Everyone has heard stories of children enjoying playtime with items that are not technically toys. Banging on pots and pans, cubby houses made with old sheets, etc. Well, what about learning with objects that are not what you'd find in your standard classroom? Cheaper - check; fun - check; a learning experience - check; what more could we want? :)
Last year I was trying to figure out a maths lesson for Sunshine where she could kind of work on her own. I wanted to set her up with instructions and then let her go with it while I got onto household chores. A year or so before, she was given a Barbie computer thing. It is a toy, with a keyboard and basic monochrome-dot-matrix styled screen. It had a few games on it - 'educational' typed things that Sunshine didn't often use because it was a bit hard for her. I realised though that there were a few games that she could do so I went through them and wrote a list of the games numbers she could do. A variety of memory, sequence, pattern and basic one digit maths sums. Then every Friday for a month or so, Sunshine sat down and went through the list I had made doing the exercises, ticking off as she accomplished each task. She loved it - she loved the variety of learning from something other than the normal book we had been working on, and I think she liked having a pixel-y Barbie speaking encouragement to her as she worked through. Ticking the items off would have given her a sense of achievement also - I always loved ticking things off lists as a child (pretending to be the teacher!). So this is an example of a toy we had around the house, that didn't really get used for it's potential and utilising it to create a memorable learning experience. What do you have around your house that could be used for learning?
A quick word on manipulatives...
I want to encourage you to think of all kinds of unusual items around the house or garden or park or coffee shop (where ever you are) to use as educational aids. In the picture above, Sunshine used cherry tomatoes for her addition work, but you can use anything. I read an article where a homeschooling Mum would reach for anything she could such as oranges to roll to her child while counting. If you are in a coffee shop - use sugar sachets or plastic spoons. Basically, think outside the box of what is available to a child in a standard school room and use it. Enhance the learning experience and teach your child resourcefulness and creative learning at the same time.
