Games or kids on line

Did you know that there is a hangman for kids on line for kids to use with their spelling words? You can even use it w/ vocabulary words. Even if you don't want to come up w/ your own words there are all kinds a review list to play. And kids LOVE it.

HangMouse

First Time here?

	Click on any list to play
	Beach Word List	Ocean Word List
	Circus Word List	Pets Word List
	Colors Word List	Picnic Word List
	Farming Word List	Shapes Word List
	Compound Words	Magic Show Word List
	Goodnight Moon	Math Word List
	Space Word List	Zoo Word List

I encourage you to look around Spellingcity.com and see what other fun games you can find to keep your kids brains from turning to mush over the summer.

Open Minded Homeschoolers

There are so many different homeschoolers from, classical christian, unschooling, charlotte mason, secular, the list can go on and on. But not all of these homeschoolers are open minded homescoolers.   Some times it is a hunt to find others who have like train of thoughts. Some people are very set in their ways that they need to do SCHOOL AT HOME! (uggghhhh that gives me the chills just thinking of it) and others are unschoolers that let their children learn based on interested. If you are homeschooler looking for what kind of homeschooler you are please keep an open mind. Not all homeschoolers are christians, even though many are. If they are not Christians and are raising their children in an open minded secular setting, that does not mean they are the enemy to Christian Homeschoolers. Everyone thinks differently and raises their children differently. But we all have to learn 2+2=4. It just the different ways we do it.

You find that as a Christian you might learn new ways to teach your child by a secular homeschooler even a way to give it a christian feel.

The moral of this blog is to keep an open mind to ALL KINDS OF HOMESCHOOLERS!!!! Your best homeschooling friends may have a different philosophy than you do, but we can all learn from each other.

Keeping Summer learning.

With summer here, how many of you are doing school during the summer? Better yet some kind of review during the summer?

I found a great way to have lots of fun with Spelling during the summer.

Anything from Spelling Flashcards or even using alphabet soup to spell out words at lunch.

For on the run like in the car there is always Puzzle Games that you can print and take w/ you even on vacation.
Then there is board games to help keep the mind moving during the summer. More then the video games that our kids are used to. Monopoly is great for working on math and money. Then there is the game of LIFE that one has lots of skills that can be used.

Smaller kids can use games like connect for is great for counting along w/ Candy Land.

So what are you using during the summer to keep your kids brains moving???

Lazy Summer Learning

Each year around May, many of my friends say they begin dreading the long summer months with kids underfoot. As a homeschool mom, that's when I start looking forward to the mini-break our summer vacation provides. Not all homeschoolers take the summer off, but most of us modify our schedules, at least a little, during June, July, and August.

I don't want my kids to completely forget everything they've learned during the summer, so I've tried some lazy learning methods throughout the years. One of the most successful has been simply playing an educational song each day during lunch. I don't ask them to be quiet and listen. I just put the song on a loop and play it at medium volume while everyone is eating. Before we know it, everyone knows the song. Here are some of our favorites that are especially appropriate for summer learning.

Another lazy mama's method has been to read something to my children that I want them to memorize, every single day. I don't even suggest that they memorize it. I just require that they listen to me read it. It's amazing how quickly the human brain can remember something it's exposed to regularly. We've learned lots of poems, the preamble to the Constitution, a long list of prepositions, and U.S. presidents. Bedtime seems to be a good time to do this. (My younger kids like that, because it means they can stay up "a few more minutes".) If you can repeat it again at breakfast, that's even better.

Only choose one of these ideas at a time. It's summer, after all! I think part of the success has to do with the lack of pressure and the minuscule amount of time and effort involved. If it's easy, you're more likely to do it every day.


Have fun learning this summer!