Put together educational activities that you and your family can enjoy. Visit a local cultural center, go to the library, take a walk on a nature trail, or visit an art museum. These are all activities that the family can do on a Saturday that entails not only quality family time, but also affords great learning opportunities.
If you don't want to go out, find opportunities to learn at home during the weekends. Take some time to teach geography by finding lesser known countries on the world map( something that all families should have). Or, you can gather the children together and teach a math lesson by baking a cake or by baking bread. You can also step right outside your door and encourage your children to turn over rocks, look underneath leaves, and roll over logs to see what life dwells outside in the insect world.
School Vacations And Summer: Perfect Learning Times
Some decidedly rich opportunities to get in effective educational time at home are during the holidays and summer. Obviously, during some of the shorter holidays in the school year, your children will probably be occupied with completing projects, reading books and studying for exams waiting for them when they return to school. In these cases, make sure to assist your children with their projects and insist that they finish their readings early so they can review the story and get a firm grasp on the content and the details. Ensure that your children have thoroughly studied for their exam everyday during the holidays and not wait until the night before.
On longer holidays take the time to put together involved projects. A lot of these projects you can get from Internet sites. For example, during the summer, help your children plant a container garden or help them to learn about the moon cycles by tracking where the moon is each night. You can peruse teacher websites and glean ideas for lesson plans and even view sample lesson plans for free on most sites. Assign novels for your children to read and then have your children write a book report about what they read.
If your children, especially boys, are more adept at outdoor activities or building things, take them to your local home improvement store and buy them some wood, paint, nails and a hammer or drill and project plans (parental advisory necessary) and let them learn math through building a chair, table or bookshelf.
