Full Time Wife Life blog, hosted this very cool, “Homeschool Favorites” that we all could participate in and so I thought it was super fun and wanted to share some of our favorites this month.
For the youngest two children (ages 2 and almost 4), we love these Go Fish alphabet cards. I found them at the Target dollar spot but found a comparable set on Amazon (here). I love that there is an upper case and a lower case and so they make the connection between the same letter but different shape for the upper and lower case.
Math Fables by Greg Tang. I don’t say this often, but I think every household should have this awesome book. It gives not only the idea of 1+1= 2 but also different methods of adding up. For example: “8 crabs. 5 were weary and 3 strong. A group of 4 grabbed their things and the second group of 4 followed.” Just simple math ideas like that. Love it! I think the age group is 7-12 but my 4 year old is picking up math just from reading this. I can’t wait to get the others.
I use a simple .97 place mat from Walmart. It has the state map with capitols and on the back is our state flag with a little more fact. As a kid, me and my siblings use to use this as a game to quiz each other on state capitols. It was a super fun game and before long we could recite all. To this day I can still do a majority of it and my kids are now having a blast trying to quiz one another. Even the two year old has fun and can name some. Geography at its finest.
The Story of the World Audio CD (Volume 1 here) (Volume 2 here). AWESOME AWESOME resource. We use this along with our history curriculum and I can put their CD on while I am helping the younger two or getting lunch going (or maybe trying to make hedgeway on that pile of laundry that is forever growing!) and then we can go onto our activity for that day. We pop them in the car on the way to functions. We love audio books. I cannot recommend this enough. It has spurred questions about what different cultures believe and why we believe the way we do.
Last but not least, Classical Conversation Fact Cards. I love using these as additional resources in our homeschool library. They are simple enough but still full of information that my kids can use. I have their Ancient World, Famous Scientists, and Biology/Geology and can’t wait to add to our collection.
I hope this was a fun post. I hope it sparked the love of learning once again. I think we can easily forget the joy of homeschooling in our desire to give our children the best education. The reality is, a simple moment shared with them and learning along side them can be the best way anyone can learn.