dmackey

No, not a teacher, just an old gal who did daycare for her three nephews for 10 years, and had a great time doing it. In order to keep the little hellions busy, I had to find things to 'challenge' them, so they could feel smart or accomplished.

My favorite thing that I did with them was to get them drum lessons online. They were banging away aimlessly and driving me crazy...so I found an online site to teach them the drums and they each did a lesson a day. By the end of the week, we had bonafide musicians with a sense of rhythm!!

What I find they enjoyed the most was something that either gave them knowledge or allowed them to show their knowledge. It often started with a simple question or to look at something in nature and wonder how it got there. For every tree, bush or plant, they had to find out where the seed was, watch ice melt on the driveway, the water dissappear, and the clouds form.

One day the two youngest were touching something in the grass, and it turned out to be two baby bunnies. Must have been their first day out of the inground nest because they had no fear of the boys. So we had to find and discover other babies, like bird eggs, polywogs, etc, that could be nearby. We hit it lucky when mama turkey came by with 6 babies the same month.

Another great thing is to use Google Earth. They start with the earth, zone in on their country, then state, then town (taught them to follow the river), then neighborhood, then the house. When their parents were visiting someone in Florida, we looked up the address on Google Earth and saw the neighbor had a boat and a tall lattice fence, so the boys told their mom that and she was amazed they would know that, but didn't know about our Google Earth adventure. The kids had a great giggle over that "secret agent" episode.

I should have been a teacher. I love helping kids learn new things.

Diane