opportunities, simply based upon the fun, engaging activity of drawing, sketching, and creating!

It’s a form of daily learning that your children will enjoy and always remember! And imagine how much fun and learning your children would have if you created prompts like this for each day of every month!

It’s so enjoyable that I've set up my own Art Studio (see Misty Glow Studio) for embracing art inspiration and experimenting with creativity. Perhaps your children can, too!

Happy homeschooling!

Year’s Worth of Free Learning Ideas + Weekly Lessons and Fun Activities

August is often the beginning of the homeschool year for many families.

If you’re not quite ready or you’re struggling for ideas, this “Free Curriculum Guideline” can provide a year’s worth of educational ideas for the coming weeks and months.

Subjects Areas, Topics, and Sub-Topics are all outlined in an easy-to-view format for each grade level from Kindergarten through Elementary, Middle School, and High School.

For weekly lessons based on the subjects and topics outlined, you and your children can select books from your local public library. The more interesting the books are to your children, the better they’ll learn, too!

Online resources, activities, and experiments are also plentiful for complementing the subjects and topics outlined. The more “hands-on” the activities are, the more your children will enjoy learning. We have hundreds of activities listed here on our blog for weekly learning, too.

The “Curriculum Guideline” is provided by World Book and is titled "Typical Course of Study."

You’ll see all the core subjects areas (Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Science) plus Arts, Technology, and Health and Safety, with topics and sub-topics listed for each subject area on the guidelines. It's a great resource and is available free at this link:

https://www.worldbook.com/typical-course-of-study.aspx

We’ll be providing learning ideas and educational activities once again in the coming weeks. Be sure to check the labels below for Math, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Weekly Homeschool Lessons, and more!

Happy Homeschooling!

Monday Homeschool + Weekly Learning Ideas

What do we do on Monday when our weeks become overly busy or we face unexpected difficulties?

Some weeks, everything flows smoothly. Other weeks, things are more challenging.

Life doesn’t always go smoothly. This, in itself, is a good homeschool lesson. Having the ability to cope, to be flexible, to change directions, to adjust, to laugh at life’s lemons and to smile at simple joys – these are skills that make life and homeschool easier.

Yet, we still have to Do Something on Monday when facing a busy week. What do we do when we haven’t had time to think of activities or lesson plans?

What Do I Do Monday? is a book by John Holt, who has provided momentous ideas on education and learning. Mr. Holt was a homeschool pioneer, whose thoughts, beliefs, and writings on homeschooling and unschooling were ahead of his times.

Prior to writing numerous books on how children learn (and how they fail), John was a school teacher. But as a teacher, his focus was primarily on observing learning processes in children, rather than forcing a curriculum on them. As a result, his views often conflicted with those of school administrators.

So John turned his attention to helping parents and teachers. He shared first-hand experiences, insight, and details on children actively engaged in learning. He spent years with students and with families, closely observing how children learned best, then documenting and sharing his findings.

Some of John’s books include How Children Fail, How Children Learn, the previously mentioned What Do I Do Monday?, Freedom and Beyond, and others. His books can be found in libraries or online, and are especially inspirational to homeschooling and unschooling families.

Here are some learning ideas and quotes, courtesy of John Holt:

* “I believe that we learn best when we, not others, are deciding what we are going to try to learn, and when, and how, and for what reasons or purposes.” – John Holt

* Ask your children: “What would YOU like to do Monday?” If they can’t think of anything, try a 10-minute brainstorming session on what could be interesting, new, different, fun, etc. Then allow them to decide what they'd like to learn, and when and how, and give them the freedom to pursue those ideas this week.

* Make lists of favorite things during the day, the weeks, and in the months to come. Keep a running list in a notebook or journal. Encourage everyone in the family to keep his or her own list. Then review your lists for learning ideas each week.

* Examples: Here are some examples of "favorite things" from John Holt.

1. Places you like. These can be big places, or they can be little places, and you can like them for different reasons. Put them on your list, as many as you can think of, then learn more about those places.

2. People you’d like to know. Jot down the names of people who interest you, then learn more about them. They can be people from the past, people in the news today, people in your community, or even ancestors in your family.

3. Books you’d like to read. One favorite book can lead to another. Keep a list of books you’d like to read online or check out from the library. Write down favorite authors, too, and read other books they’ve written.

4. Paintings, sculptures, or other artwork. Keep a running list of art projects or techniques you want to try. Learn about different art movements or styles, such as Cubism, Pointillism, Futurism, Pop Art, etc., and try your hand at them.

5. Things you like to do. These can be trivial (simple) or not so trivial (more complex). Ideas could include cutting-and-pasting paper shapes, making castles from boxes, building structures with construction kits, writing skits or plays to perform, learning to play an instrument, making doll clothes, building a bookshelf, creating a computer program, etc.

In just these 5 ideas listed above, there could be weeks of learning ideas, hands-on activities, and new knowledge and skills gained through them.

Tip: An “Idea Jar” is an alternative, or a complement, to list-making. Have kids jot ideas on paper, then cut them apart, fold them up, and drop them into the Idea Jar. Each Monday, have them draw a few ideas from the jar, and there’s your learning ideas for the week!

Continue adding to the jar or to your lists as often as possible. Then you'll always have learning ideas at your fingertips each Monday!

Happy homeschooling!

5 Secrets for a Fun, Educational Homeschool Week

Here's 5 Secrets a Homeschool Family shared with us:

5 Subjects – 5 Days. Or one subject per day.

This homeschool family shared "5 Secrets" about their interesting homeschool schedule. A typical homeschool day for them revolves around one subject per day (or five subjects per week).

And best of all, their schedule is flexible, depending on how they’re feeling each week.

Here’s an example from one of their recent weeks:

1. Monday - Language Arts / Literature: Selecting favorite books to read and using them to recognize nouns, verbs, and all parts of speech. Then creating and writing sentences, paragraphs, and their own stories, while focusing on using descriptive parts of speech, new vocabulary words, and proper spelling.

2. Tuesday – Science / Experiments: Using the Scientific Method to test ideas or hypotheses when contemplating a variety of experiments. The experiments they choose can last the entire day, from morning till night, and Mom said Science Day is their favorite day of the week. The kids eagerly record their ideas, experiments, predictions, test methods, and results in their Science Journals at the end of Science Day, too.

3. Wednesday – Social Studies / History: Currently they’re reading the “Who Was?” series of historical biographies, which include over 200 books, such as Who Was Ferdinand Magellan?, Who Was Sacagawea?, Who Was Albert Einstein?, Who Was Amelia Earhart?, Thomas Edison, Ben Franklin, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King, Maria Tallchief, John Kennedy, Louis Armstrong, The Beatles, etc. The kids are enjoying the format, and the topics cross over into Literature, Science, the Arts, as well as providing social issues to discuss and their impact on today’s culture.

4. Thursday – Math / Technology: Since Math Day lasts all day, they sometimes start with reviewing math facts, such as using Multiplication and Division Flash Cards and timing the kids on how quickly they can get the answers. Then they move on to Math Games, such as Swat, Splat, or Math Bingo. They might also use manipulatives or toys such as Math Fidget Toys, Tubo toy, or Montessori-type math items to practice Math skills. Soon they’re creating with Marble Run sets, Mazes, Lego blocks, Construction sets, Bridge-Building kits, etc. These use mathematical planning, reasoning skills, logic, creative thinking, and critical thinking skills. At some point during the day, they’ll do some math worksheets, which usually focus on solving word problems.

5. Friday – Cultural Arts / Music: This is another favorite day for the kids, according to Mom. The kids get to choose the types of art, craft, and music activities they want to do on Fridays. Mom also said she found it interesting that if the kids read a historical biography such as Who Were the Beatles?, they were interested in playing Beatles music that week. Or if they read Who Was Pablo Picasso?, the kids were engrossed in creating their own versions of Picasso art.

Although each of the days above has a designated subject, this family finds that topics and subject areas often overlap.

So even if Monday is Literature Day, they could find themselves thinking about Math if they’re reading The Phantom Tollbooth, or Science and Time Travel if reading A Wrinkle in Time.

Or if Wednesday is History Day, they could be covering Geography or Science or Math or Art or Music, depending on the type of Historical Biographies they’re reading.

Also, there’s flexibility in this family’s schedule. If they don’t “feel like” Social Studies on Wednesday or Math on Thursday, they’ll switch things up.

Or if Mom realizes the kids are getting overwhelmed by too much Math one day, they’ll switch to doing something else, even if it’s unrelated to Math.

Maybe they’ll take a field trip to a local museum or library, or go on a picnic and a nature hike, or bake or cook favorite recipes, or bring out tubs of craft items and create something off the top of their heads. They often find that Math works its way into whatever they’re doing, anyway.

Overall, they’ve found this homeschool schedule fun, interesting, educational, flexible, and a great way to provide a well-rounded pool of knowledge and learning activities. It’s something your family might enjoy experimenting with, too.

Click any of the Labels below for more ideas for all subjects areas.

Happy homeschooling!