I often plant things in or around the fairy houses as my daughter takes care of them and checks on them to show that the fairies are thriving under her care.
Often it’s things like small feathers, flowers, glitter, pretty rocks, and so on. Today I tried unbroken geodes.
When she found them with a lot of excitement inside the houses we talked about how they were fairy treasures rocks, also called “geodes”. She thought of how to crack them open with a hammer herself and then she and her younger siblings had a lot of fun hitting the round rocks with a hammer until they opened to reveal the beautiful crystals inside. When we came back inside later that evening we watched some videos on how geodes are formed and how crystals are made.
My middle child is 3.5, a boy, and as wild as they come. He can barely sit still for a moment and is just a constant blur of noise and movement as he runs wildly around outside most of the day. His nicknames include “Firecracker”, “Wolf Pup”, and “Mowgli” to name a few. As you can imagine, I could not picture him sitting quietly at the table tracing letters like his older sister did, so I was wondering how I was going to come up with a good method for him…
After reading other blogs and articles, I learned that active children actually learn better while being active. When they’re trying to sit still, it takes so much brain power for them to focus on staying still (it’s so unnatural to them) that it takes away from what they could be doing if they were learning while being allowed to move. So I started trying to think of fun jumping games…
…And then along came a giant trampoline!
Seeing as all my little boy wanted to do was spend all day every day leaping around on the trampoline, I thought I might as well give it my best shot. I brought chalk and a speaker for music out to the trampoline.
I’d show him how to draw each letter with chalk on the trampoline. (After you jump on it the drawings erase again). Then we’d think of a word that could bounce or run that started with the letter (A for Acrobat, B for Bouncing Balls, C for Cars, etc) and we’d leap around the trampoline acting out the word. Then while jumping, we’d try to make the shape of the letter with our bodies (A is your hands pointed up above your head and legs spread wide, G is a somersault with a kick at the end for the hook).
He had SO much fun! I’ve never seen him so excited about learning letters! He’d never even shown any interest in learning to write them before! Now he couldn’t seem to learn them fast enough. I did two different “school” sessions on the trampoline throughout the day, and I ended each one around letter F or H instead of trying to get through the whole alphabet- that way it stayed fun and he didn’t get burned out. At the end I’d turn the music up really loud and we’d “party” on the trampoline to celebrate all the good learning we did.
It was pretty great seeing him leaping wildly around the trampoline yelling “G IS FOR GORILLA!” over and over!
My oldest loves treasures and taking care of things, but is a little into hoarding lately, so I thought of a fun project with a big side of creativity to encourage her to just care for and observe.
I started planting fairy houses out around our land. We marked them on a map and the more she cares for them, such as by building more houses out of sticks and rocks, or decorating the houses or making furniture, or leaving their favorite snacks, the more the current fairies might tell their friends and encourage them to move in also, thus growing our fairy population.
I also often leave fairy tokens such as glitter over the houses, special rocks, flowers, leaves and feathers, etc in the houses for her to discover as proof that the fairies are thriving from her caring for them.
My oldest is your textbook academic learner. She can sit still and trace homeschool workbooks for hours. But she’s also EXTREMELY creative. So I wanted to make it a little more fun than just tracing letters when we started learning how to write the alphabet.
So I made little alphabet fairies. Each fairy was a word that started with the letter of the alphabet. I’d make one each evening out of felt and super glue and hide it in the playroom for her to find when she woke up in the morning. For example, there was a Bee fairy and a Cat fairy, etc. I think the most fun ones were the Volcano fairy and the Xylophone fairy!
My daughter LOVED these fairies! I made then when she was 3 and she often looked at them when trying to remember how to write a certain letter. She is 5 now and she still plays with them, and often mentions them when we’re working on spelling.
We have three kids, currently ages 5, 3.5 and 22 months. While most of the time a circus troupe of monkeys would not begin to match their chaos, they are also full of excitement, energy, creativity, fun, and wonder.
I did not plan to homeschool, but seeing all their distinct personalities and so clearly how differently each one needed to be taught to work with who they are as individuals, I just couldn’t imagine sending them all somewhere to learn that had the same style for everyone. Add to that, we have a very active lifestyle and are often traveling which would fit into a school schedule with difficulty, so it just made sense.
My oldest is very calm, quiet and creative. She is basically your textbook textbook learner. She can sit still at a table tracing letters for hours.
My middle is as high energy as they come. I can barely get him to sit still in a chair long enough to look at an iPad. He is constantly just a blur of sound and movement. He spends most of his time outside running wild.
My youngest is still a little young for school at the time I’m starting this blog (22 months) but she is so far an active little cowgirl tomboy who loves horses, chasing her big brother outside, and building couch pillow forts with her big sister in the living room. It’ll be interesting to see her learning style as she grows.
I am starting this blog in the hope of brainstorming and giving other like-minded parents ideas for how to teach kids of all different personalities in fun ways. I myself am always searching for new ideas and love reading other creative homeschooling blogs.
Homeschooling Outside the Box 