Easy Fall Days And Teaching Kindness Because It Matters

This week for school we are between unit studies and are concentrating on math and reading and fun. What that means is we are playing lots of educational games, reading and snuggling on the couch, eating tons of popcorn, cooking together, going on nature walks and crafting.

I know from experience that taking breaks and having a week ever so often so we can finish projects and concentrate on areas that need a little extra boost keeps me sane. It also keeps me from feeling the burnout. I used to try to get all of our schoolwork done by noon. It stressed me out and was ridiculous. Now we start later in the morning so the kids chores are all finished, breakfast is over, they are dressed and we aren't interrupted. We also have school all day and don't rush. If something isn't finished we know tomorrow is another day.

Below are some of the things we've done this week.

Made a sight word game and called it Word Splat.

                             We've practiced the days of the week and months of the year.

    We've made reading sticks to practice reading. 

    Sight Word Chant Sticks to work on more sight words.

    Google Eyed sticks out of popcicle sticks to help with reading and spacing when writing. 

     Made Sticker Sight Words to help with spelling.

     Pringles Can Math Manipulative to work on division, multiplication etc.

      Used this printable Life of Fred  poster to help when doing Life Of Fred.


We've also worked on letters of the alphabet with our youngest. This week we are working on the letter F. To help with learning ordinal and cardinal numbers we have played the game Trouble with our preschooler. She picked it up so fast we were amazed.

One area we are working on this week is manners and kindness. Things have gotten a little overly busy around here and I sensed the beginning of a spirit of ill will that I wanted nipped in the bud. Our youngest was beginning to say she hated this or that when frustrated and I didn't want that attitude to take root.  Her older sister was beginning to antagonize the situation at times and I certainly didn't want that to become an ingrained habit. It's easier to prevent a bad habit than to break one after it's formed!

I found the idea for a Kindness Chain on Pinterest and decided to adapt it for our use in our home. There are many more good ideas on this teachers blog.

In addition to the kindness chain idea I also found an idea for a Kindness Car on Pinterest. Every time a sibling does something nice for another sibling they place the Kindness car on the bed or dresser or where ever they did a kind deed. Since we have two girls still at home I decided we should use a Kindness Doll instead.  There is a large gap in age, but I don't think that will matter. Maybe I should have used a horse since they are both horse crazy!  I really like this Frugal Fun For Boys blog and her ideas!

These are a few of the things we have been up to this week. Hope this blog post and what we are doing blesses and helps you in your own homeschool adventure.