Next time you’re attending a Mommy get together consider organizing a quiet bag swap. Quiet bags are small activities kept (in a bag) to one side to entertain your kids when needed. We take our bags to restaurants and other places deemed boring by my children. The best thing about quiet bags is that generally the kids don’t know what is inside them. So if you had a swap new ideas (from other Mom’s) would come your way. All you need to do is agree to make say 10 all the same and then swap them with ones the other Mom’s have made.
Have you read?
Viking Unit Study
I love the idea of unit studies, which can be done at school, in a homeschool environment or just for fun at home as a way to learn about something specific your kids might be into (or maybe that you are interested in and want them to know more about).
Simply Learning Together put together a homeschool unit study on the Vikings, which sounds like a lot of fun, first off, but it also walks you through the process of how she develops a unit study for her kids so you can do it, too.
It’s a pretty simple process that involves going to the library, reading and researching yourself, then developing some activities and lessons based on what you have learned.
This unit study for the Vikings, for example, shares the books she read and how she planned out the activities. In the post you’ll find a link to a printable map they used, and she talks about different activities they did including baking bread, having a super cute Viking lunch (a sandwich with banana horns to make it look like a Viking helmet!), working with runes, having a snack in “Viking horns” (waffle cones) as well as music, language arts and notebook activities they did.
You could definitely build off these ideas using the books available in your local public library or through doing your own research to find more information and activities your kids might be interested in depending on their age. You could throw in some Viking mythology, for example (I love Norse Mythology for Smart People as a source). Add some STEM with this how to build a Viking ship activity from Tina’s Dynamic Homeschool Plus, or make a Viking shield out of cardboard with this idea from This Crafty Family. There are tons of great ideas out there once you start looking!
[Photo: Simply Learning Together]
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