Making fun activities educational. What are your favorites?

[specsaregood]

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[Romulus]

broke out some paint and presidents portraits... kids started asking "who's your favorite president?", "why?", "why do you like Ron Paul?" "Was he a president?"

[amy31416]

This was an "adult" activity that I used to do called "hashing," an old British running/drinking thing. I thought I might adapt it to kids--you make a trail in the woods using flour (think Hansel/Gretel), and you write messages with it at crossroads that you come to, they could be hints of any sort, motivating the kid to find the right path (some come to dead ends), the "right" trail could lead to a little picnic basket with a snack/lemonade. So you rest there, then hit the trail again...you could label different plants, whatever.

Not that different from what you're doing already, but could easily be played with other kids too.

I do lots of cooking, and that's easy to turn educational. She loves it and we use the magnetic refrigerator letters to spell out what we're making--seems to help with her patience too.

It's so cold out right now that I feel pretty limited to books, letters and cooking. I hate the cold.

[specsaregood]

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[amy31416]

My mom used to teach at an innercity school, a few times a year she would some simple baking with the kids (make the ingredients, she'd take it home and bake it, then bring it to school the next day). She used it as a math lesson for fractions and skills such as measuring. Many of the kids had never done anything like it their entire life and many told her it was the favorite thing they ever did at school.


Meh, we played Frisbee in the snow yesterday and the kid learned for the first time how its fun to pee in the snow and turn it yellow.

Boys. Sigh.

I have Raynaud's syndrome (really skinny veins in the hands/feet,) so I feel like I'm on the verge of frostbite within about 10 minutes. It effing sucks. Not that I'd be teaching my daughter similar things even without the problem.....

[Suzanimal]

We play a game every time we go anywhere (really we play it all the time) called "Catch it!" - you have to say it with a real thick southern accent. It started with my idiot brother who just can't leave critters alone - if he sees something he tries to catch it, the dumbass has been bitten by black widows, snakes, a possum - you name it, it's bitten him. Anyway, he was at our house one day for a BBQ (drunk of course) and my son came up to me and said they found a weird frog (it was bright red). So my idiot brother is yellin' at him to go "catch it" and I'm like, um no lets take a look at it and figure out what it is...and a game was born.

Here's how it works, every time we go anywhere (doesn't matter what time of year) we're on the lookout for some kind of strange critter, we try to get a picture of it and when we get home we look it up and find out what it is - if it's in our yard and I know it's harmless, I let them "catch it". We've been doing this for years and have composition books full of interesting information on all kinds of critters we've found in the strangest places (my son found a weevil infestation in the flour at the grocery store ). Whoever finds the critter gets to do the page and each page includes a photo or drawing, where we found it, it's classification and general information about the critter (habitat, what it eats, is it venomous or poisonous, etc). The books are pretty funny, they love to show people the photos - especially the armadillo road kill one (we have lots of road kill pics but the armadillo is the grossest). Just a warning, people think you're crazy when they they see you taking pics of road kill.

We also have a plant book called "pick it" but it's not as fun as "catch it'.

[specsaregood]

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