What a great response I had to my recent post about taking the word “school” out of homeschool.
In conjunction with that post I thought I would list some simple items that are a must in your home learning environment:
- cooking utensils
- tools-hammers, nails, screws, screwdriver, scrap pieces of wood
- measuring tape-{learn perimeter, area, radius, circumference, terms of measurement}
- bean box
- recyclables-for making inventions, crafts, or to use to hold paints and materials
- books, preferably “living books”, non fiction, picture books, reference, all kinds!
- maps and atlases
- brown paper lunch bags for puppet making
- camera-use for learning photography
- video camera-learn to make movies and video editing
- sketch paper-all sizes
- long rolls of butcher paper/newsprint
- colored pencils, markers, crayons
- classical music cd’s (playing in the background most days-not a forced time to listen)
- classic artwork- strategically placed about the house-immerse them in art!
- microscope/telescope
- magnifying glass for nature study
- paint
- scrabble game
- binoculars
- constellation charts
- gears
- old magazines-use the pictures for collages and crafting
- a chess set
- logic puzzles and tangrams
- craft sticks-not just for crafts! math manipulatives or preschoolers making shapes/letters
- paper and pencils for creative writing
- cardboard boxes-all sizes for building towers, making dioramas, and all crafts
- field guides-birds, flowers, trees, animals
- a needle and thread/sewing machine {for the young ladies} and fabric scraps
- knitting, crochet, needlepoint
- dictionary/encyclopedia {good old fashioned kind}
- homemade play dough/salt dough
- a library card
- the outdoors
- a garden or pots for planting
- legos
- a regular clock (not digital) for learning to tell time-don’t really need to buy a plastic “toy”-a real one works just fine 😉
- old checks {from an old account not in existence} and a register- learn how to write checks and keep a balanced account. We did this recently and everyone LOVED it!
- envelopes and stationary for writing letters
That is something no other learning environment outside the home can provide…
Learn more about having less stuff and MORE JESUS this summer!
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