School Supplies, Continued: Desired but Not-Needed Items
Hey loves!
Continuing our chat on school supplies. Here, I discussed what was “needed”. Today we are talking desired things. Please know, I reigned this in as much as possible because, I mean, honestly, this could go on forever.
Last year, I slowly purchased items for a literacy bin (video here) and we got so busy, I didn’t use it to capacity. I’m definitely changing that this year as we won’t be busy. (Thanks for that, Mr. Rona.) when you watch the video you’ll see lots of the items I got from the Dollar Tree and Walmart. The goal? Make learning fun! Sitting, reciting, scribing can be useful but I say, if it can be fun, let’s do it that way.
Play-doh, fidgets, letters, illustration, dictation, stamp math equations, stamp spelling… the list can go on for a while. I say that to say play-doh, with a few accessories, can really round-out a lesson. It can also be a great transitional activity. I frequently leave out play doh in a tray and let them go to town.
Podcast and songs: Most of these are free with streaming services but I bet you aren’t taking full advantage of them with kids podcasts and learning songs. These are lifesavers for us. They introduce and reinforce lessons. We use them for just about every subject. I found one for Spanish lessons for kids. This may take some training for your kids to listen but the results are epic! My children now request them by name.
Learning Games: I know, more fun. You would think I was a “cool mom” or something. This really depends on your child’s development and your budget. I will say this, with inexpensive games like Uno and Connect 4, you can work on about 8 different skills in one game do you are definitely getting your monies worth.
Digital Learning Games- I know, screens! How dare I? Here’s the thing, this can be as much or as little as you want or you can scroll right past it. We occasionally use various learning apps. Our favorites are ABC mouse and Khan Academy Kids. My kids can go weeks without using them actually. I understand and totally get there are some families anti-any screens. That is not us. We are very vigilant with what we allow our kids to consume and the time they use it. We also believe training on this can never start too young. We are training them on how to take care of these devices and how to use them. We are also teaching them what is appropriate, problem-solving, etc.
Skill-set tools: I will be sharing more of this in another blog post but you have to meet your children where they are. My two have varying needs from emotional to transitional, to spacial to attention to fine motor so, we have various aids to assist.
Essential oil diffuser: I’m an oily girl with an oily family and diffusers make our minds and bodies happy!
Wireless music player: This is definitely straddling the “desired” and “over the top” line. We use ours very regularly for music, podcasts, timers and to ask questions of course because I don’t know everything.
Folders binders, clips, page protectors: I prep as much as I can for a smoother year so the office supplies helps me keep all that prep organized. I personally feel that the more prepared you are the more successful you’ll be.
Pens and Stationery: I’m sure these are things you always ready have but I wanted to share how I use them in our homeschool. To start, I use erasable pens in my planners and the pen color denotes a person or event. Yes, my planner is color-coded. For example, in my homeschool planner, my sons each have color and the thing we do together are in another color. A great notepad and some post-it are my go-to note-taking and list-making.
That’s all I can think of… that’s not true. I don’t want this post to get too long so I’ll wrap it up. Stay tuned for all things “sensory-friendly” for homeschooling.
Love you. Mean it.
