FUN with my grandson

The other day I decided to have some educational fun with my 6 year old grandson. It proved not only beneficial for him but certainly provided me with an insight to his progress at public school. I'm proud he is achieving the goals set before him because it's always a concern if your child is on track (or not) with their learning. Because I taught my children at home doesn't mean that my now grown-up children all homeschool. Some do, others do not. Whichever way they have chosen, I'm very proud of the fact that they are such wonderful parents and consider learning to read and write as important as breathing.

Learning about shapes is one of the most natural things a child does in their life. Circles, squares, triangles, ovals, and rectangles surround us everywhere, indoors and outdoors. From a very early age children naturally explore shapes by touch, visual and through play. There are so many commercially made toys available to learn about shapes that it's hard to know which ones are the best buy.

Personally, I found that teaching my children the shapes it was done through what was around us every day, rectangle doors, square windows, round portholes and the list goes on. I used to play games at home making it a bit of a riddle... e.g. 'it's square, black, metal, has glass and sometimes beeps.'

Very simple exercises which cost you merely time, patience and a smiling face. As homeschoolers you should have time unless you're run off your feet attending soccer, tennis, dance class, swimming club, playgroup, nature play, or any other sport activity you can think of. Perhaps 1 activity per child is okay but if you are dragging your children around four or five days a week to these events, I'd say you're to busy. Way to busy!

The idea of homeschooling is to relax, enjoy each day, take your time, teach at your leisure and children learning at their pace. Well... that's my idea of homeschooling :-)

Coming back onto shapes I watched my grandson complete a worksheet about shapes and a couple that required him to put his thinking cap on. He first found objects around the house representing certain shapes I wanted him to find, he did very well. A little trouble with oval and cylinder but overall he did well. I will share his work because if you have little ones you can compare standards to help you gauge where your child is at, academically.

The example below is recognizing 6 different shapes, draw the identical shape next to it and circle the correct answer from the multiple choice questions. Here we have recognition and comprehension skills, fine motor skills, and reading skills all in one simple worksheet. My 6 year old had no trouble with shapes, drawing them and reading.

The next example, shown below is more intense in that he had to use handwriting skills. As you can see his writing skills are not bad for his level of learning but he had to draw upon his fine motor skills, memory skills and previous learned knowledge in order to write a word that started with the letter given. Bubble Magic was a fun exercise and he enjoyed it and actually tried to write a couple of words beyond his level (water - snake) which was great to see that he tried to extent his knowledge.

The next worksheet "have a guess" challenged him to read, write and form his letters properly. I'm impressed his written text stayed within the answer box and we had fun solving some of the riddles presented to him. Obviously different answers are possible for a number of questions but that's what makes it more interesting I think. This particular worksheet was aimed at 7-8 year age group so he did a great job.

He even extended his knowledge by learning that roast pork came from the pig. Overall I think he did very well and we both enjoyed our day learning while playing and I really do miss those full-on homeschooling days where I had 5 children, all different ages obviously and all different learning levels, each tackling a different subject and demanding help all at the same time. How I ever managed I don't know but one thing is for sure... I enjoyed every minute of it and encourage all of you to enjoy teaching your kids. It's fun and it's a very special time between you and your children.