Winter Holidays

So far Winter has been kind to us in my little home town, but no doubt we are in for some stormy weather, cold, rain, possibly even snow in the coming days and weeks. That means lots of time indoors, keeping rugged up by the heater and staying all warm and snug.

But just because it's holidays doesn't mean the learning ends does it? Nope, there's always some big fun learning adventures to be had no matter the weather! This is the perfect time of year to start a new tradition. 

Family Games Night

Invite some family or friends over and make it a weekly winter event! Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Pictionary, Boggle, Greed, Yahtzee, Monopoly...whatever you have, dust it off. Grab a few munchies and make a real winter's night of it.

If that's not for you, but you're still looking for something for the kids to do scroll through some of our previous blog posts. We have lots of ideas for holiday fun and activities. 

Visit the downloads page and print some of our DIY & Kids Activity Sheets. 

Here's a new one especially for the Winter Holidays. Happy Learning!

Click to Download

The Road to Discovery

On a recent family holiday in an unfamiliar city we relied heavily on maps to get us around, using public transport and finding the local entertainment spots. Maps of roads and streets, maps of transport lines and maps of buildings and shopping centres. So it got me thinking about how you can use maps as a tool for learning.

NAVIGATION

Learning to read maps in the car or when you are out on a family trip can help the kids to learn navigation skills like directions north, south or left and right and concepts like distance and travel time.

As kids on long trips my brother used to try to calculate how far we had to travel, what average speed we were travelling at and work out how long it would take us to get there. So many times he would be within the minute! 

LANGUAGE

Using maps can even help with learning language by increasing their vocabulary, learning terms and phrases they might not normally hear in every day conversation, and it can help with reading and spelling.

Many maps and directories often have extra information written in them, information about places of interest in towns and cities, or stories of history in the area. The surrounding information can be just as interesting as finding where you are headed. 

TREASURE HUNT

Creating your own maps to set up treasure hunts can be a really great fun family activity. You can use them for children's parties to find the secret treasure, or get into pirate mode and make your own maps by staining paper with tea and burning the edges to give it that olde feeling. Remember X marks the spot! Treasure maps are a great way to get the kids outdoors and moving around, creative and kinaesthetic learners will get more from these types of experiences.

After some months of learning "sound pics" (phonic combinations of letters that make specific sounds) I took one of my tutoring students out for an afternoon around town. We spent an hour Window Shopping, looking at signs, posters and shop fronts for words that contained the sound pics we had been studying. Like CH for the sound K (as in Christmas), or EA for the sound E (as in meat that you eat). We had a great time moving and learning in the outdoors, doing something unusual but fun. 

Here are a few quick ideas for playing and learning with maps:

• Geo Caching (get your GPS, search the internet and join a world wide activity to find the hiding spots...there are 5 in my town alone). 
• Mapping out your journey
• Make their own Pirate Treasure Maps
• Plotting out their dream adventure / holiday around the world
• Marking out where family and friends live
• Find your house on Google Earth 

Happy Learning!

For more fun family learning ideas like us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram and Pinterest.

And remember to get your photo entries for the Renovation Rescue in this week! 

The Long Weekend Best of Blossom

With a long weekend upon us I thought we would revisit some of our previous posts with loads of ideas for fun learning activities that you can do over holidays and weekends.

We always take care to make sure that our activities, tips and ideas are low cost...we especially love it when they are FREE, so we always point that out for you! But most of all there is always some hidden learning benefit...but best of all it's ALWAYS FUN! We want kids to get educated without even knowing it!

So have a look at some of our older posts and get inspired for a few days of fun with the family.

This one was over the Christmas Holidays, but 99% of the ideas can be applied to any weekend:
http://learningthatsfun.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/holiday-learning-thats-fun.html

If you struggle to get your kids away from the box or the computer, direct them toward these sites to play games, earn points and rewards, but don't tell them it's educational:
http://learningthatsfun.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/my-top-4-educational-sites.html

If you or your kids are into your art and craft, here are a few great ideas for simple toys and games you can make at home with everyday items that have hidden educational benefits, but they are cuuuuute:
http://learningthatsfun.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/get-crafty.html

If you're up for a day out over the long weekend, a fun family learning adventure? Try some of these ideas! Art Galleries, museums, libraries, historical buildings, festivals:
http://learningthatsfun.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/day-tripping-with-kids.html

We love to hear your feedback, so leave us some comments about what you plan to do with the family this long weekend.

And if you're in the local area don't miss out on the chance to win a Family Pass to the Ballarat Observatory & Museum (the oldest working museum in Australia!).

Happy Learning!

To see more ideas for long weekend activities check out our Pinterest boards or like us on Facebook.

Holiday Learning that's Fun

Ask any kid what is the best thing about Summer Holidays, and I’m sure they will tell you that it’s not having to go to school (well most of them anyway). But there are studies out there that show how the long summer break can be really damaging to the progress of some children, especially those who have learning difficulties. Having such a long time away from their teachers, their classroom and the regular routine can be a major set-back for some kids and it can take them some weeks and months to catch up to where they left off, which in turn, puts them behind everyone else again.

BUT, there are lots of things that are fun and easy to fit into the crazy holiday period that we can do to keep their minds stimulated and encourage our kids to use the skills they have learnt during the year.

DON’T PANIC! I’m not suggesting you set up a mini classroom in the house and recite tables or do spelling tests. You don’t need to rush off to the trusty internet and download homework sheets or anything like that! Just every things that you can add to the holiday period to keep those little minds ticking while they are having a break.

GOING AWAY ON HOLIDAYS?

·         If you are going away on a trip you need time to back and get things organised right? So give the kids a distraction by setting them to some online research and about the area and activities to do there. Give them the road map and ask them to work out the best travel route, the distance and how long it will take to get there.

·         Once you’ve arrived, when Mummy & Daddy are looking for some peace and quiet at night set them down with a pen and paper to write letters to a pen pal, or to Grandma. Or provide them with an empty notebook to keep a travel journey like those of Captain Cook and other discoverers. Draw maps, sketch pictures of things they’ve seen each day.

STAYING HOME?

If you’re staying home for the holidays there are also plenty of cheap and easy ideas you can use to entertain the kids and carry on the learning.

·         Have games nights where you turn off the TV, computer and phone and enjoy some family time playing old fashioned board games.

·         Head down to the library, gallery or museum to see what free or cheap activities they have scheduled for the holidays. Use the opportunity to grab a quiet coffee while the kids are having fun learning.

·         Put on a play. Get the kids to do their own dress up production of their favourite books complete with narration, acting, singing and dancing (if applicable). They will obviously need many hours of rehearsal which will hopefully give you some quiet time and stop the endless nagging.

·         Too warm to be inside? Grab some giant chalk from a discount store (it usually comes in buckets) and do some foot path writing & drawings, hopscotch and other games like Naughts & Crosses.

·         Dinner Time is the perfect opportunity to practice some reading and maths when you need “helpers” to dictate the recipes, work out the measurements and cooking times etc.

·         If you feel like trying to win some competitions grab some puzzle magazines from the shop and get the kids to help you with all the puzzles to find the answers and enter into the competitions that win all sorts of prizes. Take That, Take 5, That’s Life, some of the women’s magazines etc all have puzzle competitions in them, and you might just win something!

·         And if you are really struggling for ideas, get the kids to do some surveys. Survey the neighbourhood for people’s favourite colour, how many different colour cars drive past the window, how many colours or sizes of lego pieces they have in their toy box and lots more. Then once they have the results turn them into a graph on poster paper with coloured pens. Or if they are really cluey, jump onto Microsoft Excel and get them to do a spreadsheet with tables and graphs.

So there are just a few ways to keep the kids entertained over the holidays, try to beat the nagging and fighting and stimulate their minds a bit to try and retain some level of consistency over the holiday period and give them an extra boost for going back to school at the end of the month.

For more ideas like this and more visit our Pinterest boards or like us on Facebook.