It’s almost February and it may be cold outside, but that’s no excuse to be bored. Use your imagination, and your child’s too!
Staying in the house doesn’t mean the kids have to hunker down with video games and TV. Bring the hands-on learning indoors and enjoy creative play.
Many card and board games support language arts, math, science, and even social studies. It’s not even necessary to purchase these. Many times, you can easily make a handmade rendition and it can be tailored specifically to whatever theme you’d like. Don’t forget pretend play. There is so much value there. Arts and crafts and music – these are also important for learning development and can play a huge role in driving a lesson to mastery. Another fun activity that children of all ages can participate in is to ask your children to make up a short play or song to perform (help them choose an appropriate theme).
Try creating a project that encompasses all the core subjects. You can spend a day, week or month on this depending on how deep you choose to dive. A story can be written (Language Arts), then bound and illustrated or decorated (art), then read aloud or even performed for others (Language Arts, Drama). If the story has been written around a theme that includes counting or numbers (Math) or animals or any nature or science (Science), and if the story took place in some location (Social Studies) then you can see how you can extend this activity for more fun learning by practicing and possibly researching the all of the subject matter. Older children can extend a subject very deeply especially if they are interested in it.
You may want to bring in” props” to extend the learning even more. For instance, the story that was written was about cows. Consider adding a few toy plastic cows into your play environment to count and pretend with, pictures of various types of cows printed from the internet for color sheets and maybe visit your local library and locate additional books (some pretend and others factual) about cows. You may want to extend to include some information and props about all farm animals.
Field trips are fun ways to drive home a subject. Ask your children to help in the planning. Ask them what they hope to see and do when they arrive. Ask them to prepare a list of things that should be taken on the trip. Will a picnic lunch be needed? Let them plan the menu. Can they calculate how long will it take to get there? How many miles will the trip be round trip? How many gallons of fuel will be needed?
There are lots of fun “cow trips” – Take a trip to the local dairy. Do you live near a ranch or farm or a cheese farm? Play dress up – create cow costumes and/or visit the Chick-fil-A cow! Don’t forget to eat a cheeseburger and ice cream and discuss where these come from. Ask your children to draw pictures or take pictures with a camera of the sites you see. These can be used for additional language arts activities later.
Here’s another fun thing – Ask your children to brainstorm their favorite foods that come from cows. Then prepare a menu for a day. Write the menu and decorate it. Ask them to look up the recipes and inventory what ingredients and how much will need to be purchased. If too many items are needed, then they migh t have to make new sections. Once the ingredients are secured, ask them to then prepare their “cow favorites”. There is a lot of Language Arts, Math, Science and problem solving going on here.
There is also a lot of value discussing how and where cows live and in what parts of the country are they predominantly located in. There are cows that live on farms and sleep in barns and there are “free range” cows. Both go to slaughter. How do their lives differ? If you have older children, they may want to research and write a paper about the differences and compare the perceived health benefits of farm raised and free range. They may also want to explore what products are made from cows – the beef, the milk, the skin, and hooves and so on. Which state has the most cattle farms?
Nothing will warm your family up quicker than playing, planning, and exploring subjects together. If you are not into cows, then consider some of these other themes for February learning or make up your own:
Valentine’s Day Fun
Presidents’ Day
American History Month
Black History Month
American Heart Month
National Children’s Dental Health Month
National Snack Food Month
International Friendship Month
National Cherry Month
National Embroidery Month
National Grapefruit Month
National Wild Bird Feeding Month
Responsible Pet Owners’ Month
Whatever you do this February, have fun, keep warm and make memories!
