Review, Review, Review

Practice makes progress, right? Practice can be boring, though. However, review is essential to make sure that your children are retaining what they are learning. How do you review? Here are a few ideas to spice up the review that you know you need to do.

Try keeping instructional items around for a while after you have finished using them. We studied Noah’s ark a while ago, but we still use the puzzle and toys related to the story. I have projects that the kids made that they still use. There are games from other units that we still play with. Keeping those things around feeds imaginative play and gives the children the opportunity to really own the concepts they learned. Additionally, it helps you to make on-the-spot observations and corrections to misconceptions.

More active review is also important. Trivia games are a great way to review and add a level of excitement. You could really play it up and turn it into a whole game show with prizes. Other games including “Go Fish” and “Concentration” also make review more interesting. Make your own set of cards for this game. For example, for a vocabulary review game, one card would have the vocabulary word and the other card would have the definition on it.

Have the kids be the teacher. This is a great opportunity to have the kids practice their public speaking skills, too. You and other children pretend that you know nothing about the topic. Then the “teacher” has to explain the topic very clearly to the group. Then the group can use a scoring guide to evaluate the performance of the “teacher”. You can make it like American Idol even to make it more interesting for older kids. Take the “teacher” idea one step farther and have each child create a paper and pencil test for the material being reviewed. The test must be high-quality, and there must be an answer sheet included.

Try something new to make your review more intersting and engaging.

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Home School Gardening Project Tips

As a homeschooler, I find that preparing materials for great work that I want to do is sometimes hard. Some things just take a lot of preparation.  One way you can limit curriculum planning for your home school is by setting up ongoing projects. There is always something to do when you have a project, and you can add a lot of learning that is fun and interactive. Projects often take on a life of their own.

One great project is a garden. Gardening incorporates layers of skills, and it is great for kinesthetic and tactile learners. Obviously it is a science project, but there is so much more that you can do with it. My family has started a garden this summer, and we are having fun with it! The kids are really excited about watering the plants and making observations. We are trying to make more detailed observations about the shape and colors that we see in the garden. Here are some tips to add learning to your gardening experience.

• Do some research together about what plants grow in different kinds of light, and allow your children some choice about what to plant in the garden.
• Lookat the seeds before you plant them. Observe the shape, color, and texture.
• Use your science journals to make observations about the garden. Remember to make careful observations about the plants.
• The scientific drawings should be accurate - down to the colors. Remember to include written observations.
• Measure the plants as they grow and chart it. Make predictions about how much each plant will grow.
• Use new vocabulary when you talk about the garden. Talk about tilling the soil and fertilizing the plants. Name the tools. Find more information about gardening vocabulary at Katina’s Little Gardeners.

Your gardening experience should be a fun family project. Enjoy!

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Summer Science Journals for Your Home School

Do you want to improve your science program? Are you struggling to motivate your kids to write anything let alone something meaningful, especially in the summer? Are you trying to get the most out of those educational summer vacations? Try using science journals! The benefits of journals abound! Have you tried them yet? They are great even for the littlest scientists! Here are a few tips for a summer science journal. Hopefully you will be inspired to try them out this summer!

• Use something that is portable and durable for your journal. You’ll take it everywhere and use it in messy situations. You want it to hold up. Attach a pencil on a string to the journal. Bring some colored pencils or crayons along. Put the journal, pencil, and colors in a folder or a plastic storage bag.
• Bring your science journals when you go to various vacation spots. Children can journal about the ocean, fishing, the farm, the aquarium, berry picking, hiking, and camping experiences (think star gazing, and the like).
• Why not use your journal with some ongoing science projects at home? We have a garden that we journal about. (That’s a whole other post coming soon!)
• Put a title on the page indicating what the entry is about and where the family was. Write the date. (It’s important to maintain good records.)
• Have the kids include detailed, scientific drawings in their journals. They should label the drawings clearly and use appropriate colors in the picture. For example, color the ocean the colors that you see (green, blue, white, yellow), not just blue because blue represents water.
• Write observations in each entry. Little ones can dictate a sentence or two for you to write for them.
• Make the observations interesting and relevant to the topic, too. Don’t just say, “The ocean is pretty.” Try something like this, “When the waves crash on the shore, there is a lot of white foam. The water sprays up, and there is a loud crashing sound. I saw the water pull back slowly after it foamed up. I wonder what causes the water to pull back.”
• Add a layer of challenge by posing a question for the kids to answer before going out and adding the question on the entry page. Then the child’s entry must include the answer to the question.

Have fun with your summer science journal. You may just find that your children love them and use them all year long!

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