Edible Manipulatives

Have you ever counted how many m&m's are in a bag? Try it with your children, preschoolers on up to fifth graders. They'll love it! Make an estimate. How many do you think are in the bag. Let the children guess. Then count them and see how close you were. This is hands on counting that younger children really enjoy.

Next, sort the colors. Can your child name each color? Count how many of each color. Which color has the least? Which has the most? Do any two colors have the same amount? Help the child count to find out.

You can count out 100 m&m's from a big bag. Then count how many of each color. You can make graphs of the results. Count another 100 and see if you get the same amount of each color again. This a simple and fun discovery project. You can use your edible manipulatives to teach an endless amount of math concepts.

Use m&m's or any small candies as manipulatives to teach many lessons right from your child's lesson book. And the best part, you guessed it, they get to eat them when your done!

A New Year, A Fresh Start

Here we are, beginning a new year of homeschool! This year we hope to share activities, adventures, and descoveries that we make along the way. You can look forward to lots of exciting things this year from the five-year-old's discovery of the ant lion to the fourth grader realizing that "school is fun if you like it" to the two-year-old that has so much energy no one knows just what to do with him. Homeschool is a whole new world, and you never know just what will come up. So, here we go. Ready or not, you shall be taught.

5 Tips For Home School Beginners

By Alice Coaxum

Here are a few tips to help those new to home schooling or those who may be struggling with or just interested in home schooling.

1. You must have a plan: Figure out which direction you are going in with your home school education plan before you start. Do your research to see what is available and make a choice. Day 1 of home schooling is not the time to scramble around looking for school work for your child.

2. Have a scheduled time for school work: Yes homeschooling should be flexible when you need it to be for Doctor appointments, shopping or special occasions but try to keep to some type of schedule and stick to it. Pick a schedule that works best for you and your child and stick to it. It will be so much easier for you and your child if they know they have a set time to get their work done.

It will be much harder if every day you are trying to find the time to fit school in when it really should be a top priority.

When we decide to home school our children we make a commitment that we need to take seriously. It only hurts our child if we do not teach them as we set out to do. You only get out what you put into it. It is so easy to just put it off until tomorrow. Children can easily fall behind too, so scheduling is important.

3. Have a set bedtime: This is important in our house because children can easily get off track and if they are going to bed at a different time every night it is kind of hard to stay on a set schedule for school. Also children need to be well rested so they can have a easier time understanding and retaining the information that is taught to them.

4. Establish consequences: Home school is not the equivalent of no school at all and children must be made to understand that from the beginning. No child is perfect and at times they may not feel like doing their work. They have to made to understand that home schooling is real school and if they attended a brick and mortar school they would have to do the work presented to them by the teacher.

At times in the beginning of our home school journey a couple of my children have had what I refer to as a home school is no school, type day.

I swiftly let them know that home schooling is just as important as if they were sitting in a traditional classroom and that they would face consequences if they did not complete their work as I knew they could.

Once they realized that they would lose privileges such as viewing their favorite television programs, playing video games on the weekends or even playing with their favorite toys just the same as if they neglected to do their work in a traditional school the problem cleared right up.

My children knew I meant business and they eventually adapted to our home school schedule. It can be a little hard on them at first especially if they are used to attending a brick and mortar school. What you view as school time they may view as complete freedom and a long vacation until they get used to and fall in line with the schedule.

5. Have fun: Home schooling can be a fun and wondrous adventure if you choose to make it that way. Enjoy the time with your child.

Make the lessons fun with activities that go hand in hand with what you are teaching them. Do science experiments. Teach your child to prepare easy recipes. You could have themed parties or fun times with arts and crafts like painting, working with clay, making homemade cards or jewelry etc.

You can also take them on fun educational trips. Young children love these type of activities and you can enjoy them together.Make the most of your home schooling education plan. It can be a wonderful experience for you and your child.

Alice Coaxum is a happily married mother of four beautiful girls a dog and one frisky cat. She home schools hers daughters and taking care of her family is a top priority to.

She is a partner with Vitamark and runs Wahms Beautiful Deals Traffic Exchange and loves networking and meeting new people. http://wahmsonline.com

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