As a homeschooling mom, one of my goals is to help my son enjoy learning. Having fun while learning holds his attention and helps him retain the information he is learning.
Here are some of the ideas we have enjoyed incorporating into our homeschooling day.
Make Pipe Cleaner Bracelets
What To Do: To start, have your child sort the beads by size and/or color. Ask your child how many red beads there are. Ask your child how many square beads there are. Ask your child simple math questions by adding or removing beads from a pile. Then let the child play and make a bracelet.
What They’ll Learn: This activity will practice fine motor skills, counting, color and shape sorting, and simple addition and subtraction.
What You’ll Need: Beads for Kids Crafts, Carl & Kay 348 Pipe Cleaners
Make Homemade Playdough
What To Do: Help your child make the playdough, by allowing them to measure and mix ingredients together. Then play!
- 4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon salt
- Mix
- Add 2 cups warm water to empty bowl
- Add 4-5 drops food coloring (for brighter colors, add more food coloring)
- Add Tablespoon of cooking oil
- Add flour and salt mixture
- Mix
- Pour a little flour on table and roll playdough around in flour to remove stickiness
- Put playdough in a plastic zipper bag
- Place in refrigerator
What They’ll Learn: This activity will practice cooking skills, math, color recognition, and following directions.
What You’ll Need: all-purpose flour, warm water, food coloring, vegetable or canola oil, table salt, quart-sized zipper bags
Go on a Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt
What To Do: Go on a walk around your neighborhood. Prompt your child with questions such as what the letters on a STOP sign are, or what the neighbors address is. Point out bird’s nests, trees that have leaves with changing colors, fire hydrants, cars, and animals. Give them items to find while you are walking.
My son loves to play this game and asks me what to look for next.
To take it a step further, after your walk, go to the library and find age-appropriate books to learn more about whatever interested them.
What They’ll Learn: This activity will practice letter and number identification (STOP signs, addresses), exercise, nature, color recognition and other topics of interest.
What You’ll Need: library optional
Play a Sidewalk Chalk Numbers Game
What To Do: Write numbers down on the sidewalk with shapes around them. Take turns tossing the rock trying to land on a shape with a number inside. If the rock lands on one of the shapes, ask your child what the number, shape, and color are. Keep score of the number of points obtained by each person. At the end, add the points together to see who wins.
What They’ll Learn: – This activity will practice number, shape and color recognition, math, and gross motor skills.
What You’ll Need: rock, Cra-Z-Art Sidewalk Chalk (32 Count)
Watch a Documentary Together
What To Do: Sometimes, we just need to relax and snuggle – especially when it’s cold or rainy outside and that’s ok! Find a documentary on TV and watch it together. Bonus points if you add a healthy snack.
What They’ll Learn: – This activity will delve deeper into topics of interest. Our recent favorite was about alligators.
What You’ll Need: – TV, YouTube or Netflix, pajamas and snacks optional
Do an Apple Volcano Science Experiment
What To Do: Help your child set up the experiment by cutting off the top of the apple. Help your child measure and pour ingredients. Have fun!
- Cut off top of apple
- Add 2 Tablespoons baking soda to the pre-cut apple
- Add 5 drops of food coloring on top of the baking soda
- Add 1/4 cup vinegar on top of the baking soda
- Watch the volcano erupt
What They’ll Learn: This science experiment will practice cooking skills, math, and color recognition.
What You’ll Need: apple, knife, baking soda, vinegar, food coloring
Create an Indoor Scavenger Hunt
What To Do: I love this one for the winter or a rainy day. Prepare a bucket with a letter or number taped to the front of it. Ask your child to find items around the house that start with the letter on the bucket. For the letter C, my son added a cat stuffed animal, cookie, and candy. You can also do this with numbers. Ask your child to find 5 of a certain object and place it in the bucket.
This is an easy way to keep kids busy learning, while you work on other things.
What They’ll Learn: This activity will practice phonics, math, and letter and number recognition.
What You’ll Need: – bucket for items, letters, numbers, tape
Have a Balloon Splatter Painting Party
What To Do: Set up a blank canvas, tape off sections with painter’s tape if desired, fill balloons with paint using a funnel, blow up and tie the balloons, and let your child throw the paint balloons at the canvas. This creates beautiful fun artwork. My son even wanted to hang his artwork in his room.
What They’ll Learn: This activity will practice art sports, and color recognition.
What You’ll Need– PHOENIX White Blank Cotton Stretched Canvas Artist Painting – 8×10 Inch / 10 Pack, paint, painter’s tape, old clothes, 500Pcs Water Balloons, and funnel optional
Make Monster Puppets
What To Do: Use a marker to draw shapes on construction paper. Ask your child to cut out the shapes. Let your child glue the shapes on a white paper bag to create a monster face. This was a huge hit at our house! He would have never thought he was learning!
What They’ll Learn – This activity will practice shape and color recognition, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills.
What You’ll Need – white paper bag, scissors, glue stick, Crayola Construction Paper, marker
Play the Fishing Game
What To Do: Take a long piece of ribbon and tie a binder clip to the end. Let your child fish for items. As they throw the string over the edge of a chair or, in my case, the kitchen island, hook a paper letter or number to the end of it. If they know the letter, letter sound, number, or whatever the question is, they earn points towards a prize. At the end, he has to count his points to see which prize he earns.
This is my son’s favorite way to learn. He has the most fun when we play this game.
What They’ll Learn: This activity practices letter and number recognition, phonics, and math.
What You’ll Need: binder clip (a paper clip will work), paper letters or numbers, ribbon
Play Uno
What To Do: Play Uno with your child. It’s fun and easy!
What They’ll Learn: This activity practices color and number recognition, taking turns, and basic math (Draw 4).
What You’ll Need: Classic UNO Card Game
Count Spare Change
What To Do: Gather spare change and have your child count it. Feel free to incorporate some life lessons, such as the importance of saving money. Take your child to the bank and deposit the money into their savings account. Don’t forget to keep a little money back to buy a new school game!
What They’ll Learn: This activity practices learning how much each coin is worth, life lessons such as saving money, and basic math.
What You’ll Need: piggy bank, spare change, bank optional
Make a Solar System Project
What To Do: Use markers to draw circles on construction paper. Ask your child to cut them out and glue them on a black piece of construction paper. They can draw details on the planets and try to make them look like actual planets.
What They’ll Learn: This activity will practice using scissors, teach about outer space, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills.
What You’ll Need: scissors, construction paper, glue stick, Crayola Ultra Clean Washable Markers
I hope that you can incorporate some of these fun activities into your homeschooling day. If you do, please be sure to let me know in the comments below! Have fun!
