Remember when you would get a sticker or a stamp on your paper in school? Motivating, right? Well, there's NO REASON you can't spice up your lessons at home with lots of fun little treasures from the local dollar store. Here are a few of my favorite cheap treasures to add to my lessons in co-op classes, our Community Homeschool Center classes, and yes, back when my own children were growing, they loved them too!
Wander the aisles with us at our local Dollar General and see how educational the kitchen aisle can be!
Each of these lovely educational investments cost you $2 or less! (Buy this entire list for $8 plus tax!)
1) Stickers and Stamps! - from little gold stars to scratch and sniff and even those smiley face stamps, these small little bits of sparkle and personalization can REALLY motivate some kiddos! We offer our progress posters FREE for download, and as an add on in your SiSi Set, only $1! You should GRAB ONE, and let them check it, stamp it, or sticker it! Super fun for ANY school subject or goal reaching journey.
2) Magnetic or any sort of small notebooks - those great grocery list making pages are SUPER fun for your children too! Let them doodle a picture of their newest Spanish word, keep it up on the refrigerator (or whiteboard or chalkboard, if you're that kind of homeschool family) and let them enjoy just having it up and about, until they're ready to tear off the page and do a new one!
3) Chip Clips! - If your notebook doesn't have a magnet, or your fridge isn't the type that hold magnets, never fear! Use a clothespin, butterfly clamp, chip clip, or even a paperclip to get your notebooks and flash cards UP UP and AWAY! When you look UP, your brain responds differently to the world around you, and yes, you think differently, and process differently. This is why, many times you can formulate an idea or thought in your head, but when you look UP, the thought LEAVES you. So. Practice looking UP while learning, so that when you need to ACCESS that information, you've already practiced it!
4) Small Bouncy Balls - Ok... disclaimer... These can cause a lot of chaos, if not managed well, but it you have a decently good space, and kids who like to have controlled excitement, here are the steps:
- hold up a flash cards (photo side!) or an item they know how to say in Spanish.
- bounce a ball to the circle.
- whoever catches it makes a sentence in Spanish!
- Hold up another item, and let the last person bounce the ball to someone new.
It's that easy. You can start with "Me gusta" or "No me gusta," describe the item, or talk about whether or not you'd buy it. The possibilities are endless.
A variation of the bouncing would be to roll the ball on the ground, if the bouncing gets to out of hand. If there are only two people in the home, this still works - you hold on to the ball until you come up with a sentence, and bounce it anyway, back to your learning partner to signify their turn - turn-taking with a physical indicator and a fun twist!
5) Colorful Sponges - This is a FANTASTIC way to amp up the series method. You can state ANY sentence that has ANY noun in it. Toss a sponge to the student, and they simply repeat the sentence, adding in the color, after the noun.
¡El libro es excelente!
El libro azul es excelente.
Simple as that!
6) Fly Swatters! - We cut our down a bit, so they would fit the flash cards perfectly. We use these in Spanish class, at home, on the sidewalk, outside. They bring a real air of excitement and energy to the simple game of hearing a word and identifying it on the table. We call them SMACKIT RACKETS and they are the best. You can use the See it and Say it flashcards, or ANY item - photo side up! One student calls it out, and the other two (hopefully) have their own nice clean fly swatter that's JUST for Spanish class.
Stay tuned for our next trip down the dollar store aisles to get more ideas for simple, low cost fun additions to your homeschool lessons in ANY subject!
Want to watch? Here is the actual shopping footage on our Youtube Channel!