30 Days of Playing

I participated in a challenge years ago to play with my kids every day in the month of June. Since I just shared that my Word of the Year for 2019 is play, I knew that revisiting this challenge would be perfect! 

I explained that even though my kids are with me all the time, I don't always participate in their playtime. Even with our experiments and activities, I'm always right there snapping pictures and relishing in their joy, but I don't always join in on the fun myself.

This year I'm working to change that!

I've been making quality playtime with my kids a priority this year, but the month of June I'm making it a daily fundamental.   

I'm challenging myself to dedicate time daily to playing with them. Not just watching them. Not just being near them. Not just taking pictures to remember the excitement. I pledge to actively participate in the fun!

Last time. the challenge was to play for 30 minutes a day for 30 days. I'm not focused so much on the length each day, as hitting that half-hour mark is easy to do. I certainly don't want to be distracted by keeping tabs on the countdown. And, honestly, kids will notice that dedication to daily playing even if it is just 15 minutes. 

So, what do you say? Do you want to join me in this challenge of playing with your kids? You don't have to be a slave to their favorite toy day after day. Take the initiative and ask them to play with you! Teach them a game from your childhood or learn a new one together.

Let's make June an opportunity to invest quality times of fun with our kids!

  

60+ STEM Challenges

 

Our family thrives on hands-on learning! Whenever we get the chance to review materials that get us physically working to learn gets us excited. You can often find a random experiment jar on the counter or a project on a table or a child or two working to complete a fun challenge. I am a firm believer that people learn better when they do and try to incorporate that philosophy into the upbringing of my children.

When we're not actively learning though, we focus on literature. We spend a large portion of our school day reading. I've explained many times that our education is literature-based with an emphasis on hands-on learning. So combining the two means of learning like Tied 2 Teaching has done with their STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading seems pretty perfect to me. 

Matthew Kelly, founder of Tied 2 Teaching, has been teaching in the classroom for years. He has created over one thousand materials to be used with students PreK-8th grade, ranging from language arts to character development to geography and more. His passion for math and science education inspired this collection of seasonal STEM Activities. He and his wife also homeschool their 4 little ones.

Are you familiar with STEM? It's all about science, technology, engineering, and math. Focusing on these topics encourages problem-solving and innovation, aids in the application of knowledge, and fosters a love of learning. This STEM Activities bundle comes as individual downloads that can be divided by month to keep kids active and learning all year long. The exercises are seasonally matched and include extra fun "holidays" like a droid challenge in May to celebrate "May the 4th" for the Star Wars fans, a pencil tower challenge in September to celebrate "back to school," and a hat for cat challenge in March to celebrate both Dr. Seuss' birthday and National Reading Month.

For example, here is what you can find for Easter and Earth Day in the month of April:

• Jelly Bean Tower 
• Design a Carrot Carriage
• Design Something Useful
• Upcycled Birdhouse

Each challenge begins with an online close reading text (short, high-interest reading passage). The reading can be accessed through a QR code, a link in the download, directly on the site (which also contains ideas for additional activities and links on the subject), or a printed copy. There are a handful of questions to help students better grasp the materials and get them to think. Questions about definitions and synonyms are straightforward, but others asking "Why do you think . . ." and "What sentence in the text supports your answer" can vary greatly. 

Next, the student is introduced to the challenge. There is criteria, material suggestions, the final product requirements, and pictures examples from Matthew's own students. 

It's always good to have a plan. Before the student gets to creating, he can write out his ideas. There are a few different page format options that give space to write, draw, and solve. What do you already know about (insert challenge)? What will it look like? Explain its design. What is one way you could make it even better? Of course, there is also a space to draw a sketch. 

Next is the fun part--completing the challenge! This can take as little as 30 seconds (like the Eiffel Tower challenge) or as long as you have the time, patience, and interest for. With homeschooling, we have the flexibility to work as long as we like. Some challenges took 10-15 minutes, while others lasted an hour or so. As long as there is interest, we keep working. Obviously, things that are painted or glued will take a longer time from beginning to end to complete. 

After the challenge itself is completed, there are follow-up pages. The student is asked to list the steps he took to meet the challenge, explain why or why not his design was successful, describe which parts went well, and so on. There is also a page for him to recognize how each aspect of STEM was included in the challenge. Each question is meant to strengthen thinking skills.  

Just as I suspected, my kids love these challenges! We complete at least one challenge a week together as a family, but use them as one-on-one time when a child is needing something extra to do, too. The challenges are geared toward grades 3-6. I have kids both older and younger than the recommended ages. My little ones need some extra help and my middle schooler is a bit advanced for some of the activities, but overall, this is a great resource that can be adapted for all ages. 

I have been reading the close text aloud and discussing the material with the kids. I love times like this as it always encourages further study, like looking up ticket prices for going up into the Eiffel Tower or researching shipwrecks and their locations. The information in the download is both a great starting point for a full study and a great stand-alone product. I love that each challenge can also supplement additional studies, like last month when we were learning about spiders and included the spider challenge from here.

My kids love the open-ended challenges, as they get to show their creativity. It's so fun to watch their minds work and how each one is different. We have been discussing the questions and thinking activities aloud together, but I can see how students could benefit from writing out their answers.

I love how their personalities shine through in their designs, too. For instance, during the Design a Treasure Chest challenge, my 9-year-old said, "I'm going to make one really, really, really big. Because what I want to put in it is you!" And then, because he couldn't keep me in a box, he made one to hold a picture of me from high school that he keeps framed next to his bed.

We haven't worked through all of the challenges, but we have found a mistake. The close reading in the Construct the Eiffel Tower directs to the reading for the Design a Zip Line. However, it is easy to search for Eiffel Tower on the site and the correct reading comes up. It is the same as Design a Building Block Structure, but the close reading questions are different for the two challenges.

We are greatly enjoying these STEM Activities, Full Year of Challenges with Close Reading. I appreciate the variety of activities that are included and love the addition of the close reading texts. This resource perfectly sums up our schooling style. I can't wait to see what other fun things we'll do throughout the year.

You can connect with Tied 2 Teaching on the following social media sites:
Facebook
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You can find various other STEM challenges included in the download by reading more reviews on the Homeschool Review Crew blog.

30 for 30 Challenge: Days 8-30

It's hard to believe another week 2 3 weeks have already passed. We're continuing with our challenge of playing 30 minutes with our kids each day in the 30 days of June. (You can see what we played the first week here.) Here's what we played the past 7 14  21 days.

And that's as far as I got with the post. I started it at then end of the second week, but never finished. Then on week 3, I updated the time frame by crossing off the incorrect numbers, but still didn't write up the post. Can you tell I had good intentions of completing it???? Here I am 3 days passed the end of the challenge and I'm just now finishing recording what we played. Oh well, I guess the important thing is that we did play. Here's the short version.

Day 8: hide and seek 

Day 9: outside

Day 10: church

Day 11: created our own stories

Day 12: Legos

Day 13: Trios

Day 14: outside

Day 15: Battleship

Day 16: Polly Pockets

Day 17: church

Day 18: painting

Day 19: Geotrax

Day 20: playdough

Day 21: puzzles

Day 22: Legos

Day 23: tea party

Day 24: church

Day 25: cars

Day 26: outside

Day 27: Legos

Day 28: Toydle fort 

Day 29: Wii games

Day 30: LeapPad games


We definitely had a lot of fun this past month. I'm thankful that playing was a priority. Life gets so busy. It's nice to just slow down every now and then and take time to fully enjoy it. My kids are always happy when I set aside my chores to play.


Did you join the challenge? What are some things you played?

30 for 30 Challenge: Days 1-7

The first week of the 30 for 30 challenge has ended. How did you do? Did you play with your kids? I made sure it was a priority this week to play the games and with the toys that my kids chose.

Day 1 - Since it was Jake's half-birthday, I spent a lot of time playing with just him for many hours. We played with LEGOs and LEGO Batman on the Wii. It was a special day with just the two of us.

Day 2 - We had a lot of fun racing pinewood derby cars at church.  At home, we played a few rounds of Jake's new favorite game on the iPad, Battleship.

Day 3 - Sunday's are always very busy. We leave for Church at 9:15 am and don't get home until 1:00 pm. We leave again at 4:00 pm for choir practice and the evening service. We usually get home 8:00-8:30 pm. This week though, we had a graduation service and a fellowship afterwards. We didn't get home until after 10:00 pm. Needless to say, we didn't get in any playing with the kids.

Day 4 - We made up for our lack of playing together on Sunday with over an hour on Monday - more Battleship, more LEGOs, Memory, and Polly Pocket people.

Day 5 - Zac loves cars and trains. We drove them around and made them zoom down his Wheelies track.

Day 6 - If you follow us on our Facebook page, you'll remember that we had a lot of fun being pirates. We transformed our couch into a ship and sailed the open sea in search of buried treasure. We battled enemy pirates, loaded the cannons, saw sea monsters, and found the treasure!

Day 7 - We spent a lot of time creating with Buckyballs. It was interesting to see what things the kids could make with them. We also played outside.

I've really been enjoying this time with my children. I also realized that when I made playtime a priority, we often got caught up in the playing and 30 minutes were gone in a flash. We spent well over the half hour time on many days.

What did you play?

30 for 30

{written by Erika}

I read about this challenge a couple days ago and knew I wanted to join. The plan is to spend 30 minutes every day in the month of June playing with your kids. Oh sure, I spend lots of time every day with my kids between schooling, crafting, cooking, experimenting, reading, talking. My kids are with me constantly. I call them my little ducklings since they follow me from room to room around the house. If I'm not careful though, I fall into the rut of not actually playing with them. I'm in their presence while they're playing, but I'm not partaking in the fun. I'm taking pictures, but I'm not actively involved. I try to justify it because of all that time that I'm with them each day.

You see, it's not that I don't want to play. It's just that I always feel pulled in so many directions. On top of the schooling and raising of the children, I have a household to care for. I have a newborn who requires much attention. There's laundry and cooking and dishes and cleaning - for 6 people. I really need to teach my kids (and hubby!) to clean up after themselves more. Trying to do all the work for a family of 6 with 4 kids ages 6 years and younger keeps me constantly busy. Sure, I could try to ignore the clutter. I could cook from a box or freezer bag. I could buy our cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and various other things instead of making my own. But I'd be unhappy. Instead, I try to juggle it all.

If I'm feeling overwhelmed by all that needs to be done and notice that I'm not taking the time to play, I'll implement the timer. I'll sit and play LEGOs or cars or babies with the kids for 10 minutes. When the timer beeps, I'll clean or wash dishes or fold laundry for 10 minutes. Then, I go back to playing and so on. It helps me get chores accomplished without neglecting the fun with my children.

This challenge will help me be more aware of the quality of time spent with my precious gifts from God. For the month of June, I vow to play!