Here is a list of home learning pursuits/ alternative homework ideas that will assist you in helping your child complete their nightly homework. Your child is also welcome to create an idea of their own and write about in their daily homework log. These ideas are from Love and Logic Institute, which is “dedicated to making parenting and teaching fun and rewarding, instead of stressful and chaotic.” Although math and reading homework will still be sent home, students will have the power of choice in deciding which home learning pursuit they would like to do each day!
Outings:
- ★ Visit your local Children's Museum.
- ★ When on your way somewhere (even locally), stopping at historical sites along the way to develop
kids interest in history. - ★ Visit a zoo: learn to use the map or create your own.
- ★ Visit the local government office and look at recently elected officials' pictures. Collect local budget
reports from community agencies (parks and recreation, EPA, Dept of Aging) and discuss why it is
important to vote. - ★ Play at the park.
- ★ Grocery shopping: read ingredients to help choose the healthiest products for the best prices, find
products that you have coupons for, figure out best deal between sizes of items. - ★ Visit the local dump.
- ★ On a drive, see if you can find every letter of the alphabet, in order, on road signs, billboards and
Company names. Or just try to find all words starting with a certain letter. Or with numbers. - ★ Coupon shop game. Find which store doubles or triples coupons. Find the sale and match the coupon.
Find out what you will pay for the item after sale and coupon. - ★ Go to the mall or airport and see how many people you can get to return a smile. Try the same thing
at a different mall, or different time of the day. Make a prediction about results or hold a contest.
What worked? - ★ Go to work with Mom or Dad to see what they do.
- ★ Go to a play or musical.
- ★ Take a city walk to look at how buildings are designed and at art work and murals. Talk about subjects
like tagging and graffiti is it art? Why or why not? - ★ Visit a community garden.
- ★ Visit the same construction site every week to see how a building is going up: watch the progress from
the hole in ground, then pipes going in. From there, the foundation, framing, roof and all the other
steps in building a home each week can provide new things to talk and think about. ★ Visit a farm.
Outdoor Activities:
- ★ Gardening.
- ★ Fishing: learn safety, responsibility, sportsmanship, and nature.
- ★ Walking/hiking: stop and discuss things you see, take pictures to share with classmates, compare local
areas to other places. - ★ Biking.
- ★ Playing catch.
- ★ Skating.
- ★ Swimming.
- ★ Relay races.
- ★ Playing on a playground.
- ★ Learn and perform magic tricks.
- ★ Hopscotch.
- ★ Puddle jumping.
- ★ Go camping.
- ★ Name that rock.
- ★ Name that plant.
- ★ Name that insect.
- ★ Bring three soil samples to school in zip lock bags. Write on the bags where each came from.
- ★ Observe birds and explain to your family how their beaks and feet are suited to what food they eat.
- ★ Maintaining pets: an example: find a typical caterpillar and keep it until it turns into a moth or
butterfly. Will allow kids to have to find different plant material for it to eat, water it, wash out its
cage. A great science project and it is free. - ★ Train a dog.
- ★ Build with wood and tools: i.e. tree house, fort, etc.
- ★ Photograph things in nature: talk about the different things you photograph.
- ★ Go horseback riding and explore nature.
- ★ Run a lemonade stand: made posters, plan a menu for the stand, buy the supplies from a given
budget, cashier, count money, roll coins, visited the bank to make the exchange. For another element,
donate proceeds to a charity. - ★ Walking the dog: developing an appreciation/ responsibility for looking after your pet.
- ★ Find a small creek and build a dam out of rocks and mud.
- ★ Go to the forest and build a fort out of limbs.
- Arts and Crafts:
- ★ Make a simple scribble and the other person turns it into a completed composition.
- ★ Origami (Japanese paper folding).
- ★ Make a family banner using hand prints to tell about family member.
- ★ Use a large paper doll to decorate and tell about yourself.
- ★ Write a script from their favorite book, do research on the web to find out how to make puppets and produce a puppet show.
- ★ Build models, such as birdhouses, cars, etc.
- ★ Make jewelry, like bead necklaces.
- ★ Create mosaics from bits of colored paper.
- ★ Learn to scrapbook: Use photos, drawings, school projects, etc...
- ★ Make birthday cards for relatives: recycle objects around the house and include a picture of the kids in
the card to make the card extra special. - ★ • Color and/or draw.
- ★ Take a picture story book and cover up the written text. Have your child create their own story. Then
type it and paste into the book to follow the pictures already there. - ★ Buy different pasta shapes, then string them on yarn to make strands. Play around with planned pattern, counting the pasta afterwards, or the units of each pattern.
- ★ Sewing.
- ★ Make a colorful collage of magazine and newspaper ad pictures.
- ★ Create patterns with different types of beans.
- ★ Draw and label a picture of the solar system.
- ★ Make your own play dough: Ingredients: 1 cup flour (not self rising) 1/2 cup salt 1 cup water 1 Tbsp.
vegetable oil 1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (you can also add a few drops of food coloring, any type of extract (for smell), and/or glitter). Step 1: Mix all ingredients in a saucepan, stir over low heat on the stove. Step 2: When the dough rolls into a ball, it is done. Step 3: Keep your play dough soft and fresh by keeping it in an airtight container. - ★ Make your own board game using your names and names of family/friends and places in your town.
- ★ Make a quilt.
- Physical Activities
- ★ Play sports (soccer, baseball, basketball, football, cheer, ect.) or after school activities.
- ★ Establish daily exercise plan: calculate distance walked, swam, biked, etc. and how many calories are
used. - ★ Complete a household chore.
- ★ Spell words or do multiplication tables as you jump on a trampoline one letter/number per jump.
- ★ Spell words or do multiplication tables as you play basketball. One letter/number per shot. ★ Spell words or do multiplication tables as you jump rope.
- Computer Games
- ★ Email relatives: this makes writing and spelling words fun.
- ★ www.mathfactory.com
- ★ Type spelling words on the computer several times.
- ★ http://www.Kidsspell.com
- ★ Rosetta Stone language courses (you can purchase the programs or request them from your local library)
- ★ Download handwriting from the web to practice writing.
- ★ Sudoku: http://www.websudoku.com/?level=2
- ★ Real time strategy games: such as Age of Empires and Rise of Nations
- ★ Blink: http://www.educationallearninggames.com/blinkcardgame.asp
- ★ Rush hour: http://eslus.com/Gizmos/rushour/rushHour.html 13
- ★ Game of 24: http://www.youreedrive.com/games/arithmetic24/
- ★ Pente: http://boardgames.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fww
w.geocities.com%2FSoHo%2F5119%2Fajpente.html - ★ Do research off the web to figure how to fold a really cool paper plane.
- ★ Musical/Math Fun: http://www.philtulga.com/Fraction%20Tubes.html
- ★ Use Google Earth and Google mapper to measure distance, find routes, and calculate travel times,
learn about and see geographic names and places . Find your own house, find your school, etc. - ★ Kidhealth.com
- ★ http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org
- ★ A super fun site to improve keyboarding skills: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/typing/
- ★ Science fun here: http://www.nwf.org/kids
- ★ Get free clip art and photos of thousands of items: http://www.classroomclipart.com/
Games and Activities:
- ★ Reading out loud to each other.
- ★ Tic tac toe.
- ★ Checkers.
- ★ Buy a placemat that has details about the presidents, states, or any other topic and during dinner ask
and discuss the different facts. - ★ Chutes and ladders.
- ★ Candyland.
- ★ "Find and seek" books; such as Where's Waldo.
- ★ Watch a movie or show together on and talk about it after. • Play instruments. • Play Yahtzee. • Cook
as a family: include meal planning within a budget (cost, calories, nutrition), time it takes to create
meal, etc. - ★ Make a graph of TV/Video time for a month. Compare with sleeping and/or exercise.
- ★ Play dress up.
- ★ Read the newspaper.
- ★ While doing chores, time how longs it takes to complete a chore and compare which chores take the
shortest/longest amounts of time and why they take that much time. Which ones are favorites/least favorites to complete? Then sort them into categories and trade off doing fun and not fun chores to make everyone's work more equal. Add music to make the chores more enjoyable. - ★ Junior Monopoly/Original Monopoly.
- ★ Read a book together, then watch the movie compare/contrast the contents.
- ★ ABC Bingo.
- ★ Watch Jeopardy and challenge each other to get the most answers correct.
- ★ Use Oreo Cookies to learn shapes.
- ★ Read labels on cereal boxes in the morning.
- ★ Notice the reflection of your face in a spoon on both sides.
- ★ Break a light bulb and see what's inside.
- ★ Find cocoons and watch them change into butterflies.
- ★ Finding shapes around the house or neighborhood.
- ★ Building and construction projects.
- ★ Watching a show on a "learning channel" such as: Discovery channel, Animal planet, The Learning
Channel (TLC), the History channel. - ★ Have a child take old electronic equipment and take it apart and put it back together.
- ★ Bananagrams.
- ★ 31: card game.
- ★ Foo: dice game.
- ★ Learn to make bread.
- ★ Study the food pyramid.
- ★ Use sidewalk chalk to write the alphabet, spelling words, math problems, etc. on the driveway and sidewalk.
- ★ Close your eyes and listen to a soundwhat is it?
- ★ I spy.
- ★ Build models
★ Scavenger hunts. - Math/ Number Activities
- ★ Use homemade pizza, pie, pieces of bread to work on fractions.
- ★ Use a fish tank to discuss conversions: gallons to liters to ounces.
- ★ For multiplication facts, I have small blocks with multiplication factors on them. There is also a block
with <,>, and =. The child rolls two blocks (like dice), solves to find the product of each one, and places
the <>= block in the middle to show the correct information. - ★ Addition and subtraction of food on their plate during dinner. It works really well using vegetables!
- ★ Play Addition War. Get a card deck. Place face down. First player turns over two cards and adds the
two sums. Second player turns over two cards and adds the two sums. Compare the sums. The person with the highest sum gets to keep all the cards. Repeat until no cards are left. The winner is the player with the most cards. - ★ Measure the time it takes to count to ten, one hundred.
- ★ Count the steps it takes you to get to different locations in your house from the front door.
- ★ Go bowling. Keep score manually instead of letting the computer do it.
- ★ For toddlers, count to 10 or twenty together while toweling their hair off after a bath or while
brushing their hair each day. - ★ Use stamps/stickers to make a math/counting book.
- ★ Play Higher/Lower, Bigger/Smaller: mention either two numbers or two objects and the kids have to
tell you which is higher/lower or bigger/smaller. - ★ Calculating how fast a runner/swimmer/speed skater ran/swam/skated per lap to win a race. (think
Olympics) - ★ Measure the angle of shadows being cast in your house.
- ★ Learn how to count to ten in English, Spanish, German, etc.
- ★ Use M&Ms to learn addition and subtraction.
- ★ Count windows & doors.
- ★ Compute people's ages from their birthdays.
- ★ Compute people's ages at a certain date or event in the future. • Compare amount of food in cereal
boxes vs. size of boxes and discuss. - ★ Look for geometric shapes in the yard, the store, or at home. Cut them out. Measure them.
- ★ Multiplication Twister: write (with a washable marker) on your Twister mat some of the times tables
you are working on. For example, the products of the 7 times tables on the mat, leader calls out "7x8"
and they have to figure it out and jump to the circle where it says 56. - ★ Measure things in your home.
- ★ Growth chart for the child.
- ★ Count the number of people coming over for dinner and set out enough dinnerware for all.
- ★ We want four tickets for the hockey game. How much money do we need to take to the arena?
Word Games:
- ★ Draw out the letters on the sidewalk in a scrambled square and have the kids jump from box to box spelling out the appropriate spelling word.
- ★ Use a tray filled with rice and spell words in the tray.
- ★ 20 Questions with Animals: One person thinks of the animal while the others try to guess it by asking
yes or no questions. - ★ Write letters (not emails) to out of town relatives.
- ★ Write a poem using your spelling words.
- ★ Three word choice/circle correct spelled word (once you have a few practice tests where you can see
how the child is spelling the words incorrectly, create a worksheet that has each word spelled three times, one way it is spelled correctly and the other two ways it is spelled incorrectly the way they most often misspell the word. They have to pick the correct one). - ★ Spell words by cutting out words/letters from newspapers or magazines and gluing them on a sheet of construction paper.
- ★ Have a "spelling B"
- ★ Make a book using family members names to learn the letters. (Ex: K is for Katie.) Add a photo of the
person. Could do this for anything that interests the child: animals, cars, etc. - ★ Color code the parts of each spelling word (vowels, single consonants, consonant blends, etc...)
- ★ Find spelling and vocabulary words in newspapers, magazines, readingforfun books, and even junk
mail. - ★ Identify grammatical errors on television, in songs on the radio, and in print.
- ★ Make a puzzle (crosswords puzzles) with spelling words.
- ★ Play the dictionary game: one person calls out an obscure word from the dictionary and everyone has
to tell them what it means. - ★ Choose 3 spelling words and write a silly sentence. Continue doing this until you have used all words.
- ★ Write a letter to a friend using as many of your spelling words as you can. Use alphabet stamps and
stamp out your words on paper. - ★ Make flashcards for your spelling word and have someone quiz you.
- ★ Create word analogies using the words (Ex. Heart is to body as motor is to lawn mower).
- ★ Have the kids spell what they want. It is amazing how easily a young child learns to spell dessert.
- ★ Spelling power.
- ★ Practice writing name/ABC's in whip cream on the counter or write in wet sand at the park.
- ★ Play the opposites game. The opposite of "in" is... The opposite of "black" is... Try this with rhyming as
well, or beginning sounds of words. "How many words can you think of that begin with a "ch" sound?" - ★ Try tonguetwisters together. Six sick sheep, Betty Botter, or the phrase "in an anemone" from Finding
Nemo. - ★ Write at least one rhyming word for each spelling word.
- ★ Alphabetize things in the kitchen. IE canned goods, fruits, veggies.
- ★ Create riddles with your spelling words and the answers.
- ★ Make spelling words rainbows write the word in pencil and then trace over the letters a number of
times in different colored pencils. - ★ Write spelling words while also saying them out loud to see and hear them at the same time.
- ★ Practice memorization with poetry, state capitals, presidents, etc...
- ★ Write on a selfselected topic.
- ★ For spelling word practice, use a paint stick and spring loaded clothes pins with letters of the alphabet
on each one. (Duplicates for vowels and frequently used consonants). Build the words with the
clothes pins and attach them to the paint stick. Finding rhyming words in songs on the radio. - ★ Reading game: play "I read" and "You read", take turns reading. Let them help you pronounce words
and you help them. - ★ To learn another language: We play the English/other language game. Say a word in English then say it
in the other language and try to use it in a sentence. - ★ Play 20 questions verbally, not the electronic games in the store.
- ★ Memory/match game.
- ★ Spell simple words, do simple arithmetic problems, or simple shapes with your finger on the child's
back for them to guess. - ★ Play phase 10 dice and the kids add up the score.
- ★ Play "Sight Word Go Fish."
- ★ Close your eyes and take turns naming sounds you hear.
- ★ Listen to books on tape.