Funschooling Winter Round-Up || Bringing Fun to Our Homeschool

I have written several posts about funschooling and our beating the winter blahs. If you search the Timberdoodle tag on the side of screen, you should find most of them. That is because Timberdoodle is hands-down the most helpful resource I have found to easily and quickly add in some variety and fun to our days. In this post, I plan to share the new goodies we are using during the 2020-21 school year. I will also include a bullet point list at the end of the article with some past favorites that will pop up from time to time in the remainder of our school year.

First up, my kids favorite buy from Timberdoodle this year – Lion in the Way game. This is a super fun ice breaker, Fun Friday treat or just a rainy Saturday game time fave. If your crew likes to make up silly stories, I can’t think of a better game for you to pick up. As a mom, I love the problem-solving creativity it brings out in my kids. And like everything that I’ve purchased from Timberdoodle, this game has high-quality cards that are durable and brightly-colored. I’m glad it is so sturdy because I can see us playing this for years to come.

Next on our list is the 100 Things to Know About the Human Body book. We love starting our daily science lessons with a quick fun fact, that usually brings out the giggles or the “Ew, that’s gross, Mom!” Both are great ways to get them energized for the lesson to come. Each fact is number and fits on one page, so it is a super quick daily read. It doesn’t add any appreciable time to our routine and brings so much value in the engagement factor. This book reminds me that sometimes you add things in not because you need the content, but just because you enjoy it.

Also new to us this winter is the card series Guess in 10 from Skillmatics. This is another addition to our science morning basket and my kids are really excited to have it. There are cards for geography, history and other science topics, as well.

Any “Winter Blahs” list has to include some sort of squishy, messy fun right? I mean, we’re supposed to let our kiddos be creative and not mind the mess. Well, I guess that’s technically true, but I’ve found a way to beat the system, lol. I picked up Mad Mattr Builder Pack for my K’er and what a relief – no mess! It isn’t sticky like other kinetic sand/slime options. It cleans up so easily and doesn’t stain my counters or tables. That means I can just give it to me daughter and not have to carefully supervise her play. She loves that creative independence. I’m glad to find out it doesn’t dry out easily, either….because you know how easily distracted a five year old can get. (She often forgets to put it away and I find it later.) This is a great busy activity for her if I need some focused time with my older student.

The next funschooling find we are using this year is the Tenzi dice and card games. I have actually done a separate blog review of this product so I’ll just let you know this is in our winter fun lineup.

For those moments we are feeling artistic, I picked up the Djeco Lush Nature scratch art kit. This will be another addition to our morning basket science lessons. My son can work on this while I’m reading our science book during our animal unit study. Again, not necessary content-wise, but a small bit of variety like this pays big dividends for overall comprehension and cooperation.

Finally, I have come to just trust Timberdoodle when we are feeling “stuck” in a certain academic area. They just seem to provide resources to help us get “unstuck.” So, I’m taking their suggestion and trying out Editor-in-Chief, Beginning 2 for some remedial work in punctuation, capitalization and the like. My fourth grader seems to enjoy the proofreading method of practice, so hopefully this gets us back on track and helps things click for him.

That wraps up the new goodies that we purchased for the 2020-21 year. However, there are quite a few other fun finds that we previously ordered and have already enjoyed this school year. These are some classic faves that will serve you well for years to come:

• Rory’s Story Cubes (these have been replaced by ImagiDice on Timberdoodle’s website)
• Multiplication Wrap Ups
• World Scrunch Map
• Indescribable Bible devotion book
• Kwik Stix
• Mobi Max tiles
• Extreme Dot to Dot books (several available)

Did I give you any fun ideas? I sure hope so! I’m here to help and encourage you so please drop a comment down below if you are feeling in a rut this winter. I’d love to help you beat those blues and bring joy and progress back into your homeschool.