My Great Homeschooling Ideas - Part One

Posted on June 6, 2007
Filed Under Your Family, Home Schooling, FREEBIES |

I am going to share with you some of My Great Homeschooling Ideas. (Keep reading for the FREEBIE!)

Todays idea is very simple but can be very effective!

Its using the idea of playing cards and turning the concept into one that is fun and educational.

My boys LOVE Australian V8 Supercars. Did I say my boys LOVE it? Well that is an understatement - they REALLY REALLY LOVE them. So I thought that I would turn their passion and love of V8 Supercars into a set of cards (sort of like Baseball cards, I guess - not that I have seen what a Baseball card looks like!).

I found some pictures of the cars and the drivers on the internet along with information of the cars and drivers. I then measured a normal card from a pack of playing cards and created an Excel spreadsheet. I cut and pasted the pictures and information into Excel. I had the driver picture and information on one card and the car and car details on another.

I then printed them out onto normal A4 photocopy paper using colour ink. Then I laminated them and cut them out. They look fantastic.

The boys have worn them out! - They started out by playing a sort of matching game with them - matching the cars with the drivers - this was great for my begining reader!. My ‘maths’ minded boy started working out how old the drivers were from the date of birth information on them. They learned geography from the information about place of birth and where they are living now.

My boys are into making lists - the V8 Supercars Cards that I made, gave them great content for their lists. I keep finding paper everywhere with the names of the drivers and cars that they have written out - guess what that is - COPYWORK!!! yep that is copywork.

An amazing side effect is how they have learned about sponsorship and advertising - every car is signwritten with the sponsors name and slogan. There has been many a discussion on advertising and sponsorship. WOW - just from making a set of plain cards!

I have included them here as a pdf file so you can see what I am talking about. Click here for -v8 supercar 2007 cards

Now this idea has huge potential - you just need to spend some time thinking about the interests and hobbies of your children and see how you can incorporate it into a set of cards.

What about a set of cards about - animals? countries? sports people? flags? solar sysyem? cars?

The ideas are limitless.

Share your ideas with us - use the comments

Rachel Larkin