One of the most wonderful things about homeschooling your children is that you can make the world your classroom and give them real hands-on experiences. The hands-on approach to learning has long been known to really make the learning experience a more impressive one.
When a parent turns the real world into the child's classroom instead of strictly relying on books and writing to learn various subjects they need to find real hands-on experiences to really drive the lessons home.
Many times if a parent starts the new lesson off with a field trip or an activity it will raise the interest level of the child who is then more likely to move onto further learning in the subject area through books and writing.
One of the best tricks I learned as a homeschool parent looking for hands-on experiences for my children was to get out the local phone book. Just because a business does not advertise giving tours does not mean they don't. Most times they have never been approached and asked to do so. Pick up the phone and tell them about your homeschooling. Most businesses are more than happy to participate in anything that furthers the education of children.
The hands-on approach to teaching and learning is limited only by your imagination as the parent. Many times parents will let their children do the leading and start the school year off by asking them to make a list of any field trips they would want to take or things that they would like to learn about in each subject area. The unit study approach to learning goes along with hands-on approaches quite well.
Here are some great ideas to get you started :
SCIENCE : following recipes and cooking with children is not only fun but also educational. Books with science experiments can be found at your local library. Interview a chemist. Visit farms, glass factories, food processing plants,
MATH : Use lots of games and hands-on manipulative's. Math is used in cooking also.
GEOGRAPHY : Tour the USA right from your home. Place a large map of the USA on a wall then use the Internet to find people to send you postcards from their state. You can use this same approach with a map of the world. Do you have a stationary bicycle? How about pedaling across America from your home or pedal the Appalachian trail.
HISTORY : Grandparents are wonderful to tape an interview with concerning historical events that happened during their life.Your local Veterans organization is more than happy to share with your children about various wars
Language Arts : Don't just have your children read books, have them write the authors and see how many will actually write back.Let your child be an author and publish their book. You can find places that do this through the Internet.
ART : Identify famous artists and their paintings through postcards that you can order through art museums. Purchase a clear plastic table cloth for your dining room table and place the postcards underneath. You'll be pleasantly surprised to see just how quick children learn not only the names of artists but how to identify their various forms of painting when the postcards are readily accessible. Now that you have a clear table cloth think of other things you can place underneath and learn from like flashcards or how about displaying your child's best art work or writing?