What educational things do you do with your children?

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrea Tarrant on January 8, 2009 at 7:58am

What we do in our household with 3 children, ages 7, 9 and 11 is quite simple. We talk about everything. If we are watching a show on the Discovery Channel, once that show is over, we stop and talk about it. Asking our kids to find out a couple of things that the show didn't talk about but still on topic. We have lots of pets, we travel, we read tons of books and we spend lots of time together as a family. We keep an open mind about differing opinions, allow everyone to express themselves openly and have very healthy debates when we disagree on something.

My mom did the same thing for us as kids. Not having the internet, whenever we had questions that she wasn't the expert on, she would buy us a book on the subject. So we now have tons of books from animals to xrays. My 11 year old and I were on a long drive back from Ontario and he asked me about cannibalism (after watching a documentary). I of course, not being the expert answered with I'm not sure, but we can definately go look it up when we get home. He said, no need...Nan bought me this great book!

Being balanced and stable, confident and secure with themselves allows the opportunities to learn to be plentiful and everywhere.

Permalink Reply by Leah on January 8, 2009 at 7:59am

My son is only 10 months old, so mostly I just try to talk to him a lot, and read him stories. Also, for social development, we do playdates with my friends and their babies/young children, and sometimes plan to do something fun like a baby music class.

Permalink Reply by Laura Timbrook on January 8, 2009 at 12:45pm

I like to teach my girls (2&3) how to care for the environment. I think it is really important to start them off on how precious our earth is.

we work on planting tree, fruits & veggies
Recycling
Finding other uses for things before we throw them out, such as painting yogurt container and using them for craft holders
Caring for our animals.
This holiday season we even made our own wrapping paper using paper bags and colored on them

Permalink Reply by Summer on January 8, 2009 at 8:30pm

We homeschool, so we do tons of educational things. LOL I do agree that we need to take matters into our own hands. Even parents that have their kids in public/private school should never just assume they are being educated. You've got to keep track and make sure they are learning what they need and not falling through cracks.

Permalink Reply by Carla on January 10, 2009 at 7:07am

Summer said:

We homeschool, so we do tons of educational things. LOL I do agree that we need to take matters into our own hands. Even parents that have their kids in public/private school should never just assume they are being educated. You've got to keep track and make sure they are learning what they need and not falling through cracks.

How true Summer,

I remember when my kid was getting ready for kindergarten and my mom told me you are going on a great journey but most of all you have to be the captain and the navigator what he goes through so will you. Be is advocate! Now that graduation is in a few months from high school I look back and say yeah I did it and he turned out wonderful. Now on to the bigger ship called college! Wahoo!

Permalink Reply by Melitsa on January 11, 2009 at 7:52am

Educational opportunities are not just restricted to outside agencies is something we firmly believe in our home. I know I can't and shouldn't do everything. I have 3 young boys all under 5. We read a lot, sing a lot and focus on open ended questions and activities to develop a love of learning; keep them creative and interested.

I'm reading a lot recently about how neuroscience is showing us how differently boys and girls brains develop which naturally mean they learn differently. So the one size fits all education may be something we all need to consider for our families.

I try to give them plenty of down time for their own unstructured activities. I'm bored is still frequently heard in our house but I can direct them to a number of activities as well as an activity box we set up of all the activities we could think of. They pick one at random and give it a try.

Permalink Reply by minnemom on January 11, 2009 at 10:13am

Sherri, these are some great ideas. I especially like the globe idea. We love museums and historic sites, too, and find that the more we visit, the more the kids can link what they've learned to other sites/experiences, and the learning becomes richer all the time.

Linda
Travels with Children

Sherri Jones said:

Every night we read with our children. We have a globe and spin it and where it stops...nobody knows and when it does we research the country or continent and discuss historal events that happened there (my husband has a government and politics degree). When we travel around this country, we try to find the most historical museums or sites (not the most beautiful necessarily) and we go and find out as much about it as possible. We take them around family as much as possible and let them listen to old stories (I have a great aunt who just turned 100). We teach them business and let them sit in on some of our business meetings, our 10 year old son has his own business that his sisters help him with. We teach them money management and the difference between an asset and a liability. They understand the concepts of real estate and development. We have family game night (not as often as they would like). We attend church regularly, they go to children's church and learn what we learn but on their level and we discuss afterwards. One of the most important elements in what we do is communication. We constantly communicate with our children and they with us. We encourage them to write and express themselves in writing...thank you cards, thinking of you cards, just because cards, that they give to others. Every place we go we have the kids write a story and draw something about it. My kids go to a public school and are doing very well, we know they have it down with the fundamentals being the curriculm, but it is up to us to fill in all the blanks that make them complete.

Permalink Reply by ECHOage on January 12, 2009 at 9:12am

Lately the game of choice in our family happens to be bananagrams - it is like fast paced scrabble. Fun for all and easy to take on trips.
Roz
ECHOage Ambassador

Permalink Reply by MommyOfFaith on January 14, 2009 at 4:50am

I home school our three kids so we do everything educational with them! :)

So in addition to their normal course work and field trips with our co-op, I turn everyday things like shopping into learning. Below are a couple educational sites I use which could be used to supplement any type of education:

http://www.edhelper.com
http://www.purplemath.com
http://www.time4learning.com (if you sign up mention me mommyoffaith at gmail)

Permalink Reply by MommyOfFaith on January 14, 2009 at 4:53am

We have a globe and spin it and where it stops...

We spin the globe sometimes but the kids really seem to like when we use google earth. They can zoom into any place in the world or sky and see landmarks a little closer (some even in 3D). There are also information bubbles everyone that have more details about the area. It is a download from google: http://earth.google.com/

Permalink Reply by ECHOage on January 14, 2009 at 7:09am

I have already contributed once, but I can't help telling all of you about www.echoage.com. It gives you and your child a unique opportunity to improve the world together - through his or her birthday.
Have a look - and book you child's b-day right now.
Cheers,
Roz
ECHOage Ambassador

Permalink Reply by Carla on January 15, 2009 at 12:58am

Thank you Roz it refreshing to see someone so excited about something they are involved in to want to tell us about more than once, lol! This is very interesting as well as being educational and fun. Thanks again.

ECHOage said:

I have already contributed once, but I can't help telling all of you about www.echoage.com. It gives you and your child a unique opportunity to improve the world together - through his or her birthday.
Have a look - and book you child's b-day right now.
Cheers,
Roz
ECHOage Ambassador

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last